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+Project Gutenberg's The Brontë Family, Vol. 2 of 2, by Francis A. Leyland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Brontë Family, Vol. 2 of 2
+       with special reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë
+
+Author: Francis A. Leyland
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2011 [EBook #37844]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRONTË FAMILY, VOL. 2 OF 2 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by StevenGibbs and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BRONTË FAMILY
+
+WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
+
+PATRICK BRANWELL BRONTË
+
+
+VOL. II.
+
+
+BY
+
+FRANCIS A. LEYLAND.
+
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+VOL. II.
+
+
+LONDON:
+HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
+13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
+1886.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+OF
+
+THE SECOND VOLUME.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Sojourn in Brussels Resolved upon--Why Charlotte fixed on
+Brussels for Higher Education--Charlotte and Emily take up
+their Residence with Madame Héger--A Picture of the Prospect
+in 'Villette'--At the Pensionnat--Madame Héger--Monsieur
+Héger--Charlotte likes Brussels--Her Contrast between the
+Belgians and the English--Death of Miss Branwell--Return to
+Haworth                                                             1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Branwell at the Parsonage: his Loneliness--'The Epicurean's
+Song'--'Song'--Northangerland--'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's
+Grave'--Letter to Mr. Grundy--Miss Branwell's Death--Her Will--Her
+Nephew Remembered--Injustice done to Him in this Matter by the
+Biographers of his Sisters                                         20
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Christmas, 1842--Branwell is Cheerful--Charlotte goes to Brussels
+for another Year--Branwell receives Appointment as Tutor--Branwell
+visits Halifax, and meets Mr. Grundy there--Charlotte's Mental
+Depression in Brussels--Mrs. Gaskell attributes it to Branwell's
+Conduct--Proofs that it was Not so--Charlotte's 'Disappointment'
+at Brussels--She returns to Haworth--Branwell's Misplaced
+Attachment--He is sent away to New Scenes                          33
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Branwell after his Disappointment--Parallel for his State of Mind
+in that of Lady Byron--Mrs. Gaskell's Misconceptions--True State of
+the Case--Charlotte Illustrates it in her Poem of 'Preference'--
+She alludes to Branwell's Condition in 'The Professor'--Mrs.
+Gaskell Compelled to Omit her Account in the Later Editions of
+her Work--Branwell's Prostration and Ill-health at the Time        53
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Review of Branwell's past Experiences of Life--He seeks Relief
+in Literary Occupation--He Proposes to Write a Three-volume
+Novel--His Letter on the Subject--One Volume Completed--His
+Capability of Writing a Novel--His Letter to Mr. Grundy on his
+Disappointment                                                     78
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+'Real Rest'--Comments--Spirit of Branwell and Emily Identical--
+Letter to Leyland--Branwell Broods on his Sorrows--'Penmaenmawr'
+--Comments--He still Searches and Hopes for Employment--Charlotte's
+somewhat Overdrawn Expressions--The Alleged Elopement Proposal--
+Probable Origin of the Story                                       94
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The Sisters as Writers of Poetry--They Decide to Publish--Each
+begins a Novel--The Spirit under which the Work was Undertaken--
+'The Professor'--'Agnes Grey'--'Wuthering Heights'--Branwell's
+Condition--A Touching Incident--'Epistle from a Father to a Child
+in her Grave'--Letter with Sonnet--Publication of the Sisters'
+Poems                                                             113
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Death of Branwell's late Employer--Branwell's Disappointment--His
+Letters--His Delusion--Leyland's Medallion of Him--Mr. Brontë's
+Blindness--Branwell's Statement to Mr. Grundy in Reference to
+'Wuthering Heights'--The Sisters Relinquish the Intention of
+Opening a School                                                  138
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Branwell's Sardonic Humour--Mr. Grundy's Visit to him at
+Haworth--Errors regarding the Period of it--Tragic Description
+--Probable Ruse of Branwell--Correspondence between him and
+Mr. Grundy ceases--Writes to Leyland--A Plaintive Verse--
+Another Letter                                                    160
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+'Wuthering Heights'--Reception of the Book by the Public--It
+is Misunderstood--Its Authorship--Mr. Dearden's Account--
+Statements of Mr. Edward Sloane and Mr. Grundy--Remarks by Mr.
+T. Wemyss Reid--Correspondences between 'Wuthering Heights'
+and Branwell's Letters--The 'Carving-knife Episode'--Further
+Correspondences--Resemblances of Thought in Branwell and
+Emily                                                             178
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in
+consequence of her Brother's Conduct--Supposition of Some that
+Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon--The Characters are
+Entirely Distinct--Real Sources of the Story--Anne Brontë at
+Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of
+Branwell                                                           216
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Novel-writing--The Sisters' Method of Work--Branwell's Failing
+Health and Irregularities--'Jane Eyre'--Its Reception and
+Character--It was not Influenced by Branwell--Letter and Sketches
+of Branwell, 1848                                                 229
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Branwell's Poetical Work--Sketch of the Materials which he
+intended to use in the Poem of 'Morley Hall'--The Poem--The
+Subject left Incomplete--Branwell's Poem, 'The End of All'--His
+Letter to Leyland asking an Opinion on his Poem, 'Percy Hall'
+--Observations--The Poem                                          242
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Charlotte Corresponds on Literary Subjects--Novels--Confession
+of Authorship--Branwell's Failing Health--He Writes to Leyland
+--Branwell and Mr. George Searle Phillips--Branwell's Intellect
+Retains its Power--His Description of 'Professor Leonidas
+Lyon'--The latter Gentleman's Account of his Reading of 'Jane
+Eyre'--Branwell's Remarks on Charlotte and the Work               264
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Branwell's failing Health--Chronic Bronchitis and Marasmus--His
+Death--Charlotte's allusions to it--Correction of some Statements
+relating to it--Summary of the subsequent History of the Brontë
+Family                                                            277
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Branwell's Character in his Poetry--The Pious and Tender Tone
+of Mind which it Displays--Branwell's Tendency to Dwell on the
+Past rather than on the Future--Illustrated--The Sad Tone of his
+Mind--He is Inclined to be Morbid--The Way in which Branwell
+regarded Nature--Observations on the Character Displayed in
+his Works                                                         287
+
+
+
+
+THE BRONTË FAMILY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHARLOTTE AND EMILY IN BRUSSELS.
+
+The Sojourn in Brussels Resolved upon--Why Charlotte fixed on
+Brussels for Higher Education--Charlotte and Emily take up their
+Residence with Madame Héger--A Picture of the Prospect in 'Villette'
+--At the Pensionnat--Madame Héger--Monsieur Héger--Charlotte likes
+Brussels--Her Contrast between the Belgians and the English--Death
+of Miss Branwell--Return to Haworth.
+
+
+It was more than a month before Charlotte received the reply from her
+Aunt Branwell. Meanwhile she had waited patiently, pending the anxious
+discussions at the parsonage, and she breathed not a single word of
+the great project to her friend. It was her way to work in obscurity,
+and to let her efforts 'be known by their results.' But at last, as I
+have said, consent was given to her plan; the necessary money was
+forthcoming; and it only remained for her to make the arrangements for
+her journey, and Emily had arrangements to make also. There was much
+of letter-writing to do, letters to Brussels--whither Charlotte would
+of all cities prefer to go,--and to many other places; and there were
+clothes to make, and farewells to be said.
+
+It was a great disappointment to Charlotte,--when, having left her
+situation at Christmas, 1841, she came to Haworth to join the family
+circle,--that Branwell could not be there, and it troubled him very
+much too. But the plans were talked over, the letters were written,
+and Charlotte did not repent her boldness,--nay, she looked forward
+confidently to the venture. It seems a strange ambitious plan to us,
+and one showing little knowledge of the world, this of spending six
+months in Brussels, in that short time to become thoroughly acquainted
+with French, to be improved in Italian, and get a dash of German; and,
+so provided with accomplishments, to set up a successful school at
+Burlington,--for the Dewsbury Moor project had already been
+relinquished.
+
+Brussels was fixed upon by Charlotte for several reasons: because it
+was a cheap journey, because education could be had there at any rate
+as good as at any other place in Europe, and perhaps better; and then,
+Mary and Martha T----, her friends, were staying at Brussels at the
+Château de Kokleberg, and Mary, with Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the
+English chaplain, would find the desired _pensionnat_. But there
+was a temporary disappointment: it was reported that the schools in
+Brussels were not good; and Charlotte immediately set to work to
+discover another establishment, which was found at Lille--one that
+Baptist Noel recommended, where the terms were £50 for each pupil. It
+had been at last arranged that Charlotte and Emily should journey to
+this place, about the middle of February, 1842, under the escort of
+Madame Marzials, a lady then in London, when again the plans were
+changed. Mrs. Jenkins, the chaplain's wife, had discovered, to
+Charlotte's great delight, the establishment of Madame Héger in the
+Rue d'Isabelle, at Brussels, which was greatly eulogized, and thither
+it was finally decided that the two sisters could go.
+
+Charlotte went to Brussels with a stout heart and in perfect
+confidence, and she left no regrets behind her; but it was not so
+with Emily. The elder sister was cast in a different mould from the
+younger; there was a spice of adventure in her composition, and the
+pleasure, too, of seeing new places was keen. It had been said to her
+by some inward voice, as to Lucy Snowe, who is the truest portrait
+of Charlotte, 'Leave this wilderness, and go out hence;' and she
+answered the query, 'Where?' with a sharp determination; and went out
+to enter into the spirit of the things she met, wherever her mental
+constitution would enable her to do so. 'For background,' she says
+of her journey in 'Villette,' 'spread a sky, solemn and dark blue,
+and--grand with imperial promise, with tints of enchantment--strode
+from north to south a God-bent bow, an arch of hope:' but that was to
+be struck out. 'Cancel that, reader--or rather let it stand, and draw
+thence a moral--an alliterative, text-hand copy:
+
+    '"Day-dreams are delusions of the demon."'
+
+So was Charlotte to be disillusioned. But what a fairyland had she
+fashioned to herself of that gay Belgian capital, and what painful
+memories she brought thence! For, according to Mr. Wemyss Reid,--and
+doubtless he is right--her stay in Brussels with Emily, and afterwards
+alone, was the turning-point in Charlotte's career, and the record of
+it in 'Villette' was wrung from her as her heart's blood, amid
+paroxysms of positive anguish. But of these things she knew nothing in
+the January of 1842; then the future slept in sunny calm, so sunny,
+indeed, that to part from Haworth, and those she knew there, her
+father and her brother and sister, gave her scarcely a pang; and
+afterwards, so far as one can trace, from her letters, and from
+'Villette,' which expresses even more, the troubles of the parsonage
+were never acute troubles to her. Her joys and troubles abroad were in
+fact her own, and they were borne and suffered alone.
+
+But, with Emily, Haworth was no wilderness, a paradise rather, and
+with bitter pain she left the moors that the coming summer should
+cover with purple billows. For Emily Brontë was inspired far more than
+her sister with the influences of locality and of her home. Amidst the
+distant Yorkshire hills dwelt, too, her father, with Branwell and
+Anne, whom she loved more than all else in the world; and many an
+hour, sitting in the bare rooms of the _pensionnat_, she pondered
+on their hopes and their sorrows. We cannot say that Emily's sojourn
+in Brussels changed her in any way whatever, nor that she was made by
+it of any nearer kinship with the outside world.
+
+Mr. Brontë accompanied his daughters, and Mary and her brother, who
+travelled with them to Brussels. They stayed a day or two in London,
+at the Chapter coffee-house in Paternoster Row, and a good deal of
+sight-seeing was done before they left for the Belgian capital. In
+'Villette' Charlotte has told us of her first visit to London, and of
+the travelling to Labassecour, but the actual details refer more
+probably to her second journey thither. Yet we may feel sure that it
+was with the same spirit that she saw the metropolis, that she
+revelled in its busy life and in the earnestness that moved it. We may
+imagine her on the dome of St. Paul's looking over the river with its
+bridges, and, alongside it, the Temple Gardens, and Westminster
+beyond; and we may see her in the classic ground of Paternoster Row.
+Emily has left no record of her feelings on this journey, but we may
+be sure they differed very much from Charlotte's. We have an account
+in 'The Professor' of William Crimsworth's feelings when he entered
+Belgium, and they were doubtless Charlotte's also. 'This is Belgium,
+reader. Look! don't call the picture flat or a dull one--it was
+neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I left Ostend
+on a fine February morning, and found myself on the road to Brussels,
+nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment possessed an
+edge whetted to the finest; untouched, keen, exquisite.... Liberty I
+clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of her smile
+and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind.'
+
+It was proposed at the time that the two sisters should remain in the
+_pensionnat_ until the _grandes vacances_ in September, when they were
+to return home. They were in Brussels then to work, and the boisterous
+schoolgirls found no companions in them, for they remained together
+for a long time, and read and studied apart. These two sisters did not
+easily make friends; they were shy, and their companions thought them
+peculiar--Charlotte, clad in her plain, home-made dress, and Emily,
+with her gigot sleeves and long, straight skirts, walking in the
+garden together. Mrs. Jenkins told Mrs. Gaskell that she asked them to
+spend Sundays and holidays with her, but at last she found that even
+these visits gave them more pain than pleasure, and thenceforth they
+remained away. This reserve never passed from Emily entirely, but
+Charlotte afterwards gained confidence and made friends.
+
+There were memories, as Mrs. Gaskell records, connected with Madame
+Héger's house in the Rue d'Isabelle, of mediæval chivalry and romance,
+which are doubtless reflected in the visits of the nun to the
+_grenier_ and the old garden where Lucy Snowe is. From the gay, bright
+Rue Royale four flights of steps lead down to the Rue d'Isabelle, and
+the chimneys of its houses are level with one's feet as one stands at
+the top of them. The quiet street was called the Fossé aux Chiens in
+the thirteenth century, because the ducal kennels were there, on the
+site of Madame Héger's house; but these gave place later to a hospital
+for the homeless and the poor. Afterwards the Arbalétriers du Grand
+Serment had their place there, and noble company visited them, and
+great ceremonials and feasts they gave. Later again the street was
+called the Rue d'Isabelle, because the Infanta Isabella induced the
+Arbalétriers to allow a road to be made through their grounds, and
+built them in return a noble mansion close by, which was afterwards
+Madame Héger's.
+
+William Crimsworth saw the establishment. 'I remember, before entering
+the park, I stood awhile to contemplate the statue of General
+Belliard, and then I advanced to the top of the great staircase just
+beyond, and I looked down into a narrow back street, which I
+afterwards learnt was called the Rue d'Isabelle. I well recollect that
+my eye rested on the green door of a rather large house opposite,
+where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, "Pensionnat de Demoiselles."'
+
+Madame Héger, the mistress of this _pensionnat_, was a woman of
+capacity, and understood the duties of her position, but apparently
+Charlotte did not get on very well with her, and in the second year of
+the residence in Brussels they were estranged. It was said that the
+_directrice_ had 'quelque chose de froid et de compassé dans son
+maintien,' which did not prepossess people in her favour; and
+Charlotte, it appears, had little tolerance of her beliefs or her
+prejudices. Monsieur Héger, unlike his wife, was of a quick and
+energetic nature, choleric and irritable in temperament, but withal
+gentle and benevolent also. It was said that there were few characters
+so noble and admirable as his, that he was a zealous member of the
+Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and that, after days occupied in
+arduous educational work, he was wont to gather the poor together in
+order that he might amuse and instruct them at the same time. He gave
+up his lucrative position, too, as prefect of the studies at the
+Athenée because he could not succeed in introducing religious
+instruction into the curriculum there. Very many traits of Monsieur
+Héger's character are reproduced in that of Paul Emanuel.
+
+The school was a large and prosperous one, conducted as continental
+schools usually are, and Charlotte, in a short time, was happy in the
+busy life she led there. She has left an admirable picture, a
+veritable photograph, of the establishment in the pages of 'Villette,'
+which indeed contains her mental history during her sojourn there. The
+training through which she and Emily were put was different from that
+of the other pupils. Monsieur Héger was quick to perceive that they
+were capable of greater things than most people, so he took the bold
+step of putting them to the higher walks of French literature,
+omitting the general work of grammar and vocabulary; and his
+experiment was justified by its success.
+
+Charlotte and Emily, with one other girl and the _governante_ of
+Madame Héger's children, were the only exceptions to the Catholicism
+of the house, and the Brontës found that this difference cut them off
+in sympathy from the rest of the inhabitants. 'We are completely
+isolated in the midst of numbers,' says Charlotte; but she adds, 'I
+think I am never unhappy; my present life is so delightful, so
+congenial to my own nature, compared with that of a governess. My
+time, constantly occupied, passes too rapidly.' We do not find that
+news from home gave her trouble, nor that she was particularly uneasy
+in her absence. 'I don't deny,' she says later, 'that I have brief
+attacks of home-sickness; but, on the whole, I have borne a very
+valiant heart so far; and I have been happy in Brussels, because I
+have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like.'
+
+Charlotte's happiness at this time was in herself. She lived in bright
+anticipation of the time when it should be possible to the sisters to
+open a school, which was to be the reward of their arduous studies,
+and of that love for work and that perseverance of which Monsieur
+Héger spoke in his letter to Mr. Brontë, written when Charlotte and
+Emily were called to Haworth. Lucy Snowe in 'Villette' tells of such
+hopes; of the tenement which she shall take, with its one large room
+and two or three smaller ones; of the few benches and desks, the black
+tableau, and the _estrade_, with its chair, tables, chalks, and
+sponge, where she shall teach the day-scholars. 'Madame Beck's
+commencement was--as I have often heard her say--from no higher
+starting-point, and where is she now?' This was the hope which Lucy
+Snowe repeated to Monsieur Paul, and it pleased him, though he called
+it 'an Alnaschar dream.' But it was the salt of Charlotte's life
+during the first months of her residence in Brussels.
+
+Brussels was liked by Charlotte, and she calls it a beautiful city;
+and she liked the country about it, though it differed so much from
+her own hilly Haworth. But she did not like its inhabitants; the
+Belgians were to her people of a lower order; she could not enter into
+their pleasures, and she did not understand them. Charlotte, with her
+restricted views of life, came into the midst of strangers; she found
+them different from her ideal, and she was repulsed by them. The two
+books in which she has recorded her impressions of the Belgians are
+occupied with a frequent contrast of 'the daughter of Albion and
+nursling of Protestantism' with 'the foster-child of Rome, the
+protegée of Jesuitry,' always to the disadvantage of the latter.
+Mesdemoiselles Eulalie, Hortense, and Caroline in 'The Professor,'
+and Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angélique in 'Villette,'
+are Charlotte's types of the Belgian female--heavy, stolid,
+unimpressionable to good, sensual, gross, and unintellectual. The
+Labasse-couriennes were 'a swinish multitude,' not to be driven by
+force; 'whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions, they brought
+it out with a careless ease and breadth, altogether untroubled by
+any rebuke of conscience;' and they were cold, animal, and selfish.
+Nevertheless, occupied in her duties, Charlotte was happy, even with
+these companions. We have no actual means of knowing what Emily
+thought of them, for her life amongst them was never reproduced in
+her writings, and it made but little permanent impression upon her.
+Charlotte said that her sister worked 'like a horse,' and that she
+did not get on well with Monsieur Héger.
+
+The two sisters had now friends in Brussels, for they sometimes saw
+Mary and Martha T---- who were staying there at the Château de
+Kokleberg, and these young ladies had cousins in the city, whose house
+was often a pleasant meeting-place. But Emily made little progress
+with these friendships.
+
+The _grandes vacances_ began in September, but Charlotte and Emily did
+not return home then as had been intended; all was well at Haworth,
+and there was no reason why they should. Madame Héger made a proposal
+that they should remain six months more, Charlotte as English teacher,
+and Emily to instruct some pupils in music; and they were to continue
+their studies and have board without payment, but they were offered no
+salary. These terms were at last accepted, and the sisters remained
+through the long _vacances_ with a few boarders who were also there,
+and Charlotte, at least, was happy.
+
+But a year later, when the rooms of the _pensionnat_ were once
+more deserted, and Emily far away in the parsonage at Haworth, there
+can be no doubt that she became again subject to that melancholia
+which had previously been remarked in her when she was at Miss
+Wooler's. The excitement of her first sojourn at Brussels wore off,
+she found no novelty in the things she saw, and she was left to
+solitary reflection a great deal. But her melancholy began with
+herself. 'My youth is leaving me,' she said to Mary; 'I can never do
+better than I have done, and I have done nothing yet,' and she seemed
+at such times, according to this friend, 'to think that most human
+beings were destined by the pressure of worldly interests to lose one
+faculty and feeling after another, till they went dead altogether. I
+hope I shall be put in my grave as soon as I'm dead; I don't want to
+walk about so,' she added. Mary advised her to go home or elsewhere,
+when she was in this state, for the sake of change, and Charlotte
+thanked her for the advice, but did not take it.
+
+'That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not,' says Lucy
+Snowe.... 'My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained
+its cords. How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless!
+How vast and void seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the
+forsaken garden,--grey now with the dust of a town summer departed!'
+To Lucy Snowe the future gave no promise of comfort; and a sorrowful
+indifference to existence often pressed upon her,--a 'despairing
+resignation to reach betimes the end of all things earthly.' She found
+the future but a hopeless desert: 'tawny sands, with no green fields,
+no palm-tree, no well in view.' And these were the thoughts, too, that
+oppressed Charlotte Brontë in Brussels and sorely weighed her down. It
+was in one of these fits of depression, overcome with melancholy, that
+she found consolation in the confessional, when she poured her tale of
+solitary sorrow into the ear of a priest--a Père Silas, like him in
+'Villette,' who spoke of peace and hope to Lucy Snowe.
+
+Troubles of another kind had, however, broken in sadly enough on the
+close of Charlotte's first _vacances_ in Brussels in 1842, when
+she and Emily were greatly shocked by the death of Martha T---- at the
+Château de Kokleberg, after a very short illness. This was a great
+grief to the little circle in Brussels, for the dead girl had been a
+bright and affectionate companion,--bewailed under the name of Jessie
+in 'Shirley,'--and she was deeply lamented. But another grief awaited
+the Brontë sisters; they heard that their aunt Branwell was ill,--was
+dead; they were wanted at home; and at once, after very hasty
+preparation, they left Brussels, Emily not to return. They came back
+to the parsonage at Haworth, to find the funeral over, and the house
+deprived of one who had been its support and guardian for years.
+
+Thus their stay in Brussels was suddenly cut short, and their studies
+were interrupted; but they had learned a good deal during their stay
+there. Monsieur Héger wrote to console Mr. Brontë on his loss; and
+said that in another year the two girls would have been secured
+against the eventualities of the future. They were being instructed,
+and, at the same time, were acquiring the art of instruction: Emily
+was learning the piano, and receiving lessons from the best Belgian
+professors; and she had little pupils herself. 'Elle perdait donc à la
+fois un reste d'ignorance et un reste plus gênant encore de timidité.'
+Charlotte was beginning to give French lessons, and to gain 'cette
+assurance, cet aplomb si nécessaire dans l'enseignement.' It was this
+kind letter from Monsieur Héger that afterwards induced Mr. Brontë to
+allow Charlotte to return to Brussels.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+OTHER POEMS.
+
+Branwell at the Parsonage: his Loneliness--'The Epicurean's
+Song'--'Song'--Northangerland--'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's
+Grave'--Letter to Mr. Grundy--Miss Branwell's Death--Her Will--Her
+Nephew Remembered--Injustice done to Him in this Matter by the
+Biographers of his Sisters.
+
+
+During the absence of his sisters Charlotte and Emily in Brussels, and
+while Anne was away as a governess, Branwell no doubt felt lonely at
+the parsonage at Haworth; but he appears to have sought consolation
+from his troubles in the soothing influences of music and poetry. He
+knew that these employments softened many of the difficulties that
+beset the road of human life, and that they introduced men into a
+purer and nobler sphere than that which is called reality. He felt
+that they led 'the spirit on, in an ecstasy of admiration, of sweet
+sorrow, or of unearthly joy, to the music of harmonious, and not
+wholly intelligible words, raising in the mind beauteous and
+transcendent images.' Whatever may have been said as to Branwell's
+proneness to self-indulgence, and his enjoyment of society, even that
+of 'The Bull,' and of the corrupt of Haworth, none of his alleged
+depravity and coarseness of disposition disfigured his verses, however
+deficient his early effusions may have been in the higher excellencies
+of the Muse. From the general tenor of his writings, which is
+religious and sometimes philosophical, he seems, under his
+misfortunes, which were ever with him in one shape or another, to have
+sought consolation in the shadowed paths of poetry and reflection.
+
+Some lights now and then diversify the general gloom of his stanzas;
+but, even then, an air of sadness still pervades them. More I shall
+find to say on the special features of Branwell's poems in the later
+pages of the present work.
+
+He wrote the following verses in 1842:
+
+    THE EPICUREAN'S SONG.
+
+    'The visits of Sorrow
+      Say, why should we mourn?
+    Since the sun of to-morrow
+      May shine on its urn;
+        And all that we think such pain
+        Will have departed,--then
+    Bear for a moment what cannot return;
+
+    'For past time has taken
+      Each hour that it gave,
+    And they never awaken
+      From yesterday's grave;
+        So surely we may defy
+        Shadows, like memory,
+    Feeble and fleeting as midsummer wave.
+
+    'From the depths where they're falling
+      Nor pleasure, nor pain,
+    Despite our recalling,
+      Can reach us again;
+        Though we brood over them,
+        Nought can recover them,
+    Where they are laid, they must ever remain.
+
+    'So seize we the present,
+      And gather its flowers,
+    For,--mournful or pleasant,--
+      'Tis all that is ours;
+        While daylight we're wasting,
+        The evening is hasting,
+    And night follows fast on vanishing hours.
+
+    'Yes,--and we, when night comes,
+      Whatever betide,
+    Must die as our fate dooms,
+      And sleep by their side;
+        For _change_ is the only thing
+        Always continuing;
+    And it sweeps creation away with its tide.'
+
+Here Branwell, writing, contrary to his custom, in a gay mood, forgets
+the failures of the past, diverting his mind from them by seeking
+serenity in the diversions which now and then lighten his path. He is
+perfectly conscious of the fleeting nature of earthly things; and,
+with that natural and felicitous faculty of versification with which
+his images and figures are invariably described, he invests the
+Epicurean with the hopes of the Optimist, or with the indifference of
+the Stoic to the shadows which ever and anon dim the pleasures of
+human existence. There is nothing assuredly in this lyric of the
+'pulpit twang,' to which Miss Robinson refers, nor is it a 'weak and
+characterless effusion.'
+
+To the year 1842 belongs the following song which in feeling reminds
+one of Burns' 'Auld Lang Syne.' The subject, however, is distinct, and
+is pervaded by a profound sentiment of enduring affection, and is
+expressive of the deepest feeling in reference to it.
+
+    SONG.
+
+    'Should life's first feelings be forgot,
+      As Time leaves years behind?
+    Should man's for ever changing lot
+      Work changes in the mind?
+
+    'Should space, that severs heart from heart,
+      The heart's best thoughts destroy?
+    Should years, that bid our youth depart,
+      Bid youthful memories die?
+
+    'Oh! say not that these coming years
+      Will warmer friendships bring;
+    For friendship's joys, and hopes, and fears,
+      From deeper fountains spring.
+
+    'Its feelings to the _heart_ belong;
+      Its sign--the glistening eye,
+    While new affections on the _tongue_,
+      Arise and live and die.
+
+    'So, passing crowds may _smiles_ awake
+      The passing hour to cheer;
+    But only old acquaintance' sake
+      Can ever form a tear.'
+
+Leyland was himself a poet, as I have said, and a literary critic of
+ability and judgment. Branwell submitted some poems to him for
+opinion, and he advised his friend to publish them with his name
+appended, rather than under the pseudonym of 'Northangerland,' for he
+considered them creditable to his genius. But Branwell, on July 12th,
+1842, writing to Leyland, asking some technical questions, says, in a
+postscript, 'Northangerland has so long wrought on in secret and
+silence that he dare not take your kind encouragement in the light
+which _vanity_ would prompt him to do.'
+
+On August 10th, 1842, he wrote to Leyland in reference to a monument,
+which that sculptor had recently put up at Haworth, and he concluded
+by saying:
+
+'When you see Mr. Constable--to whom I shall write directly,--be
+kind enough to tell him that--owing to my absence from home when it
+arrived, and to the carelessness of those who neglected to give it me
+on my return,--I have only _now_ received his note. Its injunctions
+shall be gladly attended to; but he would better please me by
+refraining from any slurs on the fair fame of Charles Freeman or
+Benjamin Caunt, Esquires.'
+
+Branwell did not lose his early interest in the 'noble science,' but
+continued it with a half-serious constancy. Constable and Leyland
+regarded the pugilistic encounters of the 'Ring' as brutal and
+degrading, but Branwell always professed to defend its champions with
+energy and zeal; and in this letter he playfully alludes to two of
+them. Among his literary labours of the year 1842 is the following
+poem. It is entitled:
+
+    NOAH'S WARNING OVER METHUSALEH'S GRAVE.
+
+    'Brothers and men! one moment stay
+      Beside your latest patriarch's grave,
+    While God's just vengeance yet delay,
+      While God's blest mercy yet can save.
+
+    'Will you compel my tongue to say,
+      That underneath this nameless sod
+    Your hands, with mine, have laid to-day
+      The _last_ on earth who walked with God?
+
+    'Shall the pale corpse, whose hoary hairs
+      Are just surrendered to decay,
+    Dissolve the chain which bound our years
+      To hundred ages passed away?
+
+    'Shall six-score years of warnings dread
+      Die like a whisper on the wind?
+    Shall the dark doom above your head,
+      Its blinded victims darker find?
+
+    'Shall storms from heaven _without_ the world,
+      Find wilder storms from hell _within_?
+    Shall long-stored, late-come wrath be hurled;
+      Or,--will you, can you turn from sin?
+
+    'Have patience, if too plain I speak,
+      For time, my sons, is hastening by;
+    Forgive me if my accents break:
+      Shall _I_ be saved and _Nature_ die?
+
+    'Forgive that pause:--one look to Heaven
+      Too plainly tells me, he is gone,
+    Who long with me in vain had striven
+      For earth and for its peace alone.
+
+    'He's gone!--my Father--full of days,--
+      From life which left no joy for him;
+    Born in creation's earliest blaze;
+      Dying--himself, its latest beam.
+
+    'But he is gone! and, oh, behold,
+      Shown in his death, God's latest sign!
+    Than which more plainly never told
+      An Angel's presence His design.
+
+    'By it, the evening beams withdrawn
+      Before a starless night descend;
+    By it, the last blest spirit born
+      From this beginning of an end;
+
+    'By all the strife of civil war
+      That beams within yon fated town;
+    By all the heart's worst passions there,
+      That call so loud for vengeance down;
+
+    'By that vast wall of cloudy gloom,
+      Piled boding round the firmament;
+    By all its presages of doom,
+      Children of men--Repent! Repent!'
+
+This poem has also the impress of sadness, but the onward sweep and
+dignity of its verse are not ruffled by the turbulent undercurrents of
+Branwell's mood. The idea of the piece is well borne out in majestic
+and suitable language, though some instances of that incoherence and
+indefiniteness which, at intervals, distinguish the earlier poems of
+his sisters, may be noticed in it.
+
+In the latter part of the year 1842 the state of Miss Branwell's
+health became a cause of anxiety to the Brontë family. Acquainted as
+they had been, in years gone by, with sickness and death, they
+sorrowed, in anticipation of the inevitable loss of the lady, who had
+been for long years as a mother to them. Under the shadow which spread
+over their home, Branwell wrote to his friend--Mr. Grundy--referring
+to it, saying that he was attending the death-bed of his aunt who had
+been for twenty years as his mother. In another letter to Mr. Grundy,
+of the 29th of October, Branwell thus alludes in affectionate terms to
+her death:
+
+'I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two nights witnessing
+such agonizing suffering as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure;
+and I have now lost the pride and director of all the happy days
+connected with my childhood. I have suffered such sorrow since I last
+saw you at Haworth, that I should not now care if I were fighting in
+India or ----, since, when the mind is depressed, danger is the most
+effectual cure. But you don't like croaking, I know well, only I
+request you to understand from my two notes that I have not forgotten
+_you_, but _myself_.'[1]
+
+        [1] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 83.
+
+Charlotte and Emily hurried home from Brussels on the death of their
+aunt, as is stated in the last chapter, to find her already interred.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell, alluding to the death of Miss Branwell, has given the
+following version of that lady's will. She says:
+
+'The small property which she (Miss Branwell) had accumulated, by dint
+of personal frugality and self-denial, was bequeathed to her nieces.
+Branwell, her darling, was to have had his share; but his reckless
+expenditure had distressed the good old lady, and his name was omitted
+in her will.'[2]
+
+        [2] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xi.
+
+Miss Robinson, implicitly, and without reflection, following this
+author, says:
+
+'Miss Branwell's will had to be made known. The little property that
+she had saved out of her frugal income was all left to her three
+nieces. Branwell had been her darling, the only son, called by her
+name; but his disgrace had wounded her too deeply. He was not even
+mentioned in her will.'[3]
+
+        [3] 'Emily Brontë,' p. 102.
+
+Miss Elizabeth Branwell had made her will in the year 1833 (when her
+nephew was about fifteen years of age), by which she left the
+following items to the children of Mr. Brontë:--
+
+    To Charlotte, an Indian Workbox.
+
+    To Emily Jane, a Workbox with China top, and an Ivory Fan.
+
+    To Branwell, a Japanese Dressing-case.
+
+    To Anne, her Watch, Eye Glass, and Chain.
+
+Amongst these three nieces, her rings, silver spoons, books, clothes,
+&c., were to be divided as their father should think proper. Her
+money, arising from various sources, she left in trust for the benefit
+of her nieces, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, and Elizabeth Jane,
+the daughter of her sister, Jane Kingston, to be equally divided among
+them, when the youngest should have attained the age of twenty-one
+years. But, if these died, all was to go to her niece, Anne Kingston,
+and if she died, the accumulated money was to be divided between the
+children of her 'dear brother and sisters.' Had Branwell, who was one
+of these 'children,' survived his own sisters, and the cousin referred
+to in the will, he would have been one, if not the sole, recipient of
+the accumulated money in question. This contingency was present to
+Miss Branwell's mind when she made the bequest, and it was never
+either altered or revoked.
+
+It is amazing that so much ignorance should have been displayed on a
+subject so easily capable of being correctly stated; but it is
+lamentable that this ignorance should have led the biographers of the
+Brontës, by erroneous statements, to inflict additional and unmerited
+injury on Branwell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A MISPLACED ATTACHMENT.
+
+Christmas, 1842--Branwell is Cheerful--Charlotte goes to Brussels for
+another Year--Branwell receives Appointment as Tutor--Branwell visits
+Halifax, and meets Mr. Grundy there--Charlotte's Mental Depression in
+Brussels--Mrs. Gaskell attributes it to Branwell's Conduct--Proofs
+that it was Not so--Charlotte's 'Disappointment' at Brussels--She
+returns to Haworth--Branwell's Misplaced Attachment--He is sent away
+to New Scenes.
+
+
+The death of Miss Branwell had brought Charlotte and Emily home from
+Brussels; and Anne, from her situation, was present on the sad
+occasion. When the Christmas holidays came round, the sisters were all
+at home again. Branwell was with them; which was always a pleasure at
+that time, and Charlotte's friend, 'E,' came to see her. Having
+overcome the first pang of grief on the death of their aunt, they
+enjoyed their Christmas very much together. Branwell was cheerful and
+even merry; and in Charlotte's next letter, written in a happy mood
+to her friend, who had just left them, he sent a playful message.
+'Branwell wants to know,' says Charlotte, 'why you carefully excluded
+all mention of him, when you particularly send your regards to every
+other member of the family. He desires to know in what he has offended
+you? Or whether it is considered improper for a young lady to mention
+the gentlemen of a house?'[4] While they were together, plans for
+the future were talked over with eagerness and hope. Charlotte had
+accepted the proposal of Monsieur Héger that she should return to
+Brussels for another year, when she would have completed her knowledge
+of French and be fully qualified to commence a school on a footing
+which was yet impossible. Emily was to remain at home now to attend to
+her father's house, and Anne was to return to her situation as
+governess.
+
+        [4] 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Brontë,' _Hours at
+        Home_, chap. xi., p. 204.
+
+Branwell also found occupation as tutor in the same family where Anne
+had been for some time employed. He commenced his duties, in his new
+position, after the Christmas holidays of the year 1842. On his
+arrival at the house of his employer, he was introduced to the members
+of the family; and it is not too much to say that his new friends were
+more than satisfied with his graceful manners, his wit, and the extent
+of his information. Here Branwell felt himself happy; for, contrary to
+his expectation, he had found, to his mind, a pleasant pasture, with
+comparative ease, where he had only looked for the usual drudgery of a
+tutor's work. His family were contented that he was thus respectably
+and hopefully employed. The gentleman, who had engaged Branwell as
+tutor to his son, was a man of some literary attainments; he was fond
+of rural sports, and had an urbane disposition, and quick perceptions.
+His wife was a lady of lofty bearing, of graceful manners, and kindly
+condescension; and, although approaching middle age at the time, was
+possessed of great personal attractions.
+
+If the Brontës were glad at Branwell's appointment, the family he had
+entered were equally gratified that they had obtained a teacher whose
+talents they considered to be equalled only by his virtues. The time
+of his master, who was a clergyman, was often taken up with the duties
+and engagements of his position, and his lady was generally occupied
+with the cares of home and the enjoyments of fashionable country life.
+Branwell was not, therefore, too much harassed in the discharge of his
+duties; and he found, in the family in which he was placed, none of
+the rigid formality which might have rendered his position irksome.
+His occupation was varied by many rambles in the neighbourhood with
+his pupil; and, in the evening, after the duties of the day were
+discharged, when he retired to the farmstead where he lived, his time
+was entirely at his own disposal.
+
+Unlike Anne, Branwell was not troubled with an excess of diffidence.
+Being naturally of an amiable and sociable disposition, he soon formed
+acquaintances in the neighbourhood of his sojourn, and among them was
+Dr. ----, physician to the family in which he was a tutor. Besides,
+being possessed of a fund of anecdote, combined with an entertaining
+manner of relating stories, that alone made him excellent company,
+Branwell was found to be a thorough musician, for he had further
+cultivated this taste and acquired considerable skill in performance.
+
+Six months soon passed away, and Branwell and Anne once more made the
+parsonage at Haworth happy with their presence. One of Branwell's
+first impulses, after his welcome at home, was to visit his friends at
+Halifax; where, on this occasion, he had the pleasure of meeting with
+Mr. Grundy. On the return of himself and his sister to their duties,
+there is no doubt that he continued the exertions he had made to
+conduct himself with such prudent diligence and self-possession as to
+ingratiate himself into the good favour of the family with whom he
+resided.
+
+Charlotte was in the Rue d'Isabelle as English teacher; where, having
+gained a familiarity with the French language, though growing
+home-sick and not well, she resolved to remain till the end of the
+year; and, if possible, to acquire a knowledge of German.
+
+It was at the beginning of August, as the _vacances_ approached,
+that Charlotte became dispirited. The prospect of five weeks of
+loneliness in a deserted house, in a foreign city, was more than she
+could bear: the last English friend was leaving Brussels: she would
+have no one to whom she could turn her thoughts. 'I forewarn you, I am
+in low spirits,' she writes,--'that earth and heaven are dreary and
+empty to me at this moment.' For the first time in her life she really
+dreaded the vacation; 'Alas,' she says, 'I can hardly write, I have
+such a dreary weight at my heart; and I do so wish to go home. Is not
+this childish?' Yet she was bravely resolved, despite her weakness, to
+bear up, to stay; but for Charlotte Brontë, as for Lucy Snowe, those
+September days were days of suffering. Once, a little later, her
+resolution failed her. She was alone, on some holiday; the other
+inmates had gone to visit their friends in the city; Charlotte had
+none there now. She was solitary, and felt herself neglected by Madame
+Héger; she could bear it no longer, so she went to madame herself and
+told her she could not stay; but Monsieur Héger, hearing of it, with
+characteristic vehemence, pronounced his decision that she should not
+leave, and she remained.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell describes her suffering from depression of mind, arising
+from ill-health, in her second year at Brussels, in gloomy terms, and
+this seems, indeed, to be the main point she is aiming to illustrate.
+She says: 'There were causes for distress and anxiety in the news from
+home, particularly as regarded Branwell. In the dead of the night,
+lying awake at the end of the long deserted dormitory, in the vast and
+silent house, every fear respecting those whom she loved, and who were
+so far off in another country, became a terrible reality, oppressing
+her and choking up the very life-blood in her heart. Those nights were
+times of sick, dreary, wakeful misery, precursors of many such in
+after years.'[5] Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, in his monograph on Charlotte,
+has very properly taken exception to the manner in which Mrs. Gaskell
+has laid stress upon and exaggerated the occasional depression from
+which Charlotte suffered; and, certainly, there is nothing to show, in
+any of her letters from Brussels, that there was cause for anxiety on
+Branwell's account. On the contrary, there is very good evidence that
+nothing of the kind interfered with his sister's peace. Charlotte left
+Brussels at the end of the year 1843, and arrived at Haworth on the
+2nd of January, 1844. Branwell and Anne were also at home for the
+Christmas holidays, and Charlotte wrote to her friend 'E' in these
+words: 'Anne and Branwell have just left us to return to ----; they
+are both wonderfully valued in their situations.'[6]
+
+        [5] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xii.
+
+        [6] 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Brontë,' _Hours at
+        Home_, xi.
+
+It was known, then, that Branwell had given satisfaction to his
+employers, and the happiness at this reunion of the family would have
+been complete had it not been for one circumstance. Charlotte's
+friends were now expecting that she would commence a school. She
+desired it, she says, above all things. She had sufficient money for
+the undertaking, and hoped she had some qualifications for success.
+Yet she could not then enter upon it. 'You will ask me, why?' she
+writes. 'It is on papa's account; he is now, as you know, getting old,
+and it grieves me to tell you that he is losing his sight. I have felt
+for some months that I ought not to be away from him; and I feel now
+it would be too selfish to leave him (at least so long as Branwell and
+Anne are absent) in order to pursue selfish interests of my own.' She
+appears, from an observation in one of her letters, written some time
+after the date at which we have arrived, to have regretted having gone
+to Brussels a second time. She says, 'I returned to Brussels after
+aunt's death against my conscience, prompted by what then seemed an
+irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish folly by a total
+withdrawal for more than two years of happiness and peace of mind.'[7]
+While Charlotte was still at Brussels she heard that some of her
+friends thought that the '_époux_ of Mademoiselle Brontë' must be
+on the Continent, since she had declined a situation of £50 a year in
+England, and accepted one at £16, and returned to Belgium. This she
+appears, in a letter to one of them, to deny; though, whether with the
+intention of piquing her friend, or avoiding the question, is not
+distinct. Mr. Reid believes that, in this second sojourn at Brussels,
+Charlotte Brontë passed through an experience of the heart which
+proved the turning-point of her life, and made her what she was; and
+that it was not the subsequent misfortunes of her brother, as Mrs.
+Gaskell asks us to believe, that destroyed the happiness of her
+existence.[8]
+
+        [7] 'Charlotte Brontë,' by T. Wemyss Reid, chap. vi.
+
+        [8] 'Charlotte Brontë, a Monograph.'
+
+In the middle of March, when the sisters had finished 'shirt-making
+for the absent Branwell,' Charlotte took a holiday to visit her
+friend, by which her health was improved. On her return she found Mr.
+Brontë and Emily well, and a letter from Branwell, intimating that he
+and Anne were pretty well, too.
+
+Branwell visited Halifax on the 4th of July of this year. His health
+at that time was not so good as formerly, and his sisters noticed that
+he was excitable. Till within two or three months of his leaving
+Luddenden Foot, when he had attained his twenty-fifth year, though not
+strong, he had enjoyed good health, his spirits having almost always
+been good. In his youth, unlike Charlotte, he had had no experience of
+severe mental depression, no deep suffering from religious melancholy.
+It was only when he turned to reflection that he became serious, and
+that his thoughts were shaded with the sadness evinced in some of his
+early poems. Now, however, his nerve-force was less certain; and,
+being more easily excited, that exuberance of spirit and that
+elasticity of mind which had distinguished him showed symptoms of
+decay. It was not to be expected that he should retain his more
+youthful characteristics through life: and Charlotte has told us,
+about this time, that something within herself, which used to be
+enthusiasm, was tamed down and broken; she longed for an active stake
+in life. As she was unable to leave home, she endeavoured to open a
+School at Haworth Parsonage. Could she have obtained the promise of
+pupils, she proposed to build a wing to the house; but, after meeting
+with more or less encouragement, she found that it was quite
+impossible to induce anyone by preference to send children to a place
+so much exposed to wind and weather. The sisters were not sorry they
+had tried; and, it has been unjustifiably suggested, did not regret
+too much, that they had failed, because they had fears and
+apprehensions respecting Branwell, and thought that the place that
+might be his abode could scarcely be fitted for the home of the
+children of strangers. Branwell and Anne were at home again for the
+Christmas of 1844, and they returned to their duties early in the
+following January. In the course of that month Charlotte writes,
+
+'Branwell has been quieter and less irritable, on the whole, than he
+was in the summer.'[9]
+
+        [9] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xiii.
+
+At this time there was no fear of his leaving his employment, and no
+fear that he would be dismissed from it; but a certain excitability
+and fitfulness of manner, a disposition to pass suddenly from gaiety
+to moody disquietude, which Anne had observed in her brother, had
+attracted, also, as has been seen, the serious attention of the other
+sisters, who were alarmed by it, and wondered greatly what the cause
+might be. And, indeed, a change had been coming over Branwell, for six
+months or more, a change which in the beginning had scarcely been
+understood by himself. A new feeling had impressed itself upon his
+heart that he had never experienced before, and against which he
+strove in vain. Branwell, in fact, who had never yet loved beyond the
+confines of his own home, had conceived an infatuated admiration for
+the wife of his employer, which afterwards, with his warm feelings,
+became a deep affection, and finally developed into a fierce and
+over-mastering passion. The lady who had dazzled and confused his
+understanding, as will presently appear, was unaware of the effect she
+had thus produced on the heart of the tutor, and he began to mistake
+her kindly, condescending manners for a return of his affection, an
+illusion which, as the sequel will show, he nursed to the very end of
+his life. Under this peculiar aberration of his mind, he cherished the
+hope that, as his employer was in feeble health, he might ere long be
+in a position to marry the widow, whom he believed to have already
+bestowed her affections upon him; when, being in easy circumstances,
+and possessed, as he termed it, of 'the priceless affluence of
+enduring peace,' he should be abler as he often declared, undisturbed
+by the usual perturbations of literary life, to make sure progress,
+and win for himself a name among the best authors of the day.
+
+But at this period of his life Branwell is not known to have written
+much verse, his mind being otherwise occupied. The two following
+beautiful sonnets, however, are from his pen, dated May, 1845, and
+are, together, entitled:
+
+    THE EMIGRANT.
+
+    'When sink from sight the landmarks of our home,
+      And,--all the bitterness of farewells o'er,--
+    We yield our spirit unto ocean's foam,
+      And in the new-born life which lies before,
+      On far Columbian or Australian shore,
+    Strive to exchange time past for time to come:
+      How melancholy, then, if morn restore--
+    (Less welcome than the night's forgetful gloom)
+      Old England's blue hills to our sight again,
+    When we, our thoughts seemed weaning from her sky,--
+      That _pang_ which wakes the almost silenced pain!
+    Thus, when the sick man lies, resigned to die,
+      A well-loved voice, a well-remembered strain,
+    Lets Time break harshly in upon Eternity.
+
+    When, after his long day, consumed in toil,
+      'Neath the scarce welcome shade of unknown trees,
+    Upturning thanklessly a foreign soil,
+      The lonely exile seeks his evening ease,--
+      'Tis not those tropic woods his spirit sees;
+    Nor calms, to him, that heaven, this world's turmoil;
+      Nor cools his burning brow that spicy breeze.
+    Ah no! the gusty clouds of England's isle
+      Bring music wafted on their stormy wind,
+    And on its verdant meads, night's shadows lower,
+      While "Auld Lang Syne" the darkness calls to mind.
+    Thus, when the demon Thirst, beneath his power
+      The wanderer bows,--to feverish sleep consigned,
+    He hears the rushing rill, and feels the cooling shower.'
+
+While Branwell's mind was rendered bright by the sunny hopes of a happy
+future, he was enabled to write with pathos, coherency, and beauty, as
+is shown in the foregoing sonnets. But it was his misfortune that his
+mind was hung too finely upon the balance, and that, as the phantasy of
+his affections grew upon him, he became, as will hereafter be
+demonstrated, the victim of an 'overheated and discursive imagination,'
+and at last 'betrayed that monomaniac tendency' which Lucy Snowe says
+she 'has ever thought the most unfortunate with which man or woman can
+be cursed.' He became, in fact, almost as soon as the new passion had
+taken full possession of his heart, a miserable victim to that morbid
+tendency of the mind which, in far lesser degree, characterized his
+sister Charlotte, and of which she seems to have lived in occasional
+dread. It may be noted that when Lucy Snowe is seeking wildly the
+letter, which has been stolen away from her, she accuses herself of
+monomania. These mental perturbations grew upon Branwell day by day.
+
+Time passed on; and, when he had been with his employer some two years
+and a half, during the concluding portion of which the control he had
+exercised over himself was giving way, he began to exhibit the strange
+irregularities of his disposition, and the irresistible fervour of his
+long-suppressed and feverish passion. Great patience and forbearance
+were exercised towards him by the lady of the house; and her sincere
+regard for the feelings of his family forbade her, on the first blush
+of the affair, to be the means of his dismissal from his employment. He
+was not, indeed, dismissed until the step became an absolute necessity.
+The banishment from his post was not, however, long delayed, for
+Branwell had lost his former self-control; and his imprudence overcame
+the reluctance of the lady, who at length made known to her husband,
+while Branwell was absent at home, on his holiday, in the July of 1845,
+what his conduct had been. A letter was at once sent to him by his
+employer, conveying the intimation of his dismissal.
+
+We have been told much in Charlotte Brontë's letters to her friend 'E,'
+and in the works of Mrs. Gaskell and other writers, concerning this
+event, which laid prostrate the hopes of Branwell, that requires both
+comment and correction. We have already seen to what a low state of
+mind and body Branwell was for a time reduced by his dismissal from
+Luddenden Foot; but his condition in both was as that of sound health,
+compared with his utter prostration on his expulsion from his last
+employment,--a condition which renders any adequate description
+impossible. He had, indeed, been supremely happy. For him, the sun of
+prosperity had shone with unsullied splendour, and the rivers of hope
+had flowed with music richer and deeper than any of earth. The roses
+that bloomed in the paradise of his fervid imagination, were
+brighter--and, as he thought, far more lasting--than those, far-famed,
+of Suristan, and the green pastures of his hopeful aspirations were
+more fertile and fragrant than he had ever thought possible to him in
+the years gone by. But, suddenly, the paradise which his poetic and
+imaginative spirit had created, was changed, without a moment's
+warning, to a region of sleepless nights and wretched days,--'eleven
+continuous nights of sleepless horror' he afterwards speaks of,--where
+his mind, dismayed and incoherent, reeled and shook in agony intense
+and ungovernable.
+
+The distress of the Brontë family on this reverse of Branwell's
+prospects can scarcely be conceived in its entirety. So deeply
+agonizing was the then state of his affairs, that they could think of
+nothing else; and, in their sorrow, had no heart to contemplate the
+future. It was under the immediate influence of this misery that Anne
+Brontë wrote her pathetic poem, 'Domestic Peace,' in which she deplores
+the changed conditions of the family. Charlotte had just returned home
+from a visit to her friend, and found her brother in the condition I
+have described. Thus she speaks of it, under the date of July the 31st,
+1845: 'It was ten o'clock at night when I got home. I found Branwell
+ill. He is so very often, owing to his own fault. I was not therefore
+shocked at first. But when Anne informed me of the immediate cause of
+his present illness I was very greatly shocked. He had last Thursday
+received a note from Mr. ----, sternly dismissing him.... We have had
+sad work with him since. He thought of nothing but stunning or drowning
+his distressed mind. No one in the house could have rest, and at last
+we have been obliged to send him from home for a week with some one to
+look after him. He has written to me this morning, and expresses some
+sense of contrition for his frantic folly. He promises amendment on his
+return, but so long as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace
+in the house. We must all, I fear, prepare for a season of distress and
+disquietude. I cannot now ask Miss ---- or anyone else.'
+
+Branwell's distress had proved so really acute at the disgrace which
+had befallen him that Mr. Brontë, becoming alarmed for the
+consequences, decided to send his son away to new scenes in the hope of
+diverting his mind from the subject. That this was, to some extent,
+successful is evident from Branwell's letter to his sister, in which
+his natural feelings and repentant disposition found expression.
+Branwell had remembered his former visit to Liverpool, and selected
+that place on this occasion, and sailed thence to the coast of Wales.
+The sad feelings that impressed him on the voyage were afterwards
+expressed in verse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+'BRANWELL'S FALL,' AS SET FORTH IN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF HIS SISTERS.
+
+Branwell after his Disappointment--Parallel for his State of Mind
+in that of Lady Byron--Mrs. Gaskell's Misconceptions--True State
+of the Case--Charlotte Illustrates it in her Poem of 'Preference'
+--She alludes to Branwell's Condition in 'The Professor'--Mrs.
+Gaskell Compelled to Omit her Account in the Later Editions of her
+Work--Branwell's Prostration and Ill-health at the Time.
+
+
+After the first shock to his feelings had been sustained, and, by its
+own intensity, toned down to less oppressive anguish and pain, a
+strange calm succeeded in Branwell, more agonizing and appalling to his
+friends than the stormy ebullitions which had preceded it. There is
+evidence that his family at this time misunderstood the actual state of
+his mind, and that their very anxiety about him caused them--but more
+especially Charlotte--to regard his acts, irresponsible though they
+might be, as inveterate offences and habitual sins. It has indeed been
+said by some that Charlotte did not afterwards speak to him for the
+space of two years.
+
+The reproaches of his sister were probably as unwise as they were
+passionate, unmeasured, and, in outward semblance, unfeeling; yet they
+were censures pronounced in momentary anger, utterances of the deep
+affection she had for her brother, and of sincere sorrow for his
+unhappy, hopeless, and insane passion. But Branwell's friends and
+acquaintances saw clearly that on one subject, and one only, his mind
+had given way; and that was in his conception of the undoubted love
+which the lady of his heart bore him. They also saw, notwithstanding
+this morbid perversion of the ordinary powers of his mind in one
+particular illusion, that he was not affected in his faculty of
+reasoning correctly and consistently on all other subjects. They knew,
+if the Brontë family did not, that Branwell's mind, naturally morbid
+and depressed, had been unhinged by the sudden and unexpected ruin of
+his hopes; and that his heart and his intellect had been so far bruised
+and wounded, that for many of the acts done, and the things said, under
+the abiding grief which followed it, he was irresponsible. This will
+shortly appear.
+
+The sisters did not, however, long remain in ignorance of the true
+state of Branwell's mind. They became aware that he suffered from
+monomania touching the object of his sorrow, and the circumstance
+impressed them exceedingly. In several of their novels they have,
+indeed, dwelt upon this condition, and have lamented the misery and
+mental prostration which it entails. Lucy Snowe suffers from it
+severely, as I have mentioned. But, in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,'
+one of the characters charges Gilbert Markham--whose circumstances are
+precisely those of Branwell in regard to his love for a married
+lady--with monomania in this very matter; and, in 'Wuthering Heights,'
+speaking of the events that preceded Heathcliff's death, Nelly Dean
+alleges that he suffers from monomania in his love for the wife of
+Edgar Linton. Branwell's sisters, however, never took the tragic view
+of his conduct that impressed Mrs. Gaskell.
+
+For a time Branwell could talk of nothing but of the lady to whom he
+was attached, and he made statements of circumstances regarding her
+which had no foundation but in his own heated imagination. The lady, he
+said, loved him to distraction. She was in a state of inconceivable
+agony at his loss. Her husband, cruel, brutal, and unfeeling,
+threatened her with his dire indignation, and deprivation of every
+comfort. Branwell, indeed, told his friend W----, by letter, that, in
+consequence of this persecution, the suffering lady 'had placed herself
+under his protection!' and many other stories, equally unfounded,
+extravagant, and impossible, were circulated. In a word, he went about
+among his friends, telling to each, in strict confidence, the woes
+under which he suffered, and painting in gloomy colours the miseries
+which the lady of his love had been compelled to undergo. If all other
+proof were wanting of the unsound state of Branwell's mind on this one
+point, it would be enough, in all conscience, that he proclaimed
+abroad, of the lady he undertook to protect, circumstances that must
+infallibly redound to her infamy; and which, indeed, in the hands of
+injudicious persons, gave rise to the public scandal of his life, and
+ultimately made his name, and that of the lady whom he had loved and
+traduced in the same breath, of reproach among men.[10]
+
+        [10] The condition into which Branwell fell at this period is
+        one very well-known to mental physiologists. Thus Carpenter
+        speaks of it: 'In most forms of monomania, there is more or
+        less of disorder in the _ideational_ process, leading to the
+        formation of positive _delusions_ or _hallucinations_, that is
+        to say, of fixed beliefs or dominant ideas which are palpably
+        inconsistent with reality. These delusions, however, are not
+        attributable to original perversions of the reasoning process,
+        but arise out of the perverted _emotional state_. They give
+        rise, in the first place, to _misinterpretation of actual
+        facts_ or _occurrences_, in accordance with the prevalent
+        state of the feelings.'--'Principles of Mental Physiology,'
+        (1874), p. 667.
+
+For Branwell's state of mind at this time, and for the circumstances
+that followed upon it, we have an exact parallel in the case of Lady
+Byron, after her separation from her husband. This unhappy lady, living
+in retirement with her friends, had maintained, for more than five
+years after the poet's death, relations of the most friendly nature
+with his sister, the Honourable Mrs. Leigh. But, at the end of that
+period, weakened by misfortunes and by brooding upon particular evils,
+her mind gave way on one point; and she made, in the full belief of
+their truth, the most horrible of charges against her dead husband and
+his sister. These charges were, by some people, believed for a time;
+but a very little reflection showed that Lady Byron's mind must have
+been unhinged, for all the acts of her life went to disprove the
+statements she made. It was not in the nature of things possible that
+she could remain on affectionate terms with her sister-in-law, had she
+known--as in her monomania she asserted she did--the utter depth of
+that sister-in-law's imagined infamy. But it is not to be supposed that
+the unhappy lady was visibly insane; she was, on the contrary, as all
+remarked, gifted with a clear and accurate observation, with a lucid
+and logical method of thought, and with an expression more than
+ordinarily calm and natural.
+
+It was precisely the same with Branwell Brontë; for, when the paroxysm
+of his grief was over, though he was ordinarily calm and his thoughts
+always clear and logical, strange impressions and misinterpretations of
+facts grew upon him, and he made, with all the certainty of belief,
+statements of circumstances relating to the lady of his dearest
+affections, redounding to her shame--which, had he been of sound mind,
+he must not only have known to be false, but would have carried, had
+they been true, in secrecy to the grave.
+
+Just, too, as Lady Byron whispered the story of her woes in strict
+faith to many people, so did Branwell Brontë make confidants of
+several friends, revealing to each the extent of his misfortunes.
+And, further, just as the story circulated by Lady Byron was confided
+among others to good, honest, well-meaning Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who,
+conceiving herself to be the chosen champion of oppressed virtue,
+rushed into print, in 'Macmillan' of September, 1869, with the
+literary _bonne-bouche_ she had received; so did Mrs. Gaskell, clad in
+like panoply, with anger far over-riding discretion, publish to the
+world the scandal she had collected from the busy _gobe-mouches_ of
+Haworth, to the utter undoing of the fair fame of Patrick Branwell
+Brontë, and of the lady on whom he had fixed his hopeless affection.
+The scandal which was spread about Lord Byron, through the delusions
+of his wife, was very soon overthrown; but that with which Branwell
+was concerned, though thirty-seven years have passed over his grave,
+has been republished and is still believed--all the biographers of his
+sisters having, with one accord, consigned his name to obloquy and
+contempt.
+
+The stories originated by Branwell lost nothing in their circulation,
+but they gained immensely; and years had made the tales of disappointed
+love into scandals unfit to be detailed, when Mrs. Gaskell, eager for
+information, visited Haworth, and collected materials for her work from
+too-willing hands, who added their own embellishments to the original
+statements of Branwell.
+
+In order to show how far Mrs. Gaskell deviated from the right direction
+in her account of these circumstances, it will be better to place
+before the reader much of what she has said in direct reference to it,
+so that the whole matter may be made plain; and, before he closes this
+book, he will probably be convinced that she was wholly misled in her
+version of the story.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell writes: 'All the disgraceful details came out. Branwell
+was in no state to conceal his agony of remorse, or, strange to say,
+his agony of guilty love, from any dread of shame. He gave passionate
+way to his feelings; he shocked and distressed those loving sisters
+inexpressibly; the blind father sat stunned, sorely tempted to curse
+the profligate woman who had tempted his boy--his only son--into the
+deep disgrace of deadly crime.
+
+'All the variations of spirits and of temper--the reckless gaiety, the
+moping gloom of many months were now explained. There was a reason
+deeper than any mere indulgence of appetite, to account for his
+intemperance; he began his career as an habitual drunkard to drown
+remorse.
+
+'The pitiable part, as far as he was concerned, was the yearning love
+he still bore to the woman who had got so strong a hold upon him. It is
+true, that she professed equal love; we shall see how her professions
+held good. There was a strange lingering of conscience, when, meeting
+her clandestinely by appointment at Harrogate some months after, he
+refused to consent to the elopement which she proposed; there was some
+good left in this corrupted, weak young man, even to the very last of
+his miserable days. The case presents the reverse of the usual
+features: the man became the victim; the man's life was blighted, and
+crushed out of him by suffering, and guilt entailed by guilt; the man's
+family were stung by keenest shame. The woman--to think of her father's
+pious name--the blood of honourable families mixed in her veins--her
+early home, underneath whose roof-tree sat those whose names are held
+saint-like for their good deeds,--she goes flaunting about to this day
+in respectable society; a showy woman for her age; kept afloat by her
+reputed wealth. I see her name in county papers, as one of those who
+patronize the Christmas balls; and I hear of her in London
+drawing-rooms. Now let us read, not merely of the suffering of her
+guilty accomplice, but of the misery she caused to innocent victims,
+whose premature deaths may, in part, be laid at her door.'[11]
+
+        [11] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell further states: 'A few months later the invalid husband of
+the woman with whom he had intrigued, died. Branwell had been looking
+forward to this event with guilty hope. After her husband's death, his
+paramour would be free; strange as it seems, the young man still loved
+her passionately, and now he imagined the time was come when they might
+look forward to being married, and live together without reproach or
+blame. She had offered to elope with him; she had written to him
+perpetually; she had sent him money--twenty pounds at a time; he
+remembered the criminal advances she had made; she had braved shame,
+and her children's menaced disclosures, for his sake; he thought she
+must love him; he little knew how bad a depraved woman can be.'[12]
+
+        [12] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+As Mrs. Gaskell had formed no conception of the possible state of
+Branwell's mind, she seems to have known no reason for doubting the
+absolute truth of what she had heard; and, with an overweening
+confidence, and with no deficient expression of righteous indignation,
+she deals with the episode in this startling manner.
+
+In support of the charges thus made, Mrs. Gaskell refers to the
+contents of the will of the lady's husband, by which, she says, what
+property he left to his wife was so left on the condition that she
+never saw Branwell again; and she adds that, on the death of her
+husband, the lady sent her coachman to Haworth; for, at the very time
+when the will was being read, she did not know but that Branwell might
+be on his way to her. Mrs. Gaskell furthers says that, after the
+interview with the coachman, Branwell was found utterly prostrated by
+the intimation that he must never again even see the lady whom he
+thought he might then marry.[13]
+
+        [13] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+The biographer of Charlotte, having obtained her information from the
+floating rumours of Haworth, formed an inconsiderate, erroneous, and
+hasty opinion on this affair and its supposed consequences. But she
+found many circumstances in the proceedings of Branwell and his sisters
+which failed to corroborate her views, and that were, in fact, at
+variance with what would naturally have been expected had Branwell's
+misconduct really been of so deep a dye as she states. In order to
+bring out fully the force of what she here says, Mrs. Gaskell had,
+previously, as we have seen, in speaking of Charlotte's stay in
+Brussels eighteen months before, alluded to intelligence from home
+calculated to distress Charlotte exceedingly with fears respecting
+Branwell. Yet, in the January of 1844, shortly after her return from
+Brussels, Charlotte told her friend 'E' that Anne and Branwell were
+'both wonderfully valued in their situations.' And again, writing of
+the year 1845, Mrs. Gaskell says: 'He was so beguiled by this mature
+and wicked woman, that he went home for his holidays reluctantly,
+stayed there as short a time as possible, perplexing and distressing
+them all by his extraordinary conduct--at one time in the highest
+spirits; at another, in the deepest depression--accusing himself of
+blackest guilt and treachery, without specifying what they were; and
+altogether evincing an irritability of disposition bordering on
+insanity. Charlotte and her sister suffered acutely from his mysterious
+behaviour ... an indistinct dread was creeping over their minds that he
+might turn out their deep disgrace.'[14] And it must be added that, when
+in the expurgated edition the opening of this passage was omitted, Mrs.
+Gaskell inserted--following where she ascribes to the sisters an
+'indistinct dread,'--these words: 'caused partly by his own conduct,
+partly by expressions of agonizing suspicion in Anne's letters
+home.'[15] But we know, from Charlotte's letter to her friend, that,
+when she had returned home and found Branwell ill, which she says he
+was often, she was not therefore shocked at first, but, when Anne
+informed her of the immediate cause of his present illness, she was
+very greatly shocked, showing clearly enough that Branwell's dismissal
+and its cause were a complete surprise to her when she heard of them.
+How, then, could Anne's letters home have contained expressions of
+'agonizing suspicion'?
+
+        [14] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xiii., 1st edition.
+
+        [15] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. v., 1860 edition.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell found it necessary to summarize the portion of
+Charlotte's letter which contained these expressions of surprise, and,
+in her version, significantly enough, the obvious inconsistency is
+lost. The succeeding part also has suffered mutilation in Mrs.
+Gaskell's work, Charlotte's allusion to Branwell's 'frantic folly,'
+and the sentence, 'He promises amendment on his return,' being
+entirely omitted. Mr. Wemyss Reid, in publishing this letter, points
+out the circumstance, and says that 'Mrs. Gaskell could not bring
+herself to speak of such flagrant sins as those of which young Brontë
+had been guilty under the name of folly, nor could she conceive that
+there was any possibility of amendment on the part of one who had
+fallen so low in vice.'[16] And, if we disregard Mrs. Gaskell's view of
+'what _should have been_' Charlotte's feelings, and read the letter
+with the real state of the case before us, we shall at once see that,
+as Branwell had not fallen low in vice, the term 'frantic folly,'
+which his sister employed in speaking of his conduct, was precisely
+that which justly described it.
+
+        [16] 'Charlotte Brontë, a Monograph,' chap. vii.
+
+The simple truth respecting Branwell's conduct is this: he had been too
+fond of company and had not escaped its penalty. Doubtless Anne
+occasionally saw influences upon her brother which she would have
+wished entirely absent. Moreover he had, as we have seen, become wildly
+in love. Reluctantly at first, and, from what we know of him, he may,
+probably, in his latest vacation have accused himself of 'blackest
+guilt.' But there is reason to believe that on this episode, as on
+others connected with Branwell Brontë, we have been told not a little
+of what _must have ensued_ from a standpoint of initial error.
+
+Of the principal accusations which Mrs. Gaskell brings against Mrs.
+---- I shall have to speak when I come to consider the consequences to
+Branwell of the final defeat of his hopes; but it may be said here that
+it is clear the lady never wrote letters to Branwell at all. She
+carefully avoided doing anything that might implicate her in the matter
+of Branwell's strange passion, and, so far as any provision of the
+husband's will, which was dated near the end of the year, is concerned,
+Branwell Brontë might never have existed. Mrs. Gaskell cannot have seen
+the document.
+
+If any further evidence of the view Charlotte Brontë took of Branwell's
+conduct, and of that of the lady whose character has been so much
+calumniated be needed, her poem entitled 'Preference' is sufficient. We
+may indeed infer from it that Charlotte herself never believed the
+stories concerning Mrs. ---- which were in circulation at the time, and
+that she has left, in this production of her pen, her version of how
+the circumstances truly stood. The lady is represented in the poem as
+censuring the person who is making advances to her, and who is
+addressed as a soldier for whom she has a sisterly regard, while she is
+devotedly attached to one of whom she speaks in the warmest terms.
+
+    'Not in scorn do I reprove thee,
+      Not in pride thy vows I waive,
+    But, believe, I could not love thee,
+      Wert thou prince, and I a slave.'
+
+She then tells him that he is deceiving himself in thinking she has
+secret affection for him, and that her coldness towards him is assumed.
+She appeals forcibly to her own personal bearing as proof that she has
+no love for him.
+
+    'Touch my hand, thou self-deceiver;
+      Nay--be calm, for I am so;
+    Does it burn? Does my lip quiver?
+      Has mine eye a troubled glow?
+    Canst thou call a moment's colour
+      To my forehead--to my cheek?
+    Canst thou tinge their tranquil pallor
+      With one flattering, feverish streak?'
+
+Declaring that her goodwill for him is sisterly, she thus continues:
+
+    'Rave not, rage not, wrath is fruitless,
+      Fury cannot change my mind;
+    I but deem the feeling rootless
+      Which so whirls in passion's wind.
+    Can I love? Oh, deeply--truly--
+      Warmly--fondly--but not thee;
+    And my love is answered duly,
+      With an equal energy.'
+
+Then she tells him, if he would see his rival, to draw a curtain aside,
+when he will observe him, seated in a place shaded by trees, surrounded
+with books, and employing his 'unresting pen.' Here Charlotte places
+the 'rival' in an alcove, in the grounds of his mansion, privately
+employing his leisure in the retirement of his home; and makes the lady
+show her husband to the soldier who addresses her. She says:
+
+    'There he sits--the first of men!
+      Man of conscience--man of reason;
+    Stern, perchance, but ever just;
+      Foe to falsehood, wrong, and treason,
+    Honour's shield and virtue's trust!
+      Worker, thinker, firm defender
+    Of Heaven's truth--man's liberty;
+      Soul of iron--proof to slander,
+    Rock where founders tyranny.'
+
+She declares that her faith is given, and therefore the person she
+addresses need not sue; for, while God reigns in earth and heaven, she
+will be faithful to the man of her heart, to whom she is immovably
+devoted; and who is a 'defender of Heaven's truth'--her husband.
+
+No one, perhaps, would be better acquainted than Charlotte with the
+false and foul calumnies on this head, then circulating through the
+village; and it is well that she has left, in her poem of 'Preference,'
+an expression of her feeling as to the affairs which caused so much
+injurious gossip at the time. Yet, however desirous Charlotte might,
+be, in this poem, to clear the character of the lady who has been so
+cruelly aspersed, she appears to have had no mercy on her brother, who
+had been the principal actor in the drama. The following is the picture
+of him, in reference to this sad episode, which she puts into the mouth
+of William Crimsworth in 'The Professor':
+
+'Limited as had yet been my experience of life,' he says, 'I had once
+had the opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an example of the
+results produced by a course of interesting and romantic domestic
+treachery. No golden halo of fiction was about this example; I saw it
+bare and real; and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the
+practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious deception, and
+a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul.
+I had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this
+spectacle; those sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple
+recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote to temptation. They had
+inscribed on my reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching
+on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure--its hollowness
+disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its
+effects deprave for ever.' It is probable that Charlotte would not have
+wished this passage to be applied literally to her brother; but,
+unfortunately, this, and similar unguarded declarations, have largely
+biassed almost all who have written on the lives and literature of the
+sisters.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell, under threat of ulterior proceedings, on the advice of
+her friends, published the edition of 1860, omitting the charges
+referred to, as well as those against Mr. Brontë. She did not, however,
+allow the effect of her first assumption of guilt, or the moral of the
+tale, to be lost. She inserted a few sentences intended to convey to
+the reader that something of the kind had gone wrong with Branwell in
+the place where his sister Anne was governess. Under the circumstances,
+therefore, I have felt it necessary to deal with the subject at large.
+
+It may be remarked here that the indignation of the injured lady knew
+no bounds, and that she was only dissuaded from carrying the matter to
+a trial by the earnest desire of her friends, who represented that Mrs.
+Gaskell could not substantiate her statements, and that, as the book
+could not therefore be reprinted as it stood, and its circulation was
+consequently limited, it were better to let the matter rest, rather
+than incur the wide-spread reports of the newspaper press when the
+trial should be before the public; and, moreover, that those who knew
+her did not believe a word of Mrs. Gaskell's unfounded allegations.
+This had its effect, and the lady fretfully acquiesced.[17]
+
+        [17] A gentleman with whom I have recently conversed, who
+        knew this lady personally, on seeing the first edition of
+        Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' expressed his
+        astonishment at the 'gross form of the libel,' of which he
+        had had no conception. He had good reason for entirely
+        disbelieving the stories, for which Mrs. Gaskell was
+        responsible, relating to the lady in question.
+
+In Miss Robinson's 'Emily Brontë,' the stories which Charlotte's
+biographer was compelled to omit, have been substantially reproduced;
+and this writer, in supporting similar views to those of Mrs. Gaskell,
+has found it necessary to quote her version of the letter containing
+Charlotte's account of Branwell's disgrace, and has also considerably
+enlarged upon the supposed contents of the letters of Anne. Much
+diffidence has been felt in dealing with this subject so closely; but,
+after the discussion of it in the public prints, consequent on the
+issue of Miss Robinson's book, it is thought the time has come for
+exposing the groundlessness of the stories. The reader will therefore
+observe that I have borne this matter in mind throughout the present
+work.
+
+The distraction that overwhelmed Branwell on his dismissal from his
+late employment having caused him eleven nights of 'sleepless horror,'
+his wild attempt to drown his sorrow brought on an attack of delirium
+tremens. On one of these nights, in all likelihood, suddenly falling
+asleep, he overturned the candle and set the bedclothes on fire. The
+smell of burning attracted attention, and the sisters rushed into the
+room to extinguish the smouldering material. This accident would,
+doubtless, have been lost sight of, had it not been for the researches
+of Miss Robinson, to whom the public is indebted for an account of the
+circumstance, which closely reminds us of the rescue of Mr. Rochester
+in 'Jane Eyre,' and of the removal of 'Keeper,' by Emily, from the best
+bed in which he had settled himself. It will be remembered also that,
+on the night when Mr. Lockwood stayed at Wuthering Heights, a similar
+accident befel him, through the candle falling against the books he was
+trying to read.
+
+On his return from Wales Branwell wrote to his friend Leyland, who had
+to visit Haworth professionally, pressing him to come to the parsonage.
+Thus he writes in the midst of his distress. The vision of his hopes
+had become a haunting picture of misery, the prospect of the lady
+becoming free to marry him had not arisen to his mind in his confusion;
+he would never see her again, he would be forgotten; he must
+communicate with her.
+
+    'Haworth, August 4, 1845.
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I need hardly say that I shall be most delighted to see you, as
+    God knows I have a tolerably heavy load on my mind just now, and
+    would look to an hour spent with one like yourself, as a means of
+    at least, temporarily, lightening it.
+
+    'I returned yesterday from a week's journey to Liverpool and North
+    Wales, but I found during my absence that, wherever I went, a
+    certain woman robed in black, and calling herself "MISERY," walked
+    by my side, and leant on my arm, as affectionately as if she were
+    my legal wife.
+
+    'Like some other husbands, I could have spared her presence.
+
+    'Yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+There are in one or two of Charlotte Brontë's letters, written during
+this month, allusions to her brother. She tells us that things are not
+very bright as regards him, though his health, and consequently his
+temper, have been somewhat better this last day or two, because he is
+now '_forced_ to abstain.' And again, on the 18th, 'My hopes ebb
+low indeed about Branwell. I sometimes fear he will never be fit for
+much. The late blow to his prospects and feelings has quite made him
+reckless.'
+
+On the 19th, Branwell sends a short note to Leyland, in which he says,
+'As to my own affairs, I only wish I could see one gleam of light amid
+their gloom. You, I hope, are well and cheerful.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BRANWELL'S PROJECTED NOVEL.
+
+Review of Branwell's past Experiences of Life--He seeks Relief in
+Literary Occupation--He Proposes to Write a Three-volume Novel--His
+Letter on the Subject--One Volume Completed--His Capability of
+Writing a Novel--His Letter to Mr. Grundy on his Disappointment.
+
+
+Branwell had now attained his twenty-eighth year. The reader has seen
+in the early part of this work the intellectual promise of his opening
+career, the evidences of his genius, his versatility, and his mental
+power, and has marked the paths by which he, who was expected to be the
+crowning light of that remarkable family, had been brought, step by
+step, to the very depths of misery.
+
+During the few short years of his life, Branwell Brontë, having tasted
+the sweets of a noble ambition, and surrendered himself to the
+influences of love, had suffered the agonies of his disappointment and
+disgrace, and was now feeling the very bitterness of despair. Such
+influences as these, shaking the soul with their tempestuous breath,
+cast their sad glamour on the imagination; and he who has felt the
+spell is impressed thenceforth more deeply with the wondrous story of
+life, with the struggle of being, and with the fulness of emotion, and
+has a far deeper insight into the mysteries of human nature. It was in
+this way that Byron, when he had passed through his greatest
+misfortunes, and had abandoned for ever the shores of England, was
+fired with the gloomy glory of 'Manfred' and of 'Cain.' This storm and
+stress of the feelings, when the imagination receives a higher
+consciousness, is as the Eddaic struggle of Sigurd with Fafnir, the
+drinking of the monster's blood, that taught to the dragon-slayer the
+mystic language of the birds. The reader will see how these influences
+told on Branwell Brontë, and how sad the voices of the birds were for
+him; how his muse was inspired with the note of misery, and his longing
+was for peace alone. There seemed, indeed, to be no hope in those days.
+
+However, there came at times to Branwell Brontë, as there must come to
+all men in his circumstances, a reaction from the consuming sorrow of
+despair, a longing for action, for mental stimulus, to divert his mind
+from the woe he should never be able to forget. And, with this change
+in his methods of thought, there grew upon him another feeling,
+engendered of his broken sympathy with the actions of his kind: he
+learned to look upon human affairs as a spectator, rather than as one
+who felt any personal interest in them. It was in this way that his
+experience seemed to him to have unveiled the hidden springs of the
+actions of men; and, in recognizing the selfishness of them, he became
+himself something of a cynic.
+
+Branwell was in this frame of mind when he resolved, soon after a visit
+to his friend Leyland,--whom he found engaged upon a tomb and recumbent
+statue of the late Doctor Stephen Beckwith, a benefactor to several
+public institutions in York, to be erected in the Minster there,--to
+make an effort to arouse himself. With the desire, then, of finding an
+absorbing occupation for his mind, by which he might be able to lay the
+tempest of the heart, the whirlwind of wounded vanity, of injured
+self-esteem, and of blighted hope, which swept through his mind in
+hours of reflection, and drove him to distraction or desperation, he
+turned, with the resolution of a new-born energy, engendered of
+despair, to literary composition. He proposed to himself to depict, as
+best he could, in a fictitious form, and as an ordinary novel, which
+should extend to three volumes, the different feelings that work in the
+human soul. The necessary labour which this undertaking involved, gave
+a stimulus to his ambition, which for a time was sustained; and he
+evidently hoped that he might yet be able to make a place for himself
+in the busy world of letters. At this time the novels of his sisters
+were not in existence, and probably had scarcely been dreamed of.
+Charlotte had not yet lighted on the volume of verse in the handwriting
+of Emily, and the literary future of the sisters had still to dawn upon
+them. Yet Branwell, whose behaviour had given them cause enough for
+disquietude, and whose sorrows were embittering his mind, had now
+braced himself up for an object which they had not attempted, and to
+the accomplishment of which he looked forward with something like
+confidence. In the following letter to his friend Leyland, he discloses
+his design; and it is probable that in this we have almost all the
+direct light upon it which can be found:--
+
+    'Haworth, Sept. 10th, 1845.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I was certainly sadly disappointed at not having seen you on the
+    Friday you named for your visit, but the cause you allege for not
+    arriving was justifiable with a vengeance. I should have been as
+    cracked as my cast had I entered a room and seen the labour of
+    weeks or months destroyed (apparently--not, I trust, really) in a
+    moment.[18]
+
+        [18] Branwell here speaks of an accident which had happened
+        to one part of the monument referred to above.
+
+    'That vexation is, I hope, over; and I build upon your renewed
+    promise of a visit; for nothing cheers me so much as the company
+    of one whom I believe to be a _man_, and who has known care well
+    enough to be able to appreciate the discomfort of another who
+    knows it _too_ well.
+
+    'Never mind the lines I put into your hands, but come hither with
+    them, and, if they should have been lost out of your pocket on the
+    way, I won't grumble, provided you are present to apologize for the
+    accident.
+
+    'I have, since I saw you at Halifax, devoted my hours of time,
+    snatched from downright illness, to the composition of a
+    three-volume _novel_, one volume of which is completed, and,
+    along with the two forthcoming ones, has been really the result of
+    half-a-dozen by-past years of thoughts about, and experience in,
+    this crooked path of life.
+
+    'I felt that I must rouse myself to attempt something while
+    roasting daily and nightly over a slow fire, to while away my
+    torments; and I knew that, in the present state of the publishing
+    and reading world, a novel is the most saleable article, so
+    that--where ten pounds would be offered for a work, the production
+    of which would require the utmost stretch of a man's intellect--two
+    hundred pounds would be a refused offer for three volumes, whose
+    composition would require the smoking of a cigar and the humming of
+    a tune.
+
+    'My novel is the result of years of thought; and, if it gives a
+    vivid picture of human feelings for good and evil, veiled by the
+    cloak of deceit which must enwrap man and woman; if it records, as
+    faithfully as the pages that unveil man's heart in "Hamlet" or
+    "Lear," the conflicting feelings and clashing pursuits in our
+    uncertain path through life, I shall be as much gratified (and as
+    much astonished) as I should be if, in betting that I could jump
+    over the Mersey, I jumped over the Irish Sea. It would not be more
+    pleasant to light on Dublin instead of Birkenhead, than to leap
+    from the present bathos of fictitious literature to the
+    firmly-fixed rock honoured by the foot of a Smollett or a Fielding.
+
+    'That jump I expect to take when I can model a rival to your noble
+    Theseus, who haunted my dreams when I slept after seeing him. But,
+    meanwhile, I can try my utmost to rouse myself from almost killing
+    cares, and that alone will be its own reward.
+
+    'Tell me when I may hope to see you, and believe me, dear sir,
+
+    'Yours,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+A spirited sketch in pen-and-ink concludes this letter; it represents a
+bust of himself thrown down, and the lady of his admiration holding
+forth her hands towards it with an air of pity, while underneath it is
+the sentence: 'A cast, cast down, but not cast away!'[19]
+
+        [19] Charlotte Brontë told her friend 'Mary,' that Branwell
+        had appropriated Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway.'
+
+We have in this letter an instance of Branwell's general coherency
+under his disappointment, in which the elegance and freedom of his
+style of composition are combined with a consequent and logical
+arrangement of the various parts of his subject; but he cannot help
+concluding his letter with a direct allusion to the lady, whom he
+believes,--all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding,--to love him
+with undiminished devotion. Under this fascination he still hopes for
+the prosperity and happiness of which he had before spoken to his
+friends.
+
+Moreover it will be seen, from Branwell's letter, that he had seriously
+undertaken, in the midst of sorrow, suffering, and ill-health,--though,
+I have reason to believe, that he had sketched some part of it during
+his tutorship--the production of a novel, one volume of which he had
+completed. He does not seem to have looked upon it as a great mental
+effort, but rather as the natural outcome of a painful experience, and
+the proper alleviation of a present misery. Yet he designed to give a
+vivid picture of human nature; and, with the strength of experience and
+the consciousness of power, he evidently hoped that it would be a
+better work than those productions of the day, of whose composition he
+speaks so lightly. His experience had, indeed, been such as would well
+enable one of his quick perception to grasp the character, feelings,
+and motives of those around him. His knowledge of the country people of
+the West-Riding was very great; for, sitting, the admired of all
+observers, in the 'Black Bull,' at Haworth, he had met representatives
+of all classes of them. By the parlour fire, in the long winter
+evenings, he had had opportunities enough of entering into the spirit
+of the people; indeed, his letter to John Brown has shown us how he
+reviewed some of them. It was not merely for the enjoyment of an hour
+that he came to their company: he had longed for a glimpse of other
+life than that lived at the parsonage. And the Yorkshire peasants--whom
+he nevertheless held at their true value--to those who know their
+dialect, and can enter into their pursuits, as Branwell did and could,
+disclose a fund of shrewd observation, a sharp understanding, and a
+free and natural wit; and they delight in telling the stories of all
+the country side. But they must be understood before they can be
+appreciated. Branwell, too, had been a guest at the homesteads of the
+farmers, in the neighbourhood where he had latterly resided, who were
+always pleased to see him, when he visited them. But he had had
+experience of more fiery emotions than those of peasants; he had longed
+to know something of the deeper life of London, and had found it, at
+last, in the company of pugilists and their patrons.
+
+When the mood was upon him, all these varied experiences flowed with
+voluble eloquence from his lips; and the brightness of his wit and the
+brilliance of his imagination made him, at such times, a most enjoyable
+companion. But he delighted above all things, as has been seen, to
+spend his evenings, when possible, with the little band of literati
+which, in those times, characterized that district; and, in the society
+of Storey the poet of Wharfe, James the historian of Bradford, George
+Searle Phillips, Leyland the sculptor, and others, he found emulation
+and stimulus to better things. But the uses to which, under such
+influences, he put his experiences of life, and the colour that was
+given to them through his maddening misfortunes--so far as his novel is
+concerned--can probably never be told. His experience in 'this crooked
+path of life,' during his last half-dozen years, had been sufficiently
+varied; and an instructive story he could doubtless have based upon it.
+But, what became of the volume he wrote, possibly no one can tell; and
+his intention of writing two more was probably not carried out.
+
+From the following letter which Branwell wrote to Mr. Grundy in the
+October of 1845, we learn something of the condition of mind under
+which he must have written; and, from an allusion which it contains, we
+may, probably, infer that he had abandoned his intention of writing the
+two other volumes of his novel.[20] He says:
+
+        [20] Mr. Grundy has assigned the date of this letter to within
+        a few months of January, 1818; but, from internal evidence, it
+        is clear that it belongs really to the period I have named.
+
+    'I fear you will burn my present letter on recognising the
+    handwriting; but if you will read it through, you will perhaps
+    rather pity than spurn the distress of mind which could prompt my
+    communication, after a silence of nearly three (to me) eventful
+    years. While very ill and confined to my room, I wrote to you two
+    months ago, hearing you were resident engineer of the Skipton
+    Railway, to the inn at Skipton. I never received any reply, and
+    as my letter asked only for one day of your society, to ease a
+    very weary mind in the company of a friend who _always_ had what
+    I always wanted, but most want now, _cheerfulness_, I am sure you
+    never received my letter, or your heart would have prompted an
+    answer.
+
+    'Since I last shook hands with you in Halifax, two summers ago,
+    my life, till lately, has been one of apparent happiness and
+    indulgence. You will ask, "Why does he complain, then?" I can
+    only reply by showing the under-current of distress which bore my
+    bark to a whirlpool, despite the surface waves of life that
+    seemed floating me to peace. In a letter begun in the spring of
+    1845 and never finished, owing to incessant attacks of illness, I
+    tried to tell you that I was tutor to the son of ----, a wealthy
+    gentleman whose wife is sister to the wife of ----, M.P. for the
+    county of ----, and the cousin of Lord ----. This lady (though
+    her husband detested me) showed me a degree of kindness which,
+    when I was deeply grieved one day at her husband's conduct,
+    ripened into declarations of more than ordinary feeling. My
+    admiration of her mental and personal attractions, my knowledge
+    of her unselfish sincerity, her sweet temper, and unwearied care
+    for others, with but unrequited return where most should have
+    been given ... although she is seventeen years my senior, all
+    combined to an attachment on my part, and led to reciprocations
+    which I had little looked for. During nearly three years I had
+    daily "troubled pleasure, soon chastised by fear." Three months
+    since I received a furious letter from my employer, threatening
+    to shoot me if I returned from my vacation, which I was passing
+    at home; and letters from her lady's-maid and physician informed
+    me of the outbreak, only checked by her firm courage and
+    resolution that whatever harm came to her, none should come to
+    me.... I have lain during nine long weeks, utterly shattered in
+    body and broken down in mind. The probability of her becoming
+    free to give me herself and estate never rose to drive away the
+    prospect of her decline under her present grief. I dreaded, too,
+    the wreck of my mind and body, which, God knows! during a short
+    life have been severely tried. Eleven continuous nights of
+    sleepless horror reduced me to almost blindness; and, being taken
+    into Wales to recover, the sweet scenery, the sea, the sound of
+    music caused me fits of unspeakable distress. You will say, "What
+    a fool!" but if you knew the many causes I have for sorrow, which
+    I cannot even hint at here, you would perhaps pity as well as
+    blame. At the kind request of Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Baines, I have
+    striven to arouse my mind by writing something worthy of being
+    read, but I really cannot do so. Of course you will despise the
+    writer of all this. I can only answer that the writer does the
+    same, and would not wish to live if he did not hope that work and
+    change may yet restore him.
+
+    'Apologizing sincerely for what seems like whining egotism, and
+    hardly daring to hint about the days when, in your company, I
+    could sometimes sink the thoughts which "remind me of departed
+    days," I fear departed never to return,--I remain, etc.'
+
+In this letter we see that Branwell details to Mr. Grundy the story
+about Mrs. ----, which he was publishing whenever he could obtain a
+hearing. He speaks, too, of his ill-health, the shattering of body and
+the breaking down of mind, which at the time prostrated him. Charlotte
+seems scarcely to have credited Branwell's representations of the
+bodily condition into which he had fallen; for she says, in one of her
+letters, a little later, 'Branwell offers no prospect of hope: he
+professes to be too ill to think of seeking employment.'[21] There are
+passages of a like tendency in others of Charlotte's letters about this
+time; but we shall see presently that, whatever might be his condition
+of health, he was by no means so unsolicitous for employment, or so
+heedless of the future, as she supposed.
+
+        [21] 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Brontë,' _Hours at
+        Home_, xi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+'REAL REST.'--'PENMAENMAWR.'
+
+'Real Rest'--Comments--Spirit of Branwell and Emily Identical--Letter
+to Leyland--Branwell Broods on his Sorrows--'Penmaenmawr'--Comments
+--He still Searches and Hopes for Employment--Charlotte's somewhat
+Overdrawn Expressions--The Alleged Elopement Proposal--Probable
+Origin of the Story.
+
+
+Though Branwell Brontë was so feeble in health that, despite his
+wishes, he found physical labour impossible, and though the reaction
+from utter despair--through whose impetus he completed one volume of
+his novel--had been followed by a condition which led him to think
+worthy literary work beyond his power, we find him, almost at the same
+time, writing two of the finest poems which remain from his hand. It
+has been seen, in the letter addressed to Mr. Grundy, how he declares
+that, owing to the state of his mind, he is unable to undertake any
+literary work worth reading. But we have certain knowledge of an
+immediate movement of his genius, and that it found expression in
+verse, which gave a free course to his feelings. In the following poem
+we have perhaps the most powerful and weird expression of inconsolable
+sorrow ever penned. A strange calm had now succeeded the storms of
+feeling its author had passed through.
+
+    REAL REST.
+
+    'I see a corpse upon the waters lie,
+    With eyes turned, swelled and sightless, to the sky,
+    And arms outstretched to move, as wave on wave
+    Upbears it in its boundless billowy grave.
+    Not time, but ocean, thins its flowing hair;
+    Decay, not sorrow, lays its forehead bare;
+    Its members move, but not in thankless toil,
+    For seas are milder than this world's turmoil;
+    Corruption robs its lips and cheeks of red,
+    But wounded vanity grieves not the dead;
+    And, though those members hasten to decay,
+    No pang of suffering takes their strength away.
+    With untormented eye, and heart, and brain,
+    Through calm and storm it floats across the main;
+    Though love and joy have perished long ago,
+    Its bosom suffers not one pang of woe;
+    Though weeds and worms its cherished beauty hide,
+    It feels not wounded vanity nor pride;
+    Though journeying towards some far off shore,
+    It needs no care nor gold to float it o'er;
+    Though launched in voyage for eternity,
+    It need not think upon what is _to be_;
+    Though naked, helpless, and companionless,
+    It feels not poverty, nor knows distress.
+
+    'Ah, corpse! if thou couldst tell my aching mind
+    What scenes of sorrow thou hast left behind,
+    How sad the life which, breathing, thou hast led,
+    How free from strife thy sojourn with the dead;
+    I would assume thy place--would long to be
+    A world-wide wanderer o'er the waves with thee!
+    I have a misery, where thou hast none;
+    My heart beats, bursting, whilst thine lies like stone;
+    My veins throb wild, whilst thine are dead and dry;
+    And woes, not waters, dim my restless eye;
+    Thou longest not with one well loved to be,
+    And absence does not break a chain with thee;
+    No sudden agonies dart through thy breast;
+    Thou hast what all men covet,--REAL REST.
+    I have an outward frame, unlike to thine,
+    Warm with young life--not cold in death's decline;
+    An eye that sees the sunny light of Heaven,--
+    A heart by pleasure thrilled, by anguish riven--
+    But, in exchange for thy untroubled calm,
+    Thy gift of cold oblivion's healing balm,
+    I'd give my youth, my health, my life to come,
+    And share thy slumbers in thy ocean tomb.'
+
+Here the poet, his soul longing for freedom from mortality, his
+crushed and wounded spirit hovering above the salt and restless wave,
+contemplates the pale and ghastly body that floats thereon, and,
+holding communion with it, touches in melancholy and beautiful words
+its isolation and oblivion. Accompanying the dead in its watery
+wanderings, he sees, with keen sympathy, its utter disseverance from
+the world it has left, and contrasts with its condition the hopeless
+sorrow of his own disappointed youth. He delineates, in words of
+singular power and felicity, this weird and lonely picture; and, as an
+artist and a poet, paints wildly, but beautifully, the decay of the
+drowned in the ocean, and of the living, through the effects of
+long-continued woe. Branwell had loved, indeed, however unfortunately;
+and the misery of his passion caused him to turn his reflections within
+upon himself. As with the 'Wandering Jew,' who sees in every rock, in
+every bush, in every cloud, without hope of alleviation from his
+abiding woe, the _via crucis_ of his suffering Lord--every thought
+of Branwell's gifted mind, every conception of his fertile brain, every
+aspect, to him, of ocean, earth, and sky,--was, in one way or other,
+instinct with his own initial and irrepressible affection. Apart,
+however, from the illusions respecting the lady of his heart, under
+which he laboured, and which drove him to madness, there was a tendency
+to gloom and despondency implanted in his very nature, a disposition of
+mind in which his sister Emily largely resembled him. To such an extent
+was this the case that, in her poem of 'The Philosopher,' written in
+the October of 1845, she not only gives expression to similar weird
+thoughts and desires, but one might think there had been some
+interchange of ideas between the two,--that, perhaps, she had read his
+'Real Rest,' and wrote the following words in half-censure of its
+tendency. She is speaking of an enlightening spirit:
+
+    'Had I but seen his glorious eye
+      _Once_ light the clouds that wilder me;
+    I ne'er had raised this coward cry
+      To cease to think, and cease to be;
+    I ne'er had called oblivion blest,
+      Nor stretching eager hands to death,
+    Implored to change for senseless rest
+      This sentient soul, this living breath--
+    Oh, let me die--that power and will
+      Their cruel strife may close;
+    And conquered good and conquering ill
+      Be lost in one repose!'
+
+It is noteworthy that Charlotte, also, in the second part of her poem
+'Gilbert,' has used the incident of a corpse floating upon the waters,
+which is seen by the unhappy man in his vision, not, indeed, to give
+him the calm of oblivion, but rather, in contrast to Branwell's poem,
+to wake in him the pains of sorrow and remorse.
+
+Again, on the 25th of November, 1845, Branwell wrote to Leyland. He
+could not free himself from the unfortunate ideas which had perverted
+his understanding, but on every other subject he wrote justly.
+
+    'Haworth,
+    'Bradford, Yorks.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I send you the enclosed,--and I ought to tell you why I wished
+    anything of so personal a nature to appear in print.
+
+    'I have no other way, not pregnant with danger, of communicating
+    with one whom I cannot help loving. Printed lines, with my usual
+    signature, "Northangerland," could excite no suspicion--as my late
+    unhappy employer shrank from the bare idea of my being able to
+    write anything, and had a day's sickness after hearing that
+    Macaulay had sent me a complimentary letter; so _he_ won't know
+    the name.
+
+    'I sent through a private channel one letter of comfort in her
+    great and agonizing present afflictions, but I recalled it through
+    dread of the consequences of a discovery.
+
+    'These lines have only one merit,--that of really expressing my
+    feelings, while sailing under the Welsh mountain, when the band on
+    board the steamer struck up, "Ye banks and braes!" God knows that,
+    for many different reasons, those feelings were far enough from
+    pleasure.
+
+    'I suffer very much from that mental exhaustion which arises from
+    brooding on matters useless at present to think of,--and active
+    employment would be my greatest cure and blessing,--for really,
+    after hours of thoughts which business would have hushed, I have
+    felt as if I could not live, and, if long-continued, such a state
+    will bring on permanent affection of the heart, which is already
+    bothered with most uneasy palpitations.
+
+    'I should like extremely to have an hour's sitting with you, and,
+    if I had the chance, I would promise to try not to look gloomy. You
+    said you would be at Haworth ere long, but that "ere" has doubtless
+    changed to "ne'er;" so I must wish to get to Halifax some time to
+    see you.
+
+    'I saw Murray's monument praised in the papers, and I trust you are
+    getting on well with Beckwith's, as well as with your own personal
+    statue of living flesh and blood.
+
+    'Mine, like your Theseus, has lost its hands and feet, and I fear
+    its head also, for it can neither move, write, nor think as it once
+    could.
+
+    'I hope I shall hear from you on John Brown's return from Halifax,
+    whither he has gone.
+
+    'I remain, &c.,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+The poem enclosed was entitled:
+
+    PENMAENMAWR.
+
+    'These winds, these clouds, this chill November storm
+    Bring back again thy tempest-beaten form
+    To eyes that look upon yon dreary sky
+    As late they looked on thy sublimity;
+    When I, more troubled than thy restless sea,
+    Found, in its waves, companionship with thee.
+    'Mid mists thou frownedst over Arvon's shore,
+    'Mid tears I watched thee over ocean's roar,
+    And thy blue front, by thousand storms laid bare,
+    Claimed kindred with a heart worn down by care.
+    No smile had'st thou, o'er smiling fields aspiring,
+    And none had I, from smiling fields retiring;
+    Blackness, 'mid sunlight, tinged thy slaty brow,
+    I, 'mid sweet music, looked as dark as thou;
+    Old Scotland's song, o'er murmuring surges borne,
+    Of "times departed,--never to return,"
+    Was echoed back in mournful tones from thee,
+    And found an echo, quite as sad, in me;
+    Waves, clouds, and shadows moved in restless change,
+    Around, above, and on thy rocky range,
+    But seldom saw that sovereign front of thine
+    Changes more quick than those which passed o'er mine.
+    And as wild winds and human hands, at length,
+    Have turned to scattered stones the mighty strength
+    Of that old fort, whose belt of boulders grey
+    Roman or Saxon legions held at bay;
+    So had, methought, the young, unshaken nerve--
+    That, when WILL wished, no doubt could cause to swerve,
+    That on its vigour ever placed reliance,
+    That to its sorrows sometimes bade defiance--
+    Now left my spirit, like thyself, old hill,
+    With head defenceless against human ill;
+    And, as thou long hast looked upon the wave
+    That takes, but gives not, like a churchyard grave,
+    I, like life's course, through ether's weary range,
+    Never know rest from ceaseless strife and change.
+
+    'But, PENMAENMAWR! a better fate was thine,
+    Through all its shades, than that which darkened mine;
+    No quick thoughts thrilled through thy gigantic mass
+    Of woe for what might be, or is, or was;
+    Thou hadst no memory of the glorious hour
+    When Britain rested on thy giant power;
+    Thou hadst no feeling for the verdant slope
+    That leant on thee as man's heart leads on hope;
+    The pastures, chequered o'er with cot and tree,
+    Though thou wert guardian, got no smile from thee;
+    Old ocean's wrath their charms might overwhelm,
+    But thou could'st still keep thy unshaken realm--
+    While I felt flashes of an inward feeling
+    As fierce as those thy craggy form revealing
+    In nights of blinding gleams, when deafening roar
+    Hurls back thy echo to old Mona's shore.
+    I knew a flower, whose leaves were meant to bloom
+    Till Death should snatch it to adorn a tomb,
+    Now, blanching 'neath the blight of hopeless grief,
+    With never blooming, and yet living leaf;
+    A flower on which my mind would wish to shine,
+    If but one beam could break from mind like mine.
+    I had an ear which could on accents dwell
+    That might as well say "perish!" as "farewell!"
+    An eye which saw, far off, a tender form,
+    Beaten, unsheltered, by affliction's storm;
+    An arm--a lip--that trembled to embrace
+    My angel's gentle breast and sorrowing face,
+    A mind that clung to Ouse's fertile side
+    While tossing--objectless--on Menai's tide!
+
+    'Oh, Soul! that draw'st yon mighty hill and me
+    Into communion of vague unity,
+    Tell me, can I obtain the stony brow
+    That fronts the storm, as much unbroken now
+    As when it once upheld the fortress proud,
+    Now gone, like its own morning cap of cloud?
+    Its breast is stone. Can I have one of steel,
+    To endure--inflict--defend--yet never feel?
+    It stood as firm when haughty Edward's word
+    Gave hill and dale to England's fire and sword,
+    As when white sails and steam-smoke tracked the sea,
+    And all the world breathed peace, but waves and me.
+
+    'Let me, like it, arise o'er mortal care,
+    All woes sustain, yet never know despair;
+    Unshrinking face the grief I now deplore,
+    And stand, through storm and shine, like moveless PENMAENMAWR!'
+
+These lines are shadowed, like all his other writings, with the grief
+that day and night oppressed him. Throughout the theme, his eager
+yearning for mental quiet is finely expressed; and in it he contrasts
+the strength and calm of the everlasting hill in its chequered history,
+and in the ceaseless changes, and the lights and shadows that fall upon
+it, with his own wild and stormy existence; the lady, whose charms have
+bewildered his imagination, supplying him with a subject for sorrowful
+recollections. The giant hill is the mighty image with which his
+perturbed soul communes, and he implores for strength to enable him
+to rise superior to his misfortunes, and to face, like 'moveless
+Penmaenmawr,' the storm, adversity, and ruin that threaten him. But
+there was little likelihood of the lady seeing these lines.
+
+We find Branwell, at the time, making efforts to obtain some
+employment that would divert him from useless brooding upon the
+unfortunate circumstances that destroyed his peace. Scarcely, also,
+was he less anxious to be away from home, for his presence there had
+been his greatest humiliation when his family knew of his disgrace;
+yet, with a method of which he was master, he appears to have kept
+silence there on the subject his madness made him so ready to repeat
+to others. However his sisters Emily and Anne might regard him,
+Charlotte, at least, looked upon him as one of the fallen. She thus
+writes to her friend concerning him on the 4th of November, 1845: 'I
+hoped to be able to ask you to come to Haworth. It almost seemed as if
+Branwell had a chance of getting employment, and I waited to know the
+result of his efforts in order to say, dear ----, come and see us. But
+the place (a secretaryship to a railway committee) is given to another
+person. Branwell still remains at home; and while _he_ is here, _you_
+shall not come. I am more confirmed in that resolution the more I see
+of him. I wish I could say one word to you in his favour, but I
+cannot. I will hold my tongue. We are all obliged to you for your kind
+suggestion about Leeds; but I think our school schemes are, for the
+present, at rest.' Again, she says on December 31st of the same year:
+'You say well, in speaking of ----, that no sufferings are so awful as
+those brought on by dissipation; alas! I see the truth of this
+observation daily proved. ---- and ---- must have as weary and
+burdensome a life of it in waiting upon their unhappy brother. It
+seems grievous, indeed, that those who have not sinned should suffer
+so largely.'[22] Charlotte also, writing to Nancy Garrs, who at times
+assisted at the parsonage, complained of the conduct of her brother;
+but, later, requested that the letter should be destroyed. Her wish
+was complied with.
+
+        [22] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xiii.
+
+It is, indeed, an almost impossible task to convey to the reader, in
+the pages of a biography, an idea which will, in an adequate degree,
+approach the intimate acquaintance which those who lived, saw, and
+spoke with its subject possessed. And, yet, how necessary is such
+knowledge to the right understanding of anyone's letters! But with what
+chance of a true insight, then, shall we read the letters of Branwell
+Brontë and his sister, if we have an incorrect view of his character?
+
+Miss Robinson has confidently concluded, from certain depreciatory
+references to himself, in his letters to Mr. Grundy, that, at this
+period, 'he was manifestly, and by his own confession, too physically
+prostrate for any literary effort,' with how much accuracy the reader
+has seen and will further see. And Mr. Wemyss Reid, with respect to the
+character of Mr. Brontë, adopting much of Mrs. Gaskell's view of him,
+and relying upon his children's letters, has produced a portrait of him
+to which, as he allows, 'some of those who knew him in his later years,
+including one who is above all others entitled to an opinion on the
+subject, have objected as being over-coloured.' We must not read, then,
+too literally all that we find in the letters. It would be folly to
+take word for word Charlotte's account of her father's anger when she
+announced to him a proposal of marriage which had been made to her, and
+which did not accord with his wish; or to believe that 'compassion or
+relenting is no more to be looked for from papa than sap from
+firewood,' when we know that he afterwards voluntarily gave way, and
+sacrificed his own opinion. Nor would it be right to accept any
+exaggerated confession of Charlotte about herself, in a literal sense.
+And thus it does not sound well in Mrs. Gaskell, after completing her
+account of the outward events of Branwell's life, to say, 'All that is
+to be said more about Branwell Brontë shall be said by Charlotte
+herself, not by me;' and then to proceed to extract such portions of
+the sister's letters as condemned him, and to summarize or repress
+anything favourable. But Miss Robinson has gone further. She, by
+extracting a few censures from various letters, apart in date, and
+leaving out all mention of the chance of the secretaryship in the
+letter of November the 4th, and the words 'to him' in another, has left
+her reader under the impression that, after his dismissal, Branwell
+would not seek employment. 'Such was not his intention,' she says. But
+Branwell's efforts to obtain the secretaryship, to which Charlotte
+alludes, are sufficient evidence of a contrary disposition in him; and
+we shall find that he exerted himself in other directions also.
+
+The failure of the school-keeping has likewise been duly laid to his
+charge, although, as we have seen, Mr. Brontë's oncoming blindness, in
+the first place, and the difficulty of procuring pupils at Haworth,
+were the causes of its failure. To the reason why no attempt was made
+to open a school elsewhere, I shall have further to allude.
+
+We have been told by Mrs. Gaskell that, some months after Branwell's
+dismissal, he met the wife of his former employer clandestinely by
+appointment. 'There was,' she says, 'a strange lingering of conscience,
+when ... he refused to consent to the elopement which she proposed.'[23]
+Miss Robinson, who adopts this report, thinks that the phrase 'herself
+and estate,' in the letter he sent to Mr. Grundy, throws quite a new
+light upon Mrs. Gaskell's opinion that there were any remains of
+conscience left in Branwell Brontë. She says he counselled 'a little
+longer waiting,'--that he might become possessed of the property, on
+the death of the lady's husband. But if this incident of the proposed
+elopement had actually taken place, the delay suggested by Branwell
+should surely be held as proof that anything positively dishonourable
+was repulsive to him. The lady, too, had an ample fortune of her own,
+of which, had she proposed an elopement, she would have informed him.
+But, if we consider the possible sources from which such a story as
+this could arise, we may surmise that Mrs. Gaskell,--who first gave it
+to the public, and on whose authority it alone remains,--obtained it,
+with the many other incidents she has published, from the current
+scandal of Haworth,--where else could she have heard it?--and when we
+remember that the rumours of the village, though magnified a
+hundred-fold, had their origin in the infatuated belief and wild
+statements of Branwell himself, possibly we shall not be wrong if we
+conclude that it had no foundation whatever in fact. Certainly there is
+no sufficient evidence for it. And the story is in itself inherently
+improbable, for it alleges that the lady had been not only regardless
+of her reputation, but had cast to the winds all thoughts of those
+pecuniary considerations which, a little later, upon the death of her
+husband, are stated to have prevented her from marrying in honour the
+supposed object of her affections.
+
+        [23] 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+I have, earlier in this work, spoken of a poem on one of the traditions
+of Lancashire, by Mr. Peters, entitled: 'Leyland's Daughter,' which is
+the story of a romantic elopement. Branwell, early in 1846, proposed to
+write a poem on Morley Hall, in the parish of Leigh, where the
+elopement took place in the reign of Edward VI., in which he also would
+touch upon the incident.
+
+This tradition, and Branwell's intended work on the subject, became
+often a topic of conversation both at Haworth and Halifax: and, it is
+not improbable that, some ten years afterwards, when Mrs. Gaskell was
+searching at the former place for materials for her work, the story of
+this ancient elopement had become mixed with the stories of the village
+respecting Branwell and the lady of his late employer, and thus, with
+them, was ready for Mrs. Gaskell's hand, additions having been made as
+to time and place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SISTERS' POEMS AND NOVELS.--BRANWELL'S LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.
+
+The Sisters as Writers of Poetry--They Decide to Publish--Each
+begins a Novel--The Spirit under which the Work was Undertaken--
+'The Professor'--'Agnes Grey'--'Wuthering Heights'--Branwell's
+Condition--A Touching Incident--'Epistle from a Father to a Child
+in her Grave'--Letter with Sonnet--Publication of the Sisters'
+Poems.
+
+
+If Branwell Brontë had devoted himself to literature under the impulse
+of his misfortune, his sisters were not long unoccupied ere they also
+entered upon its pursuit. 'One day, in the autumn of 1845,' says
+Charlotte, 'I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my
+sister Emily's handwriting.' The elder sister was not surprised,
+knowing that the younger could and did write verse; but she thought
+these were no common effusions. 'To my ear,' she says, 'they had also a
+peculiar music--wild, melancholy, and elevating. My sister Emily was
+not a person of demonstrative character, nor one on the recesses of
+whose mind and feelings even those nearest and dearest to her could,
+with impunity, intrude unlicensed; it took hours to reconcile her to
+the discovery I had made, and days to persuade her that such poems
+merited publication.' Charlotte Brontë here grasped, with unfailing
+precision, the very secret spell which we find in Emily's poetry; the
+strange, wild, weird voice, with which it speaks to us, spoke first of
+all to her, and she felt the heather-scented breath, even as we do, of
+the moorland air on which its music was borne. Anne also produced
+verses, which had 'a sweet, sincere pathos of their own;' and the three
+sisters, believing, after anxious deliberation, that they might get
+their respective productions accepted for publication in one volume,
+set on foot inquiries on the subject, and now adopted the pseudonyms of
+Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which were afterwards to become so
+famous. It was not, however, to be expected that the effusions of
+inexperienced and unknown writers would be of such value as to induce
+any publisher to take them on his own risk. Indeed, Miss Brontë says
+'the great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any kind
+from the publishers to whom we applied.' She wrote to Messrs. Chambers,
+of Edinburgh, asking advice, and received a brief and business-like
+reply, upon which the sisters acted, and at last made way.
+
+On the 28th of January, 1846, Charlotte, as we have been informed,
+wrote to Messrs. Aylott and Jones, asking if they would publish a
+one-volume, octavo, of poems; if not at their own risk, on the authors'
+account. Messrs. Aylott and Jones did not hesitate to accept the latter
+proposal.
+
+It must have been when the sisters became aware that publishers would
+not accept the poetry of unknown writers on any other terms, that they
+turned their thoughts to prose composition. Branwell, in his dire
+distress, had fixed his attention on the writing of a three-volume
+novel, principally as a refuge from mental disquiet; but his sisters,
+now, with very different feelings, each set to work on a one-volume
+tale. It had occurred to them, we are told, that by novel writing money
+was to be made. They were, in fact, influenced by precisely the view of
+the profit to be derived from fiction which Branwell had propounded in
+his remarkable letter to his friend Leyland. 'Ill-success,' says
+Charlotte, 'failed to crush us: the mere effort to succeed had given a
+wonderful zest to existence; it must be pursued. We each set to work on
+a prose tale: Ellis Bell produced "Wuthering Heights," Acton Bell,
+"Agnes Grey," and Currer Bell also wrote a narrative in one volume.'
+
+The business-like way in which the sisters went about their novel
+writing, forbids us to believe that they brooded very much on the
+conduct of their brother when the literary fervour was upon them; but
+Miss Robinson leads her readers to think that his character and
+failings had much to do with the tone which their works assumed.
+Writing under this belief, and with this intention,--as might have been
+expected,--she has found it necessary to paint every circumstance
+relating to him, and the inmates of the parsonage, in the darkest
+colours, and often has arrived at conclusions widely different from the
+actual facts. Moreover this writer, in supporting her views, has fallen
+into the serious error of placing the event which completed Branwell's
+disappointment, and its consequences to him, four months earlier than
+they occurred.
+
+The novels which the sisters wrote under the influence of these
+troubles do not, indeed, bear any marked traces of them. 'The
+Professor,' Charlotte's story, which was not published until long
+after, is the direct outcome of her personal experiences in Brussels,
+and the few shadows that one finds in it are the record of such
+troubles as she had there. In this book, Currer Bell describes the life
+of endeavour, which seemed to her the most honourable, the treading of
+those paths in the outer world whose pleasures and pains she had found
+so keen. Already, in the March of 1845, she had written to a friend
+telling her that she was no longer happy at Haworth, though it was her
+duty to remain there. 'There was a time when Haworth was a very
+pleasant place to me; it is not so now. I feel as if we were all buried
+here. I long to travel; to work; to live a life of action.' Thus 'The
+Professor' is the story of the work and of the life of action for which
+the author herself was pining. William Crimsworth, neglected by his
+rich relations, cut off by his brutal brother, seeks his fortune in
+Brussels, and obtains a place as professor of English in a school
+there. He leads a life that Charlotte knows well; he is in the place
+she has learned to love; and he describes, with close observation, the
+character and the routine to which she is so well accustomed. Pelet,
+his master, is an original, as Paul Emanuel is, and Zoraïde Reuter is
+the prototype of Madame Beck. These characters are forcibly conceived,
+as is that of Mademoiselle Henri; but the book bears the traces of a
+novice's hand. Thus, how unnatural does the proposal which Crimsworth
+makes to Frances read to us, where, while asking her to be his wife,
+demanding of her what regard she has for him, he says not a word of his
+own devotion to her; and where, even when she grants him all he has
+been hoping for so long, his sole remark is, 'Very well, Frances!' But
+a stronger point of interest for us in the book is the spirit which
+moves Crimsworth in his endeavours, where he struggles with might and
+main, just as Charlotte herself wished to do, for a competency; and
+there is the school, too, which his wife designs and establishes, the
+very pattern of that which was in Charlotte's own mind. It is
+instructive and singular that in this book we find Crimsworth suffering
+from the hypochondria which beset its author, and that, too, at the
+time when he should have been happiest.
+
+'Man,' he says, 'is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was my
+mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred
+and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to
+an aim, had over-strained the body's comparative weakness. A horror of
+great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had
+known formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a
+prey to hypochondria. She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once
+before in boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and board for a year;
+for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me,
+she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods,
+hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop
+her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree;
+taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of
+bone.' This was the phantom that visited Charlotte also. Of the effect
+of her brother's conduct on her I have found but two passages in 'The
+Professor,'--that which I have quoted respecting the youth of Victor
+Crimsworth earlier in this volume, and that, in Chapter xx., where
+William Crimsworth leaves Pelet's house lest a 'practical modern French
+novel' should be in process beneath its roof. It was Charlotte's
+design, in writing 'The Professor,' to lend it no charm of romance. Her
+hero was to work his way through life, and to find no sudden turn to
+endow him with wealth, for he was to earn every shilling he possessed,
+and he was not even to marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank in the
+end. 'In the sequel, however,' says Charlotte, 'I find that publishers
+in general scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked
+something more imaginative and poetical;' and for this reason,
+probably, the book did not find a publisher so soon as 'Agnes Grey,'
+and 'Wuthering Heights,' which were sent from the parsonage with it.
+
+'Agnes Grey,' Anne Brontë's story, like 'The Professor,' is the
+picture of things its author had known, painted almost as she saw
+them. Anne's experience as a governess had made her acquainted with
+certain phases of life, which she could not but reproduce. Hence Agnes
+Grey is thrown into the sphere of the careless and selfish family of
+the Bloomfields; and afterwards, with the Murrays at Horton Lodge, she
+sees a kind of personal character and social life which, on account of
+its coldness and worldliness, greatly repelled Anne Brontë, with her
+warm and sympathetic nature. She teaches the same lesson of the folly
+of _mariages de convenance_, and of the wrong of subjecting the
+affections, and bartering happiness for the sake of worldly position,
+which she afterwards dwells upon more strongly in 'The Tenant of
+Wildfell Hall.' It is in this fictitious parallel of Anne Brontë's own
+experience, if anywhere in her writings, that we might expect to find
+some reflection of the recent history of her brother's fall. Mr. Reid
+has asserted that this formed the dark turning-point in her life, for
+'living under the same roof with him when he went astray,' she 'was
+compelled to be a closer and more constant witness of his sins and his
+sufferings than either Charlotte or Emily.' Her letters home, it has
+been stated, conveyed the news of her dark forebodings. But, all the
+same, the story she wrote, almost under the shadow of her brother's
+disgrace, is the simple, straightforward, humorous narrative of the
+gentle and pious Anne Brontë, revealing not so much as a suspicion of
+vice or thought of evil; and, in this respect, it presents a contrast
+to her second work. There is evidence that when the sisters wrote
+their novels they had already attributed monomania to Branwell, and
+could thus explain his history for themselves. It was not in the
+nature of 'Agnes Grey' to be successful as a novel, but we find in it
+that Anne possessed a faculty which scarcely appears in Charlotte's
+writings,--that of humour. Look, for instance, at the way in which she
+sketches so forcibly, and with such droll perception, the character of
+the youthful Bloomfields, and, afterwards, of Miss Matilda Murray,
+with her equine propensities and masculine tastes.
+
+'Wuthering Heights,' the work which Emily Brontë sent from the
+parsonage at the same time, incomparably finer in its powers than
+either 'The Professor' or 'Agnes Grey,' is a dramatic story of passion
+and tragic energy that astonished the world,--and with which it has
+been said Branwell's life in those days had much concern.
+Inferentially, it is contended that, without the darkening effect on
+her understanding of Branwell's misfortunes, without the neighbourhood
+of the 'brother of set purpose drinking himself to death out of furious
+thwarted passion for a mistress he might not marry,' Emily Brontë could
+not have conceived it. It will, then, perhaps be better to defer the
+study of Emily's production till something more has been said of the
+period in which it was written; and until some new light has been
+thrown upon Branwell's character and career, and upon the anachronistic
+improprieties of previous writers.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell passes over the period in which the sisters betook
+themselves to novel writing with little comment. But she keeps in
+remembrance the presence of Branwell while their literary labours
+continued,--'the black shadow of remorse lying over one in their home.'
+What it was that the biographer of Charlotte supposed stung Branwell's
+conscience is well-known; but, if there had been this cause for it in
+one of a naturally remorseful disposition, as his was, we must have met
+with some expression of it in his letters or poems, for
+
+    'The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,
+      Is like the Scorpion girt by fire.'
+
+Yet, perhaps, one of the most significant points to be observed in
+Branwell's writings, and in studying his conduct, is the absence of any
+such remorse. He encouraged himself--after the first shock of his
+disappointment--with the hope that time would bring him the happiness
+he wished; and, as some believe, with good and sufficient reason. He
+was unhappy when he thought of the supposed ill-health and sufferings
+of the lady.
+
+It is noteworthy that something inconsequent, in putting down
+Branwell's conduct entirely to remorse in this way, was the feature of
+Mrs. Gaskell's work, to which so great an analyzer of motives as George
+Eliot, as shown by her letters published quite recently, took
+exception, and regretted.[24]
+
+        [24] 'George Eliot's Life, as related in her Letters and
+        Journals,' arranged and edited by her husband, J. W. Cross,
+        1885, vol. i., p. 441.
+
+If we believe Branwell to have been subject to hallucination, we may
+then, perhaps, gain an idea of the true cause of the wretchedness he
+endured when he fell back on his own reflections. His life had been one
+of severe disappointment. Those early aims in art, for which he had
+spent so much preparation, and from which he hoped so much, had fallen
+away before him; his first efforts as usher and tutor had come to
+nothing; then followed the lapse which ended his stay with the railway
+company; and, lastly, the infatuation which had seized him in his late
+employment, with its vision of future opulence, and rest from all
+former change and trouble, ending in dismissal, distraction, and
+disgrace. All these things, rushing back upon his mind in moments of
+reflection, were more than he could bear, and he sought, in various
+ways, some honourable to him, to divert himself from the subject, but
+sometimes in a manner that gave cause for complaint at home, and
+resulted in moodiness and irritability of temper. On the other hand, he
+seems to have felt himself aggrieved by a want of sympathy on the part
+of his family in sufferings they did not comprehend.
+
+Mr. George Searle Phillips, with whom Branwell became acquainted at
+Bradford, and who visited him at Haworth, says that he complained
+sometimes of the way in which he was treated at home; and, as an
+instance, relates the following:
+
+'One of the Sunday-school girls, in whom he and all his house took much
+interest, fell very sick, and they were afraid she would not live. "I
+went to see the poor little thing," he said; "sat with her
+half-an-hour, and read a psalm to her, and a hymn at her request. I
+felt very like praying with her too," he added, his voice trembling
+with emotion; "but, you see, I was not good enough. How dare I pray for
+another, who had almost forgotten how to pray for myself! I came away
+with a heavy heart, for I felt sure she would die, and went straight
+home, where I fell into melancholy musings. I wanted somebody to cheer
+me. I often do, but no kind word finds its way even to my ears, much
+less to my heart. Charlotte observed my depression, and asked what
+ailed me. So I told her. She looked at me with a look I shall never
+forget--if I live to be a hundred years old--which I never shall. It
+was not like her at all. It wounded me as if some one had struck me a
+blow in the mouth. It involved ever so many things in it. It was a
+dubious look. It ran over me, questioning, and examining, as if I had
+been a wild beast. It said, 'Did my ears deceive me, or did I hear
+aright?' And then came the painful, baffled expression, which was worse
+than all. It said, 'I wonder if that's true?' But, as she left the
+room, she seemed to accuse herself of having wronged me, and smiled
+kindly upon me, and said, 'She is my little scholar, and I will go and
+see her.' I replied not a word. I was too much cut up. When she was
+gone, I came over here to the 'Black Bull,' and made a note of it in
+sheer disgust and desperation. Why could they not give me some credit
+when I was trying to be good?"'[25]
+
+        [25] 'The Mirror,' 1872.
+
+At the beginning of March, Charlotte returned from a visit to a friend,
+and we hear that she found it very forced work to address her brother
+when she went into the room where he was; but he took no notice, and
+made no reply; he was stupefied; she had heard that he had got a
+sovereign while she was away, on pretence of paying a pressing debt,
+and had changed it, at a public-house, with the expected result.
+
+Again Charlotte says, on March 31st, 1846: 'I am thankful papa
+continues pretty well, though often made very miserable by Branwell's
+wretched conduct. _There_--there is no change but for the worse.'
+
+At this time Branwell wrote the following beautiful ode, somewhat
+incomplete in its expression, yet characteristic of his genius, which
+seems to have been inspired by the outcast feelings of which he spoke
+to Mr. Phillips, and to contain some reproach to those who thought him
+deficient in natural affection. It bears date April 3rd, 1846:
+
+    EPISTLE FROM A FATHER TO A CHILD IN HER GRAVE.
+
+      'From Earth,--whose life-reviving April showers
+    Hide withered grass 'neath Springtide's herald flowers,
+    And give, in each soft wind that drives her rain,
+    Promise of fields and forests rich again,--
+    I write to thee, the aspect of whose face
+    Can never change with altered time or place;
+    Whose eyes could look on India's fiercest wars
+    Less shrinking than the boldest son of Mars;
+    Whose lips, more firm that Stoic's long ago,
+    Would neither smile with joy nor blanch with woe;
+    Whose limbs could sufferings far more firmly bear
+    Than mightiest heroes in the storms of war;
+    Whose frame, nor wishes good, nor shrinks from ill,
+    Nor feels distraction's throb, nor pleasure's thrill.
+
+      'I write to thee what thou wilt never read,
+    For heed me thou _wilt not_, howe'er may bleed
+    The heart that many think a worthless stone,
+    But which oft aches for some belovéd one;
+    Nor, if that life, mysterious, from on high,
+    Once more gave feeling to thy stony eye,
+    Could'st thou thy father know, or feel that he
+    Gave life and lineaments and thoughts to thee;
+    For when thou died'st, thy day was in its dawn,
+    And night still struggled with Life's opening morn;
+    The twilight star of childhood, thy young days
+    Alone illumined, with its twinkling rays,
+    So sweet, yet feeble, given from those dusk skies,
+    Whose kindling, coming noontide prophesies,
+    But tells us not that Summer's noon can shroud
+    Our sunshine with a veil of thunder-cloud.
+
+      'If, when thou freely gave the life, that ne'er
+    To thee had given either hope or fear,
+    But quietly had shone; nor asked if joy
+    Thy future course should cheer, or grief annoy;
+
+      'If then thoud'st seen, upon a summer sea,
+    One, once in features, as in blood, like thee,
+    On skies of azure blue and waters green,
+    Melting to mist amid the summer sheen,
+    In trouble gazing--ever hesitating
+    'Twixt miseries each hour new dread creating,
+    And joys--whate'er they cost--still doubly dear,
+    Those "troubled pleasures soon chastised by fear;"
+    If thou _had'st_ seen him, thou would'st ne'er believe
+    That thou had'st yet known what it was to live!
+
+      'Thine eyes could only see thy mother's breast;
+    Thy feelings only wished on that to rest;
+    That was thy world;--thy food and sleep it gave,
+    And slight the change 'twixt it and childhood's grave.
+    Thou saw'st this world like one who, prone, reposes,
+    Upon a plain, and in a bed of roses,
+    With nought in sight save marbled skies above,
+    Nought heard but breezes whispering in the grove:
+    I--thy life's source--was like a wanderer breasting
+    Keen mountain winds, and on a summit resting,
+    Whose rough rocks rose above the grassy mead,
+    With sleet and north winds howling overhead,
+    And Nature, like a map, beneath him spread;
+    Far winding river, tree, and tower, and town,
+    Shadow and sunlight, 'neath his gaze marked down
+    By that mysterious hand which graves the plan
+    Of that drear country called "The Life of Man."
+
+      'If seen, men's eyes would loathing shrink from thee,
+    And turn, perhaps, with no disgust to me;
+    Yet thou had'st beauty, innocence, and smiles,
+    And now hast rest from this world's woes and wiles,
+    While I have restlessness and worrying care,
+    So sure, thy lot is brighter, happier far.
+
+      'So let it be; and though thy ears may never
+    Hear these lines read beyond Death's darksome river,
+    Not vainly from the borders of despair
+    May rise a sound of joy that thou art freed from care!'
+
+On the 6th of April of this year, Charlotte wrote to Messrs. Aylott &
+Jones, informing them that 'the Messrs. Bell' were preparing for the
+press a work of fiction, consisting of three distinct and unconnected
+tales, which might be published either together, as a work of three
+volumes of the ordinary novel size, or separately, as single volumes.
+It was not their intention to publish these at their own expense, and
+they wished to know if Messrs. Aylott would be likely to undertake the
+work, if approved.
+
+The novels must have been well on towards completion before the sisters
+ventured on these inquiries. The firm thus addressed kindly offered
+advice, of which Charlotte gladly availed herself to ask some
+questions. These were respecting the difficulty which unknown authors
+find in obtaining assistance from publishers; and Charlotte has indeed
+informed us that the three tales were going about among them 'for the
+space of a year and a half.' But 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey'
+at last found acceptance in the early summer of 1847.
+
+A friendly compact had been made between Branwell and Leyland that the
+latter should model a medallion of his friend, and that Branwell should
+write the poem 'Morley Hall,'--to which I have had occasion above to
+allude--a subject in which the sculptor was much interested. Shortly
+after his sister made the inquiries from Messrs. Aylott, Branwell
+visited Halifax to sit for his medallion; and, on the 28th of April, he
+wrote the following letter to his friend:--
+
+    'Haworth, Bradford,
+    'Yorks.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'As I am anxious--though my return for your kindness will be like
+    giving a sixpence for a sovereign lent--to do my best in my
+    intended lines on Morley, I want answers to the following
+    questions.... If I learn these facts, I'll do my best, but in all I
+    try to write I desire to stick to probabilities and local
+    characteristics.
+
+    'I cannot, without a smile at myself, think of my stay for three
+    days in Halifax on a business which need not have occupied three
+    hours; but, in truth, when I fall back _on_ myself, I suffer so
+    much wretchedness that I cannot withstand any temptation to get
+    _out_ of myself--and for that reason, I am prosecuting enquiries
+    about situations suitable to me, whereby I could have a voyage
+    abroad. The quietude of home, and the inability to make my family
+    aware of the nature of most of my sufferings, makes me write:
+
+        'Home thoughts are not with me,
+          Bright, as of yore;
+        Joys are forgot by me,
+          Taught to deplore!
+        My home has taken rest
+        In an afflicted breast,
+        Which I have often pressed,
+          But may no more.
+
+    'Troubles never come alone--and I have some little troubles astride
+    the shoulders of the big one.
+
+    'Literary exertion would seem a resource; but the depression
+    attendant on it, and the almost hopelessness of bursting through
+    the barriers of literary circles, and getting a hearing among
+    publishers, make me disheartened and indifferent, for I cannot
+    write what would be thrown unread into a library fire. Otherwise, I
+    have the materials for a respectably sized volume, and, if I were
+    in London personally, I might, perhaps, try ---- ----, a patronizer
+    of the sons of rhyme; though I daresay the poor man often smarts
+    for his liberality in publishing hideous trash. As I know that,
+    while here, I might send a manuscript to London, and say good-bye
+    to it, I feel it folly to feed the flames of a printer's fire. So
+    much for egotism!
+
+    'I enclose a horribly ill-drawn daub done to while away the time
+    this morning. I meant it to represent a very rough figure in stone.
+
+        'When all our cheerful hours seem gone for ever,
+          All lost that caused the body or the mind
+          To nourish love or friendship for our kind,
+        And Charon's boat, prepared, o'er Lethe's river
+        Our souls to waft, and all our thoughts to sever
+          From what was once life's Light; still there may be
+          Some well-loved bosom to whose pillow we
+        Could heartily our utter self deliver;
+        And if, toward her grave--Death's dreary road--
+          Our Darling's feet should tread, each step by her
+        Would draw our own steps to the same abode,
+          And make a festival of sepulture;
+        For what gave joy, and joy to us had owed,
+        Should death affright us from, when he would her restore?
+
+    'Yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+The sketch, referred to in this letter, is in Indian-ink, and is of a
+female figure, with clasped hands, streaming hair, and averted face. We
+need not entertain a doubt as to whom it is intended to represent. It
+is inscribed, in Spanish, 'Nuestra Señora de la Pena'--Our Lady of
+Grief--which also appears on a headstone in the sketch.
+
+The sonnet, which concludes this letter to Leyland, is beautiful as it
+is sad, and not only possesses the musical cadences, and completeness
+of theme, so essential in this mode of expression, but exhibits the
+high culture of Branwell's mind, and the direction in which the
+irrepressible emotions of his heart are moved.
+
+Branwell, in this communication, makes no further mention of his novel.
+Yet the experience of his sisters with their poems had only confirmed
+the judgment he expressed six months before, that no pecuniary
+advantage was to be obtained by publishing verse. The sisters had
+expended, on their little volume, over thirty pounds; but they valued
+it rightly as an effort to succeed. It was issued from the press early
+in May.
+
+Charlotte had conducted the negotiations with the publishers in a very
+business-like way. She had directed them as to the copies to be sent
+for review, and as to the advertisements, on which she wished to expend
+little. The book appeared, and the world took little note of it: it was
+scarcely mentioned anywhere; but the sisters at Haworth waited
+patiently, and they were not dismayed that they waited in vain; for
+they had new-born hope in their other literary venture of the three
+prose stories. 'The book,' says Charlotte of the Poems, 'was printed:
+it is scarcely known, and all of it that merits to be known are the
+poems of Ellis Bell. The fixed conviction I held, and hold, of the
+worth of these poems has not indeed received the confirmation of much
+favourable criticism; but I must retain it notwithstanding.'
+
+In his letter Branwell expresses himself as still anxious for
+employment; and wise in the direction in which he seeks it. A total
+change of scene and circumstance would have been, at this time, his
+best cure and greatest blessing. Unhappily, he failed in the attempt;
+and we find him again writing to Mr. Grundy, inquiring for some kind of
+occupation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DESPONDENCY.--BRANWELL'S LETTERS.
+
+Death of Branwell's late Employer--Branwell's Disappointment--His
+Letters--His Delusion--Leyland's Medallion of Him--Mr. Brontë's
+Blindness--Branwell's Statement to Mr. Grundy in Reference to
+'Wuthering Heights'--The Sisters Relinquish the Intention of Opening
+a School.
+
+
+An event occurred, in the early summer of 1846, which plunged
+Branwell into a despair, wilder, and more distracting than the one
+from which he had partially recovered. This resulted from the death
+of his late employer. No doubt, during the interval which had elapsed
+between his dismissal from his tutorship, and the event last named,
+he had encouraged himself, it might be unconsciously for the most
+part, with the hope that, on the death of her husband, the lady on
+whom he doted would marry him. In this frame of mind, when his
+illusion was intensified by the clearance of the path before him, and
+his self-control unbridled, it may not be a subject of wonder, if he
+became troublesome to the inmates of the dwelling afflicted by death.
+
+The following story, with variations, has been told as having
+reference to some actual or intended act of indiscretion of Branwell's
+at the time. It has been said that, at this juncture, a messenger was
+sent over to Haworth by Mrs. ----, forbidding Branwell 'ever to see
+her again, as, if he did, she would forfeit her fortune.'[26] It will
+be seen shortly that no such provision was made in her husband's will,
+and that the fortune she had secured to her could not be forfeited by
+any such act of Branwell's. The whole story, therefore, to which Mrs.
+Gaskell and Miss Robinson have devoted so much space may well be
+discredited. But Mrs. Gaskell says absolutely that Mrs. ----
+'despatched _a_ servant in hot haste to Haworth. He stopped at the
+"Black Bull," and a messenger was sent up to the parsonage for
+Branwell. He came down, &c.'[27] Miss Robinson, twenty-five years
+later, amplifies the story. She says: '_two_ men came riding to the
+village post haste. They sent for Branwell, and when he arrived, in a
+great state of excitement, one of the riders dismounted and went with
+him into the "Black Bull."'[28] Without inquiring into Branwell's
+excitement, or into the variations in the two accounts--for there is
+but one point in the story on which the two authors are perfectly
+agreed, _viz._, that Branwell, on the occasion, 'bleated like a
+calf!'--there can be little doubt that this case, on such evidence,
+could not get upon its legs before any country jury impanelled to try
+petty causes. But Branwell himself, in his letter to Mr. Grundy, given
+below, says the coachman _came_ to _see_ him, not that the lady _sent_
+him; and we may justly infer--if ever he came at all--that he come on
+his own account, having been personally acquainted with Branwell when
+he was tutor at ----. But, can it be believed that, supposing Mrs.
+---- to have been enamoured of Branwell, as asserted, she could find
+no other confidant than her 'coachman,' as a means of communicating
+her sorrows and lamentations to the distracted object of her devotion?
+There is, in this story, the inconsistency of madness. And it must be
+borne in mind that the other stories, relating to Branwell at the time
+of his tutorship at ----, which appear to have so much interested the
+biographers of Charlotte and Emily, have their paternity at Haworth,
+and are not the more trustworthy on that account.
+
+        [26] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap, xiii., 1st.
+        edit.
+
+        [27] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap, xiii., 1st.
+        edit.
+
+        [28] Robinson's 'Emily Brontë,' p. 145.
+
+I regret to trouble the reader still further with the errors of fact,
+and the exaggerated statements into which Mrs. Gaskell has fallen
+respecting this event. She says of Mrs. ----: '_Her husband had made
+a will, in which what property he left her was bequeathed solely on
+the condition that she should never see Branwell Brontë again_.'[29]
+(The Italics are my own.) Mrs. Gaskell's postulations concerning this
+will are quite as erroneous as that she made in reference to Miss
+Branwell's, so far as it related to her nephew. Indeed, like her other
+allegations respecting this most painful epoch of Branwell's life, she
+derived the information on which they were based, more from hearsay
+than from respectable or documentary evidence. It is clear she never
+saw the wills about which she speaks with so much assurance.
+
+        [29] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap, xiii., 1st
+        edit.
+
+Mrs. ----, by virtue of an indenture and a certain marriage
+settlement, was put into possession of an income that would, after her
+husband's death, have enabled her to live for the term of her life
+with Branwell in comparative plenty. To his wife, Mr. ----, in
+addition to this, left the interest arising from his real and personal
+estate. She was also principal trustee, executor, and guardian of his
+children. Moreover, he enjoined upon her co-trustees always to regard
+the wishes and interests of his wife, and to do nothing without
+consulting her about the administering of his affairs. But all
+this--and it is quite usual--was to continue only during her
+widowhood; and this common arrangement, let it be borne in mind, was
+no more directed against Branwell than anyone else. What then, it may
+well be asked, becomes of Mrs. Gaskell's assertion that the property
+left to Mrs. ---- was bequeathed solely on the condition that 'she
+should never see Branwell Brontë again'? Whatever Mrs. Gaskell and her
+followers may have asserted respecting Mr. ----'s will, it was made
+without the slightest reference to Branwell, who himself misconceived
+its character, and whose very existence is unknown to it, its
+provisions being made without the most distant allusion to the affair
+that worried the unfortunate tutor day and night.
+
+If the widow's love for Branwell had not been a mere figment of his
+wounded humanity, but the real affection which he fervently believed it
+to be, she had now the opportunity, with a sufficient income for the
+residue of her days, of enjoying with him an honourable and peaceful
+life. But the affection that makes sacrifices light, where they present
+themselves, was not there to call for them on behalf of Branwell, even
+had they now been needed. Moreover, there is no evidence worth the name
+that Mrs. ---- ever committed the acts in relation to him attributed to
+her; on the contrary, the sincere affection and touching reliance on
+his wife, manifested throughout his will, is proof enough that her
+husband had had no cause to call her fidelity in question. It is,
+indeed, true that, while the lady's reputation was unblemished in the
+wide circle of her friends in the neighbourhood of her residence, she
+was being traduced, misrepresented, and belied at Haworth and its
+vicinity alone. This was all known to Charlotte Brontë when she wrote
+her poem of 'Preference.'
+
+The state of Branwell's mind, and the extent of his hallucinations
+under their last phase, may be observed in the following letters,
+written in the month of June, 1846, the first being to Mr. Grundy.[30]
+
+        [30] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 89.
+
+    'Haworth, Bradford,
+    'York.
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I must again trouble you with--' (Here comes another prayer for
+    employment, with, at the same time, a confession that his health
+    alone renders the wish all but hopeless.) Subsequently he says,
+    'The gentleman with whom I have been is dead. His property is left
+    in trust for the family, provided I do not see the widow; and if I
+    do, it reverts to the executing trustees, with ruin to her. She is
+    now distracted with sorrows and agonies; and the statement of her
+    case, as given by her coachman, who has come to see me at Haworth,
+    fills me with inexpressible grief. Her mind is distracted to the
+    verge of insanity, and mine is so wearied that I wish I were in my
+    grave.
+
+    'Yours very sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+He also wrote to Leyland in great distraction.
+
+    'I should have sent you "Morley Hall" ere now, but I am unable to
+    finish it at present, from agony to which the grave would be far
+    preferable. Mr. ---- is _dead_, and he has left his widow in a
+    dreadful state of health.... Through the will, she is left quite
+    powerless. The executing trustees' (the principal one of whom, as
+    we have seen, was the very lady whose hopeless love for him he was
+    deploring) 'detest me, and one declares that, if he sees me, he
+    will shoot me.
+
+    'These things I do not care about, but I do care for the life of
+    the one who suffers even more than I do....
+
+    'You, though not much older than myself, have known life. I now
+    know it, with a vengeance--for four nights I have not slept--for
+    three days I have not tasted food--and, when I think of the state
+    of her I love best on earth, I could wish that my head was as cold
+    and stupid as the medallion which lies in your studio.
+
+    'I write very egotistically, but it is because my mind is crowded
+    with one set of thoughts, and I long for one sentence from a
+    friend.
+
+    'What shall I _do_? I know not--I am too hard to die, and too
+    wretched to live. My wretchedness is not about castles in the air,
+    but about stern realities; my hardihood lies in bodily vigour;
+    but, dear sir, my mind sees only a dreary future, which I as
+    little wish to enter on as could a martyr to be bound to a stake.
+
+    'I sincerely trust that you are quite well, and hope that this
+    wretched scrawl will not make me appear to you a worthless fool,
+    or a thorough bore.
+
+    'Believe me, yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+With this letter was enclosed a pen-and-ink sketch of Branwell bound
+to the stake, his wrists chained together, and surrounded by flames
+and smoke. The rigidity of the muscles, the fixed expression of the
+face, and the manifest beginning of pain are well portrayed.
+Underneath the drawing, in a constrained hand, is written, 'Myself.'
+
+Again he writes to Leyland a letter in which he dwells on his
+unavailing grief, and vividly points out its effects upon him. He
+says, alluding to the lady of his distracted thoughts, 'Well, my dear
+sir, I have got my finishing stroke at last, and I feel stunned into
+marble by the blow.
+
+'I have this morning received a long, kind, and faithful letter from
+the medical gentleman who attended ---- in his last illness, and who
+has since had an interview with one whom I can never forget.
+
+'He knows me _well_, and pities my case most sincerely.... It's hard
+work for me, dear sir; I would bear it, but my health is so bad that
+the body seems as if it could not bear the mental shock.... My
+appetite is lost, my nights are dreadful, and having nothing to do
+makes me dwell on past scenes,--on her own self--her own voice--her
+person--her thoughts--till I could be glad if God would take me. In
+the next world I could not be worse than I am in this.'
+
+On June the 17th, Charlotte writes:
+
+'Branwell declares that he neither can nor will do anything for
+himself; good situations have been offered him, for which, by a
+fortnight's work, he might have qualified himself, but he will do
+nothing except drink and make us all wretched.'[31]
+
+        [31] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xiv.
+
+It would seem that the sisters were unaware of the depth of his
+present misery, and in part misunderstood the disturbed condition of
+their brother's mind at this juncture. But Branwell, although
+suffering great mental prostration under the infliction of any sudden
+and unexpected disappointment, was possessed of considerable
+recuperative power; and, after a period of brooding melancholy over
+his woes, he appeared to take renewed interest in the events that were
+passing around him. This seems to have been the case even under his
+late circumstances; there was, in the depth of his own heart, a woe
+from which he endeavoured to escape by engaging in the pursuits and
+pleasures of his friends.
+
+On the 3rd of July, having, to all appearance, somewhat recovered from
+this disappointment, Branwell wrote to his friend the sculptor:
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'John Brown told me that you had a relievo of my very wretched
+    self, framed in your studio.
+
+    'If it be a _duplicate_, I should like the carrier to bring it to
+    Haworth; not that I care a fig for it, save from regard for its
+    maker,--but my sisters ask me to try to obtain it; and I write in
+    obedience to them.
+
+    'I earnestly trust that you are heartier than I am, and I promise
+    to send you "Morley Hall" as soon as dreary days and nights will
+    give me leave to do so.
+
+    'Believe me,
+
+    'Yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+This was a life-size medallion of him, head and shoulders, which
+Leyland had modelled. The work was in very high relief, and the
+likeness was perfect. It was inserted in a deep oval recess, lined
+with crimson velvet, and this was fixed in a massive oak frame,
+glazed. It projected, when hung up in the drawing-room of the
+parsonage at Haworth, some eight inches from the wall; this was the
+one Mrs. Gaskell saw, of which she says:--'I have seen Branwell's
+profile; it is what would be generally esteemed very handsome; the
+forehead is massive, the eye well set, and the expression of it fine
+and intellectual; the nose, too, is good; but there are coarse lines
+about the mouth, and the lips, though of handsome shape, are loose and
+thick, indicating self-indulgence, while the slightly retreating chin
+conveys an idea of weakness of will.'[32] Mrs. Gaskell had only an
+imperfect view of the work she describes, for it was hung on the wall
+directly _opposite_ to the windows, so that it was destitute of any
+side-light.
+
+        [32] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. ix.
+
+Again Branwell writes to Leyland, on the 16th of July, now more
+himself, and anxious to see his friends:
+
+'I enclose the accompanying bill to tempt you to Haworth next
+Monday....
+
+'For myself, after a fit of horror inexpressible, and violent
+palpitation of the heart, I have taken care of myself bodily, but to
+what good? The best health will not kill _acute_, and _not ideal_,
+mental agony.
+
+'Cheerful company does me good till some bitter truth blazes through
+my brain, and then the present of a bullet would be received with
+thanks.
+
+'I wish I could flee to writing as a refuge, but I cannot; and, as to
+_slumber_, my mind, whether awake or asleep, has been in incessant
+action for seven weeks.'
+
+Branwell wrote also to Mr. Grundy.[33]
+
+        [33] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 89.
+
+'Since I saw Mr. George Gooch, I have suffered much from the accounts
+of the declining health of her whom I must love most in the world, and
+who, for my fault, suffers sorrows which surely were never her due. My
+father, too, is now quite blind, and from such causes literary
+pursuits have become matters I have no heart to wield. If I could see
+you it would be a sincere pleasure, but.... Perhaps your memory of me
+may be dimmed, for you have known little in me worth remembering; but
+I still think often with pleasure of yourself, though so different
+from me in head and mind.'
+
+'I invited him,' says Mr. Grundy, 'to come to me at the Devonshire
+Hotel, Skipton, a distance of some seventeen miles, and in reply
+received the last letter he ever wrote.' Branwell says,
+
+    'If I have strength enough for the journey, and the weather be
+    tolerable, I shall feel happy in visiting you at the Devonshire on
+    Friday, the 31st of this month. The sight of a face I have been
+    accustomed to see and like when I was happier and stronger, now
+    proves my best medicine.'
+
+Mr. Grundy, supposing these letters to have been written in the year
+1848, is in error in stating this to have been the last Branwell ever
+wrote. The Friday Branwell mentions must have been the one that fell
+on the 31st of July, 1846. About the close of that month, Charlotte
+and Emily went to Manchester to consult Mr. Wilson, the oculist, who,
+later, removed the cataract from Mr. Brontë's eyes. Under these
+circumstances, Branwell failed in his intended journey to Skipton.
+
+The cataract had slowly increased as the summer advanced, till at last
+Mr. Brontë was quite blind. This gradual disappearance from his vision
+of the things he knew had necessarily a very depressing effect upon
+him. The thought would sometimes come to him that, if his sight were
+permanently lost, he would be nothing in his parish; but he supported
+himself, for the most part, under his affliction with his accustomed
+stoicism of endurance. His great trouble was that, when his sight
+became so dim that he could barely recognize his children's faces, and
+when he was debarred from using his eyes in reading, he was shut off
+from the solace of his books, and from the sources--the periodical
+press--of his knowledge of the current affairs of the outside world,
+wherein he took such intense interest. He was, then, left dependent on
+the information of others, or on his children, who read to him in such
+time as they could spare from literary and household occupations. Yet
+there was hope--hope of an ultimate restoration of sight, and Mr.
+Brontë was still able to preach, even when he could not see those to
+whom he spoke. It was remarked that even then his sermons occupied
+exactly half-an-hour in delivery. This was the length of time he, with
+his ready use of words, had always found sufficient, and he did not
+exceed it now.
+
+Every inquiry had been made from private friends that might throw
+light upon the chances of success in any possible operation, and it
+was in view of this object that the sisters visited Manchester. There
+they met with Mr. Wilson, who was, however, unable to say positively
+from description whether the eyes were ready for an operation or not.
+He proposed to extract the cataract, and it was accordingly arranged
+that Mr. Brontë should meet him.
+
+Charlotte took her father to Manchester on the 16th of August, and,
+writing a few days later, she says to her friend, 'I just scribble a
+line to you to let you know where I am, in order that you may write to
+me here, for it seems to me that a letter from you would relieve me
+from the feeling of strangeness I have in this big town. Papa and I
+came here on Wednesday; we saw Mr. Wilson, the oculist, the same day;
+he pronounced papa's eyes quite ready for an operation, and has fixed
+next Monday for the performance of it. Think of us on that day! We got
+into our lodgings yesterday. I think we shall be comfortable; at
+least, our rooms are very good.... Mr. Wilson says we shall have to
+stay here for a month at least. I wonder how Emily and Anne will get
+on at home with Branwell. They, too, will have their troubles. What
+would I not give to have you here! One is forced, step by step, to get
+experience in the world; but the learning is so disagreeable. One
+cheerful feature in the business is that Mr. Wilson thinks most
+favourably of the case.'
+
+Charlotte's fears respecting her brother happily proved to be
+unfounded; he was himself anxious about his father's recovery; and, on
+her return, Charlotte, says Mrs. Gaskell, expressed herself thankful
+for the good ensured, and the evil spared during her absence.
+
+From Charlotte's next letter we learn that the operation was over.
+'Mr. Wilson performed it; two other surgeons assisted. Mr. Wilson says
+he considers it quite successful; but papa cannot yet see anything.
+The affair lasted precisely a quarter-of-an-hour; it was not the
+simple operation of couching, Mr. C. described, but the more
+complicated one of extracting the cataract. Mr. Wilson entirely
+disapproves of couching. Papa displayed extraordinary patience and
+firmness; the surgeons seemed surprised. I was in the room all the
+time, as it was his wish that I should be there; of course, I neither
+spoke nor moved till the thing was done, and then I felt that the less
+I said, either to papa or the surgeons, the better. Papa is now
+confined to his bed in a dark room, and is not to be stirred for four
+days; he is to speak and be spoken to as little as possible.' No
+inflammation ensued, yet the greatest care, perfect quiet, and utter
+privation of light were still necessary to complete the success of the
+operation; and Mr. Brontë remained in his darkened room with his eyes
+bandaged. Charlotte thus speaks of her father under these trying
+circumstances. 'He is very patient, but, of course, depressed and
+weary. He was allowed to try his sight for the first time yesterday.
+He could see dimly. Mr. Wilson seemed perfectly satisfied, and said
+all was right. I have had bad nights from the toothache since I came
+to Manchester.' But, when the danger was over, daily progress was
+made, and Mr. Brontë and his helpful daughter were able to return to
+Haworth at the end of September, when he was fast regaining his sight.
+
+It was probably during the six weeks when Mr. Brontë and Charlotte
+were absent in Manchester that Mr. Grundy resolved to visit Branwell.
+He says: 'As he never came to see me, I shortly made up my mind to
+visit him at Haworth, and was shocked at the wrecked and wretched
+appearance he presented. Yet he still craved for an appointment of any
+kind, in order that he might try the excitement of change; of course
+uselessly.'[34]
+
+        [34] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 90.
+
+It must, it seems, have been on this occasion, in the course of
+conversation at the parsonage, that Branwell made a statement,
+respecting his novel, to Mr. Grundy, which has acquired considerable
+interest. I give it in the words in which Mr. Grundy recalls the
+incident. 'Patrick Brontë declared to me, and what his sister said
+bore out the assertion, that he wrote a great portion of "Wuthering
+Heights" himself.' It should be remembered, in connection with this
+occurrence, that, when Mr. Grundy talked with Branwell and Emily at
+Haworth, the three novels which the sisters had completed a few months
+before, had met only with repeated rejection, and, perhaps, they felt
+little confidence in the ultimate publication of them. 'The Professor,'
+indeed, had come back to Charlotte's hands, curtly rejected, on the
+very day of the operation. Doubtful of ever finding a publisher willing
+to take this tale, or, at any rate, undaunted, she had commenced, while
+her father was confined to his darkened room at Manchester, the
+three-volume story which was afterwards to become famous as 'Jane
+Eyre;' Anne, too, since she had finished 'Agnes Grey,' had been busily
+writing 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' also meant to be a three-volume
+story. So absorbed had the sisters become in novel writing, that a
+suggestion made by a friend, at this period, of a suitable place for
+opening a school, met only with an evasive answer.
+
+'Leave home!' exclaims Charlotte, in her reply. 'I shall neither be
+able to find place nor employment; perhaps, too, I shall be quite
+past the prime of life, my faculties will be rusted, and my few
+acquirements in a great measure forgotten. These ideas sting me keenly
+sometimes; but, whenever I consult my conscience, it affirms that I am
+doing right in staying at home, and bitter are its upbraidings when I
+yield to an eager desire for release. I could hardly expect success if
+I were to err against such warnings. I should like to hear from you
+again soon. Bring ---- to the point, and make him give you a clear,
+not a vague, account of what pupils he really could promise; people
+often think they can do great things in that way till they have tried;
+but getting pupils is unlike getting any other sort of goods.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+BRANWELL'S LETTERS AND LAST INTERVIEW WITH MR. GRUNDY.
+
+Branwell's Sardonic Humour--Mr. Grundy's Visit to him at Haworth--
+Errors regarding the Period of it--Tragic Description--Probable
+Ruse of Branwell--Correspondence between him and Mr. Grundy ceases
+--Writes to Leyland--A Plaintive Verse--Another Letter.
+
+
+Branwell, having shared the family anxiety, as the time drew near for
+the operation which restored his father's sight, experienced a sense
+of deep relief when all went well; moreover, the keenness of his
+disappointment had had time to soften, and now a grim and sardonic
+humour began to characterize his proceedings and his correspondence.
+In this frame of mind he wrote to Leyland, early in October, 1846, a
+letter illustrated by some of his most spirited pen-and-ink sketches,
+in black and outline. It was headed by a drawing of John Brown, who
+had been engaged in lettering a monument, and who was represented
+under two different aspects. These are in one sketch, divided in
+the middle by a pole, on which is placed a skull. In the first
+compartment, the sexton is exhibited in a state of glorious
+exultation, kicking over the table and stools, while the chair he
+occupies is falling backwards. He holds a tumbler in his right hand,
+and swears, in his Yorkshire dialect, that he is 'King and a hauf!'
+under this, the word 'PARADISE' is inscribed. The second tableau
+represents John Brown commencing his work. On a table-tomb, the
+sexton's maul and chisels are placed. Being in uncertainty as to how,
+or where, to begin, he exclaims, 'Whativver mun I do?' In the corner,
+is a drawing of the western elevation of Haworth Church, and, near to
+Brown, a head-stone, with skull and crossbones, inscribed, 'Here lieth
+the Poor.' Underneath the subject is the word 'PURGATORY.' The
+following is the letter:
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'Mr. John Brown wishes me to tell you that, if, by return of post,
+    you can tell him the nature of his intended work, and the time it
+    will probably occupy in execution, either himself or his brother,
+    or both, will wait on you _early_ next week.
+
+    'He has only delayed answering your communication from his
+    unavoidable absence in a pilgrimage from Rochdale-on-the-Rhine to
+    the Land of Ham, and from thence to Gehenna, Tophet, Golgotha,
+    Erebus, the Styx, and to the place he now occupies, called
+    Tartarus, where he, along with Sisyphus, Tantalus, Theseus, and
+    Ixion, lodge and board together.
+
+    'However, I hope that, when he meets you, he will join the company
+    of Moses, Elias, and the prophets, "singing psalms, sitting on a
+    wet cloud," as an acquaintance of mine described the occupation of
+    the Blest.
+
+    '"Morley Hall" is in the eighth month of her pregnancy, and
+    expects ere long to be delivered of a fine thumping boy, whom his
+    father means to christen _Homer_, at least, though the mother
+    suggests that "Poetaster" would be more suitable; but that sounds
+    too aristocratic.
+
+    'Is the medallion cracked that Thorwaldsen executed of AUGUSTUS
+    CÆSAR?' To this question is appended a drawing of a coin, about
+    the size of an ordinary penny, with the head of Branwell--an
+    excellent likeness--around which the name of the emperor is
+    placed. He continues:
+
+    'I wish I could see you; and, as Haworth fair is held on Monday
+    after the ensuing one, your presence there would gratify one of
+    the FALLEN.' Here he represents himself as plunging head foremost
+    into a gulf.
+
+    'In my own register of transactions during my nights and days, I
+    find no matter worthy of extraction for your perusal. All is yet
+    with me clouds and darkness. I hope you have, at least, blue sky
+    and sunshine.
+
+    'Constant and unavoidable depression of mind and body sadly
+    shackle me in even trying to go on with any mental effort, which
+    might rescue me from the fate of a dry toast, soaked six hours in
+    a glass of cold water, and intended to be given to an old maid's
+    squeamish cat.'
+
+Here is a sketch of the cat, distracted between a tumbler on each
+side held by an attenuated hand.
+
+    'Is there really such a thing as the _Risus Sardonicus_--the
+    sardonic laugh? Did a man ever laugh the morning he was to be
+    hanged?'
+
+The tail-piece to this letter is a drawing of a gallows, a hand
+holding forth the halter to the culprit, who is John Brown, and an
+excellent portrait, grinning at the rope that is to terminate his
+existence!
+
+Mr. Grundy--'very soon'--visited Haworth again. But I must premise,
+to the account of his visit which Mr. Grundy has published, some
+observations respecting the period at which it occurred. Mr. Grundy,
+having attributed the later letters, which Branwell Brontë addressed
+to him, to the year 1848--though they really belong to 1846--has, with
+some appearance of consistency, produced the following picture of his
+friend, under the impression that 'a few days afterwards he died.' But
+the circumstances that Mr. Grundy's journey to Haworth arose out of
+the wish to see him, which Branwell had expressed in a letter written
+at the time when his father was 'quite blind,' and that, as Mr. Grundy
+says his visits followed shortly after Branwell had failed to go to
+Skipton, are themselves sufficient evidence as to the question of
+date.
+
+Mr. Grundy says of his final interview: 'Very soon I went to Haworth
+again to see him, for the last time. From the little inn I sent for
+him to the great, square, cold-looking Rectory. I had ordered a dinner
+for two, and the room looked cosy and warm, the bright glass and
+silver pleasantly reflecting the sparkling fire-light, deeply toned by
+the red curtains. Whilst I waited his appearance, his father was shown
+in. Much of the Rector's old stiffness of manner was gone. He spoke of
+Branwell with more affection than I had ever heretofore heard him
+express, but he also spoke almost hopelessly. He said that when my
+message came, Branwell was in bed, and had been almost too weak for
+the last few days to leave it; nevertheless, he had insisted upon
+coming, and would be there immediately. We parted, and I never saw him
+again.
+
+'Presently the door opened cautiously, and a head appeared. It was a
+mass of red, unkempt, uncut hair, wildly floating round a great, gaunt
+forehead; the cheeks yellow and hollow, the mouth fallen, the thin
+white lips not trembling but shaking, the sunken eyes, once small, now
+glaring with the light of madness--all told the sad tale but too
+surely. I hastened to my friend, greeted him in the gayest manner, as
+I knew he best liked, drew him quickly into the room, and forced upon
+him a stiff glass of hot brandy. Under its influence, and that of the
+bright, cheerful surroundings, he looked frightened--frightened of
+himself. He glanced at me a moment, and muttered something about
+leaving a warm bed to come out into the cold night. Another glass of
+brandy, and returning warmth, gradually brought him back to something
+like the Brontë of old. He even ate some dinner, a thing which he said
+he had not done for long; so our last interview was pleasant, though
+grave. I never knew his intellect clearer. He described himself as
+waiting anxiously for death--indeed, longing for it, and happy, in
+these his sane moments, to think that it was so near. He once again
+declared that that death would be due to the story I knew, and to
+nothing else.
+
+'When at last I was compelled to leave, he quietly drew from his coat
+sleeve a carving-knife, placed it on the table, and holding me by
+both hands, said that, having given up all thoughts of ever seeing
+me again, he imagined when my message came that it was a call from
+Satan. Dressing himself, he took the knife, which he had long had
+secreted, and came to the inn, with a full determination to rush into
+the room and stab the occupant. In the excited state of his mind he
+did not recognise me when he opened the door, but my voice and manner
+conquered him, and "brought him home to himself," as he expressed it.
+I left him standing bareheaded in the road, with bowed form and
+dropping tears. A few days afterwards he died.... His age was
+twenty-eight.'[35]
+
+        [35] 'Pictures of the Past,' pp. 90-92.
+
+Mr. Grundy's account of this interview is inconsistent in itself. Of
+course, if his friend had really been so far gone as he represents,
+it is incredible that Mr. Brontë would have been privy to his son's
+visit to the inn. It is quite clear that Mr. Grundy's recollection
+of the interview, and of Branwell's appearance, at this distance of
+time, with Mrs. Gaskell's account before him, has received a new
+significance. I incline to the belief that the truth of the matter is
+this: that, in the spirit of his letters to Leyland, Branwell acted a
+part, and imposed this ruse upon his friend to gratify the peculiar
+humour that was then upon him, an episode which the latter, with his
+erroneous impression as to the date, has been led to depict in
+somewhat lurid colours. It is most probable, indeed, that, like
+Hamlet, he 'put an antic disposition on.' Something confirmatory of
+this view will appear in the next chapter. Among his friends, as I
+know, Branwell would now and then assume an indignant, and sometimes
+a furious mood, and put on airs of wild abstraction from which he
+suddenly recovered, and was again calm and natural, smiling, indeed,
+at his successful impersonation of passions he scarcely felt at the
+time. The absence of further correspondence between Branwell and Mr.
+Grundy, and the fact that the Skipton and Bradford railway, for
+hich that gentleman was resident engineer, was fully opened more
+than a year before Branwell's death, seem to indicate that further
+intercourse ceased between the two at this date. It would not,
+perhaps, have been necessary to trouble the reader with these
+explanations, had not Mr. Grundy's narrative of his last evening with
+Branwell appeared to receive some sort of confirmation through its
+republication by Miss Robinson, in her picture of the brother of Emily
+Brontë shortly before his end.
+
+Again Branwell wrote to Leyland:
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I had a letter written, and intended to have been forwarded to
+    you a few days after I last left the ensnaring town of Halifax.
+
+    'That letter, from being kept so long in my pocket-book, has gone
+    out of date, so I have burnt it, and now send a short note as a
+    precursor to an awfully lengthy one.
+
+    'I have much to say to you with which you would probably be sadly
+    bored; but, as it will be only asking for advice, I hope you will
+    feel as a cat does when her hair is stroked down towards her tail.
+    She _purrs_ then; but she _spits_ when it is stroked upwards.
+
+    'I wish Mr. ---- of ---- would send me my bill of what I owe him,
+    and the moment that I receive my outlaid cash, or any sum that may
+    fall into my hands, I shall settle it.
+
+    'That settlement, I have some reason to hope, will be shortly.
+
+    'But can a few pounds make a fellow's soul like a calm bowl of
+    creamed milk?
+
+    'If it can, I should like to drink that bowl dry.
+
+    'I shall write more at length (Deo Volente) on matters of much
+    importance to me, but of little to yourself.
+
+    'Yours in the bonds,
+
+    'SANCTUS PATRICIUS BRANWELLIUS BRONTËIO.'
+
+With the foregoing letter, Branwell enclosed a page containing three
+spirited sketches. The first is a scene in which the sculptor and
+Branwell are the principal actors. They are seated on stools, facing
+one another, each holding a wine glass, and, between them on the
+ground, is a decanter. Behind the sculptor is placed the mutilated
+statue of Theseus. A copy of Cowper's 'Anatomy' is open at the
+title-page; and, leaning over it, is a figure of Admodeus, Setebos, or
+some other winged imp, taking sight at the two. The second sketch is
+of Branwell himself, represented as a recumbent statue, resting on a
+slab, under which are the following mournful lines:--
+
+        'Thy soul is flown,
+        And clay alone
+    Has nought to do with joy or care;
+        So if the light of light be gone,
+        There come no sorrows crowding on,
+    And powerless lies DESPAIR.'
+
+The third drawing is a landscape, having in the foreground a
+head-stone, with a skull and crossbones in the semi-circular head. On
+the stone are carved the words, HIC JACET. Distant peaked hills bound
+the view. Two pines are to the right of the picture, and the crescent
+moon, which represents a human profile, is accommodated with a pipe.
+Underneath it is inscribed the sentence:
+
+    'MARTINI LUIGI IMPLORA ETERNA QUIETE!'
+
+The following letter, written to Leyland a little later, shows again
+the stormy perturbations of Branwell's mind. He still clings to the
+fond imagination that he is the object of the lady's unwavering
+devotion; and, with the incoherency of the monomania with which he
+continues to be afflicted, he solemnly declares to the sculptor that
+he had said to no one what he is then saying to him; while, in truth,
+he was telling the story of his disappointed hopes to all who would
+hear the recital. The theme is that of a wild, eager, and unavailing
+love--whose joys and sorrows he tells in vivid words--which he
+believes to be returned with equal energy and passion.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I am going to write a scrawl, for the querulous egotism of which
+    I must entreat your mercy; but, when I look _upon_ my past,
+    present, and future, and then _into_ my own self, I find much,
+    however unpleasant, that yearns for utterance.
+
+    'This last week an honest and kindly friend has warned me that
+    concealed hopes about one lady should be given up, let the effort
+    to do so cost what it may. He is the ----, and was commanded by
+    ----, M.P. for ----, to return me, unopened, a letter which I
+    addressed to ----, and which the Lady was not permitted to see.
+    She too, surrounded by powerful persons who hate me like Hell, has
+    sunk into religious melancholy, believes that her weight of sorrow
+    is God's punishment, and hopelessly resigns herself to her doom.
+    God only knows what it does cost, and will, hereafter, cost me, to
+    tear from my heart and remembrance the thousand recollections that
+    rush upon me at the thought of four years gone by. Like ideas of
+    sunlight to a man who has lost his sight, they must be bright
+    phantoms not to be realized again.
+
+    'I had reason to hope that ere very long I should be the husband
+    of a Lady whom I loved best in the world, and with whom, in more
+    than competence, I might live at leisure to try to make myself a
+    name in the world of posterity, without being pestered by the
+    small but countless botherments, which, like mosquitoes, sting
+    us in the world of work-day toil. That hope and herself are
+    _gone_--_she_ to wither into patiently pining decline,--_it_ to
+    make room for drudgery, falling on one now ill-fitted to bear it.
+    That ill-fittedness rises from causes which I should find myself
+    able partially to overcome, had I bodily strength; but, with the
+    want of that, and with the presence of daily lacerated nerves,
+    the task is not easy. I have been, in truth, too much petted
+    through life, and, in my last situation, I was so much master,
+    and gave myself so much up to enjoyment, that now, when the cloud
+    of ill-health and adversity has come upon me, it will be a
+    disheartening job to work myself up again, through a new life's
+    battle, from the position of five years ago, to that from which I
+    have been compelled to retreat with heavy loss and no gain. My
+    army stands now where it did then, but mourning the slaughter of
+    Youth, Health, Hope, and both mental and physical elasticity.
+
+    'The last two losses are, indeed, important to one who once built
+    his hopes of rising in the world on the possession of them. Noble
+    writings, works of art, music, or poetry, now, instead of rousing
+    my imagination, cause a whirlwind of blighting sorrow that sweeps
+    over my mind with unspeakable dreariness; and, if I sit down and
+    try to write, all ideas that used to come, clothed in sunlight,
+    now press round me in funereal black; for really every pleasurable
+    excitement that I used to know has changed to insipidity or pain.
+
+    'I shall never be able to realize the too sanguine hopes of my
+    friends, for at twenty-nine I am a thoroughly _old man_, mentally
+    and bodily--far more, indeed, than I am willing to express. God
+    knows I do not scribble like a poetaster when I quote Byron's
+    terribly truthful words--
+
+        '"No more--no more--oh! never more on me
+          The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew,
+        Which, out of all the lovely things we see,
+          Extracts emotions beautiful and new!"
+
+    'I used to think that if I could have, for a week, the free range
+    of the British Museum--the library included--I could feel as
+    though I were placed for seven days in Paradise; but now, really,
+    dear sir, my eyes would rest upon the Elgin marbles, the Egyptian
+    saloon, and the most treasured columns, like the eyes of a dead
+    cod-fish.
+
+    'My rude, rough acquaintances here ascribe my unhappiness solely
+    to causes produced by my sometimes irregular life, because they
+    have known no other pains than those resulting from excess or want
+    of ready cash. They do not know that I would rather want a shirt
+    than want a springy mind, and that my total want of happiness,
+    were I to step into York Minster now, would be far, far worse than
+    their want of a hundred pounds when they might happen to need it;
+    and that, if a dozen glasses, or a bottle of wine, drives off
+    their cares, such cures only make me outwardly passable in
+    company, but _never_ drive off mine.
+
+    'I know only that it is time for me to be something, when I am
+    nothing, that my father cannot have long to live, and that, when
+    he dies, my evening, which is already twilight, will become night;
+    that I shall then have a constitution still so strong that it will
+    keep me years in torture and despair, when I should every hour
+    pray that I might die.
+
+    'I know that I am avoiding, while I write, one greatest cause of
+    my utter despair; but, by G----, sir, it is nearly too bitter for
+    me to allude to it!' Here follow a number of references to the
+    subject, with which the reader is already familiar, and therefore
+    it is unnecessary to repeat them here. Then Branwell continues:
+
+    'To no one living have I said what I now say to you, and I should
+    not bother yourself with my incoherent account, did I not believe
+    that you would be able to understand somewhat of what I
+    meant--though _not all_, sir; for he who is without hope, and
+    knows that his clock is at twelve at night, cannot communicate his
+    feelings to one who finds _his_ at twelve at noon.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BRANWELL BRONTË AND 'WUTHERING HEIGHTS.'
+
+'Wuthering Heights'--Reception of the Book by the Public--It is
+Misunderstood--Its Authorship--Mr. Dearden's Account--Statements
+of Mr. Edward Sloane and Mr. Grundy--Remarks by Mr. T. Wemyss
+Reid--Correspondences between 'Wuthering Heights' and Branwell's
+Letters--The 'Carving-knife Episode'--Further Correspondences--
+Resemblances of Thought in Branwell and Emily.
+
+
+We have now become acquainted with the principal features of
+Branwell's career, have obtained some insight into his character, and
+learned much respecting his genius. We have gained also some knowledge
+of the history of the Brontë sisters in that most crucial period of
+their lives, when they returned again to literature with the new
+earnest which led them to fame.
+
+We have seen that it was Branwell who first seriously undertook the
+production of a novel, and we have noticed Mr. Grundy's statement
+concerning the authorship of 'Wuthering Heights.' Here, then, is the
+proper place in which to say something on this question; for there
+have not been wanting others also to assert that Branwell was, in
+great part, the writer of it. Miss Robinson, in her 'Emily Brontë,'
+dismisses the assertion as altogether untrue; but she rightly says, as
+all will agree, that 'in the contemptuous silence of those who know
+their falsity, such slanders live and thrive like unclean insects
+under fallen stones.' It cannot, therefore, be inappropriate, in such
+a work as the present, to record, as clearly and succinctly as may be,
+what has been said on the subject, and to make a suggestion--for it is
+nothing more--as to what is the truth of the matter.
+
+When 'Wuthering Heights,' after its slow progress through the press,
+was given to the world in the December of 1847, neither the critics
+nor the public were very well able to grasp its meaning. Reviewers,
+to quote Charlotte Brontë, 'too often remind us of the mob of
+Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered before the "writing
+on the wall," and unable to read the characters or make known the
+interpretation.' In 'Wuthering Heights' they found the subject
+disagreeable, the characters brutal, the conception crude, and the
+object of the work wholly unintelligible. The most that could be made
+of it, was that some rude soul in the north of England, burning with
+spite against his species, had set himself, with intent little short
+of diabolical, to lay open the most vicious depths of selfishness and
+crime, which he had embodied in the actions of characters so lost and
+revolting, that the mind recoiled with a shudder from the perusal of
+the monstrosity he had created. One critic, who dwelt at some length
+on the want of 'tone' and polish in the book, surmised that the writer
+of it had suffered, 'not disappointment in love, but some great
+mortification of pride,' which had so embittered his spirit that he
+had prepared this stinging story in vengeance on his species, and had
+flung it, crying, 'There, take that!' with cynical pleasure, in the
+very teeth of humankind.
+
+This writer even felt it his duty to caution young people against the
+book. 'It ought to be banished from refined society,' he says. 'The
+whole tone of the book smacks of lowness.'--'A person may be
+ill-mannered from want of delicacy of perception or cultivation, or
+ill-mannered intentionally; the author of "Wuthering Heights" is
+both.'--'But the taint of vulgarity in our author extends deeper than
+mere snobbishness; he is rude, because he prefers to be so.' I quote
+these remarks, as an extreme instance, to show that a critic, who
+could recognize the great imaginative power, the subtlety, the keen
+insight, and the fine dramatic character of 'Wuthering Heights,' yet
+felt such a strong repugnance to its unknown author that he thought
+him unfit to associate with his fellow-men. It never crossed the minds
+of the critics in those times that the book could be by any but a man
+of strong personal character, and one with a wide experience of the
+dark side of human nature.
+
+However, a feeling speedily grew up that 'Wuthering Heights' was an
+earlier and immature production, attempted to be palmed off upon the
+public, of the author of 'Jane Eyre,' against whom a charge of bad
+faith was thereby virtually made; and even Sydney Dobell (in the
+'Palladium' of September, 1850), the first critic who had sympathy
+enough with genius to discern the nature and comprehend the
+significance of the book, did not escape this error. It is not
+necessary here to repeat the unfortunate consequences of this
+misunderstanding, which caused Charlotte eventually to throw off the
+disguise, and declare openly that 'Wuthering Heights' was the work of
+her sister Emily. 'Unjust and grievous error!' says Charlotte. 'We
+laughed at it at first, but I deeply lament it now.' In the face of
+her statement, further remark on the authorship was naturally
+silenced; but, from time to time, when the book was discussed, much
+astonishment was manifested that a simple and inexperienced girl, like
+Emily Brontë, had been able to draw, with such nervous and morbid
+analysis, so sombre a picture of the workings of passions which she
+could never have actually known, and of natures 'so relentless and
+implacable, of spirits so lost and fallen,' as those of Heathcliff and
+Hindley Earnshaw.
+
+A writer in the 'Cornhill Magazine'[36] who attributes to Emily Brontë
+the distinction that she has written a book 'which stands as
+completely alone in the language as does "Paradise Lost," or the
+"Pilgrim's Progress,"' thus speaks of it: 'Its power,' he says, 'is
+absolutely Titanic; from the first page to the last it reads like the
+intellectual throes of a giant. It is fearful, it is true, and perhaps
+one of the most unpleasant books ever written: but we stand in amaze
+at the almost incredible fact that it was written by a slim country
+girl, who would have passed in a crowd as an insignificant person, and
+who had had little or no experience of the ways of the world. In
+Heathcliff, Emily Brontë has drawn the greatest villain extant, after
+Iago. He has no match out of Shakespeare. The Mephistopheles of
+Goethe's "Faust" is a person of gentlemanly proclivities compared with
+Heathcliff.... But "Wuthering Heights" is a marvellous curiosity in
+literature. We challenge the world to produce another work in which
+the whole atmosphere seems so surcharged with suppressed electricity,
+and bound in with the blackness of tempest and desolation.'
+
+        [36] Vol. xxviii, p. 54. 1873.
+
+Perhaps this same grim and Titanic power of 'Wuthering Heights' is one
+reason why many readers do not understand it fully. 'It is possible,'
+Mr. Swinburne says, 'that, to take full delight in Emily Brontë's
+book, one must have something by natural inheritance of her instinct,
+and something by earlier association of her love of the special points
+of earth--the same lights, and sounds, and colours, and odours, and
+sights, and shapes of the same fierce, free landscape of tenantless,
+and fruitless, and fenceless moor.'
+
+But the composition of 'Wuthering Heights' was in great part
+incomprehensible to Charlotte herself, though she endeavours to
+account for it by a consideration of her sister's character and
+circumstances. For, as we have seen, she says, 'I am bound to avow
+that she had scarcely more practical knowledge of the peasantry
+amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country people who
+sometimes pass her convent gates.'
+
+'"Wuthering Heights,"' to quote Charlotte Brontë's Preface to the new
+edition of it, 'was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of
+homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary
+moor; gazing thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a
+head, savage, swart, sinister; a form moulded with at least one
+element of grandeur--power. He wrought with a rude chisel, from no
+model but the vision of his meditations. With time and labour, the
+crag took human shape; and there it stands colossal, dark, and
+frowning, half statue, half rock: in the former sense, terrible and
+goblin-like; in the latter, almost beautiful, for its colouring is of
+mellow grey, and moorland moss clothes it; and heath, with its
+blooming bells and balmy fragrance, grows faithfully close to the
+giant's foot.'
+
+Many years ago, a writer in the 'People's Magazine,' speaking of the
+authorship of 'Wuthering Heights,' said: 'Who would suppose that
+Heathcliff, a man who never swerved from his arrow-straight course to
+perdition from his cradle to his grave, ... had been conceived by a
+timid and retiring female? But this was the case.' The perusal of this
+sentence led Mr. William Dearden--author of the 'Star Seer' and the
+'Maid of Caldene'--who was acquainted with Branwell Brontë, to
+communicate to the 'Halifax Guardian,' in June, 1867, some facts,
+within his personal knowledge, touching the question, which he
+extracted from the MS. preface to his poem entitled, 'The Demon
+Queen,' not then published.
+
+It appears, from this account, that Branwell and Mr. Dearden had
+entered into a friendly poetic contest. Each was to write a poem
+in which the principal character was to have a real or imaginary
+existence before the Deluge. They met, on the occasion, at the 'Cross
+Roads,' a hostel a little more than a mile from Haworth on the road
+to Keighley, where an evening was spent in the reading of their
+respective productions. Leyland was to decide upon the merits of the
+poems. In reference to this meeting Mr. Dearden says,
+
+    'We met at the time and place appointed ... I read the first act
+    of the "Demon Queen;" but, when Branwell dived into his hat--the
+    usual receptacle of his fugitive scraps--where he supposed he had
+    deposited his MS. poem, he found he had by mistake placed there
+    a number of stray leaves of a novel on which he had been trying
+    his "prentice hand." Chagrined at the disappointment he had
+    caused, he was about to return the papers to his hat, when both
+    friends earnestly pressed him to read them, as they felt a
+    curiosity to see how he could wield the pen of a novelist. After
+    some hesitation, he complied with the request, and riveted our
+    attention for about an hour, dropping each sheet, when read, into
+    his hat. The story broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence,
+    and he gave us the sequel, _vivâ voce_, together with the real
+    names of the prototypes of his characters; but, as some of these
+    personages are still living, I refrain from pointing them out to
+    the public. He said he had not yet fixed upon a title for his
+    production, and was afraid he should never be able to meet with a
+    publisher who would have the hardihood to usher it into the world.
+    The scene of the fragment which Branwell read, and the characters
+    introduced in it--so far as then developed--were the same as those
+    in "Wuthering Heights," which Charlotte Brontë confidently asserts
+    was the production of her sister Emily.'
+
+Another friend of Branwell Brontë also, Mr. Edward Sloane of Halifax,
+author of a work entitled, 'Essays, Tales, and Sketches,' (1849)
+declared to Mr. Dearden that Branwell had read to him, portion by
+portion, the novel as it was produced, at the time, insomuch that he
+no sooner began the perusal of 'Wuthering Heights,' when published,
+than he was able to anticipate the characters and incidents to be
+disclosed.[37] Thus Mr. Dearden and the late Mr. Sloane claimed to have
+knowledge of 'Wuthering Heights' as the work of Branwell, before it
+was issued from the press; and we have seen that Mr. Grundy declares
+Branwell to have said, with the consent of his sister, that he had
+written 'a great portion of "Wuthering Heights" himself,' a statement
+which, remembering the 'weird fancies of diseased genius' with which
+Branwell had entertained him at Luddenden Foot, inclined Mr. Grundy to
+believe 'that the very plot was his invention rather than his
+sister's.'[38]
+
+        [37] It should be stated, perhaps, that one recent newspaper
+        writer, possibly with the intention of discrediting any
+        claim that might be set up for Branwell's authorship of
+        'Wuthering Heights,' has drawn from the depths of his
+        memory, or, possibly, of his imagination, a story that
+        Branwell had read to him, as his own, the plot of 'Shirley.'
+        But, since 'Shirley' was not commenced very many months
+        before Branwell's death, and since he had been in his grave
+        a year when it was published, it is obviously impossible
+        that he can ever have desired to draw to himself the praise
+        which was bestowed upon it. And this ingenious writer has
+        adopted, curiously enough, almost the phraseology of Mr.
+        Dearden's account, published eighteen years ago, saying, 'he
+        took from his hat, the usual receptacle, &c.,' which
+        suggests an impression of unconscious plagiarism.
+
+        [38] 'Pictures of the Past,' by Francis H. Grundy, C.E.
+        1879, p. 80.
+
+The evidence for the original ascription of authorship is simple in
+the extreme. Charlotte Brontë has told us in the Biographical Notice,
+as well as in the Preface, which she has prefixed to 'Wuthering
+Heights,' that the book was the work of Ellis Bell; and clearly no
+shadow of doubt was on her mind at the time as to the accuracy of this
+statement; nor had the publisher of the book any uncertainty as to the
+matter. Moreover, the servant Martha is said to have seen Emily Brontë
+writing it. We are told, also, that it is impossible that the upright
+spirit of the gentle Emily could resort to the miserable fraud of
+appropriating a work which was not her own. And, lastly, modern
+critics have not found it difficult to believe that a woman might be
+the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' They see nothing incongruous or
+impossible in the possession, by a feminine intellect, of such a
+searching knowledge of sinister propensities as are developed in that
+book, nor of its descending to those chaotic depths of black moral
+distortion, where it is possible for Hindley Earnshaw, with hideous
+blasphemy, to drink damnation to his soul, that he may be able to
+'punish its Maker,' and where the life-long vengeance of Heathcliff is
+drawn out, with wondrous power, to its ghastly and impotent end.
+
+How far Charlotte's statement is weakened by the fact that, up to the
+time when she discovered the volume of verse, and the three sisters
+commenced their novels--at which period it will be remembered one
+volume of Branwell's work was written--they had made no communication
+to one another of the literary work which each had in progress, is,
+perhaps, a matter for personal opinion. The declaration of Martha
+would probably be of little value, unless we knew that what Emily was
+writing was entirely independent of Branwell's work. And, again, those
+who have sought to defend Ellis Bell from the charge of fraud, have
+perhaps been over hasty; for, so far as I know, that charge has never
+been either made or implied.
+
+As to the capability of Branwell to write 'Wuthering Heights,' not
+much need be said here. Those who read this book will see that,
+despite his weaknesses and his follies, Branwell was, indeed,
+unfortunate in having to bear the penalty, in ceaseless open
+discussion, of 'une fanfaronnade des vices qu'il n'avait pas,' and
+that, moreover, his memory has been darkened, and his acts
+misconstrued, by sundry writers, who have endeavoured to find in
+his character the source of the darkest passages in the works of
+his sisters.
+
+Far from being hopelessly a 'miserable fellow,' an 'unprincipled
+dreamer,' an 'unnerved and garrulous prodigal,' as we have been told
+he was, he had, in fact, within him, an abundance of worthy ambition,
+a modest confidence in his own ability, which he was never known to
+vaunt, and a just pride in the celebrity of his family, which, it may
+be trusted, will remove from him, at any rate, the imputation of a
+lack of moral power to do anything good or forcible at all.
+
+Those who have heard fall from the lips of Branwell Brontë--and they
+are few now--all those weird stories, strange imaginings, and vivid
+and brilliant disquisitions on the life of the people of the
+West-Riding, will recognize that there was at least no opposition, but
+rather an affinity, between the tendency of his thoughts and those of
+the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' And, as to special points in the
+story, it may be said that Branwell Brontë had tasted most of the
+passions, weaknesses, and emotions there depicted; had loved, in
+frenzied delusion, as fiercely as Heathcliff loved; as with Hindley
+Earnshaw, too, in the pain of loss, 'when his ship struck; the captain
+abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her,
+rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless
+vessel.' He had, too, indeed, manifested much of the doating folly of
+the unhappy master of the 'Heights'; and, finally, there is no doubt
+that he possessed, nevertheless, almost as much force of character,
+determination, and energy as Heathcliff himself.
+
+The following extract from a lecture by Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, will show
+the opinion of that gentleman--which he applies to prove that Branwell
+was in part the subject of his sister's work--that there is a distinct
+correspondence in the feelings and utterances of Heathcliff and
+Branwell in this book, which, as he observes, critics have again and
+again declared to be like the dream of an opium-eater, which we have
+seen that Branwell was. Mr. Reid states: 'I said that, perhaps, the
+most striking part of "Wuthering Heights" was that which deals with
+the relations of Heathcliff and Catherine, after she had become the
+wife of another. Whole pages of the story are filled with the ravings
+and ragings of the villain against the man whose life stands between
+him and the woman he loves. Similar ravings are to be found in all the
+letters of Branwell Brontë written at this period of his career; and
+we may be sure that similar ravings were always on his lips, as, moody
+and more than half mad, he wandered about the rooms of the parsonage
+at Haworth. Nay, I have found some striking verbal coincidences
+between Branwell's own language and passages in "Wuthering Heights."
+In one of his own letters there are these words in reference to the
+object of his passion: "My own life without her will be hell. What can
+the so-called love of her wretched, sickly husband be to her compared
+with mine?" Now, turn to "Wuthering Heights," and you will read these
+words: "Two words would comprehend my future--_death_ and _hell_:
+existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy
+for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine.
+If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as
+much in eighty years as I could in a day."'[39]
+
+        [39] Lecture by Mr. T. Wemyss Reid.
+
+If Mr. Reid had quoted the beginning of this paragraph, another point
+of correspondence would have been perceived between the feelings
+manifested in it and those which had actuated Branwell Brontë.
+Heathcliff is speaking: '"You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?" he
+said. "Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that
+for every thought she spends on Linton, she spends a thousand on me!
+At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it
+haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her
+own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then,
+Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I
+dreamt!"'
+
+We have seen that, in the summer of 1845, Branwell lost his employment,
+and returned to the neighbourhood of Haworth, and that he, too, at
+that most miserable period of _his_ life, when he wrote his novel, and
+'Real Rest,' and 'Penmaenmawr,' had had a notion that the lady of his
+affections had nearly forgotten him.
+
+It may be observed that Catherine Earnshaw, in an earlier part of the
+book, uses a like antithesis to that quoted by Mr. Reid. 'Whatever our
+souls are made of,' says she, speaking of Heathcliff and herself, 'his
+and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from
+lightning, or frost from fire.' Though it is not strictly accurate
+that in _all_ Branwell's letters at this period there are similar
+ravings, or that such were always on his lips, there are, at all
+events, other coincidences of thought and expression to be found in
+his letters and poems with certain features and passages in 'Wuthering
+Heights,' which are not less striking. A few instances will illustrate
+much in that work which it is not easy to believe could have been
+transcribed by the writer from the utterances of another. Even so
+early as his letter to John Brown, we have seen with what force
+Branwell could express himself when he chose. He speaks in that letter
+of one who 'will be used as the tongs of hell,' and of another 'out
+of whose eyes Satan looks as from windows.' Let us turn to where
+Heathcliff's eyes are described, in Chapter vii. of the novel, as
+'that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their
+windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies;'
+and, in Chapter xvii., where Isabella Heathcliff says of them: 'The
+clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which
+usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not
+fear to hazard another sound of derision.'
+
+We have noticed how Branwell plays upon the word _castaway_ at the
+close of his letter on his novel. Charlotte has said they all had a
+leaning to Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway,' and appropriated it in one
+way or another; she told Mrs. Gaskell that Branwell had done so. The
+word is used twice in 'Wuthering Heights.' Heathcliff is described as
+having been a 'little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway,' and
+the younger Catherine addresses pious Joseph, oddly enough, and by a
+coincidence singular enough, remembering Branwell's allusion in his
+letter, in these words: 'No, reprobate! you are a castaway--be off, or
+I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay.'
+
+Mention may also be made here, with reference to the occurrence of the
+names 'Linton' and 'Hareton' in 'Wuthering Heights,' that, somewhat
+before the time of the writing of his novel, Branwell was accustomed
+frequently to visit a place of the former designation, and that he
+had, as we have seen, when he was in Broughton-in-Furness, a friend of
+the name of Ayrton.
+
+In the above letter on his novel it will be remembered, in speaking of
+the character of his work, that Branwell says he hopes to leap from
+the present bathos of fictitious literature to the firmly-fixed rock
+honoured by the foot of a Smollett or a Fielding, and speaks of
+revealing man's heart as faithfully as in the pages of 'Hamlet' or
+'Lear.' In the first four chapters of 'Wuthering Heights,' which serve
+as prelude to the darker portions of the story, we are introduced to
+the inmates of the farm that gives its name to the novel. Mr.
+Lockwood, who has rented Thrushcross Grange of Heathcliff, and has
+come to reside there, relates his experience of two visits he pays to
+his landlord at the 'Heights.' In the excellent humour of this portion
+of the story we are certainly reminded of Branwell Brontë, and perhaps
+of Smollett and Fielding too. The succeeding chapters are related in a
+manner more subdued, proper to the narration of the housekeeper. There
+is just one mention of 'King Lear' in 'Wuthering Heights,' on the
+second of these visits, when, at last, Mr. Lockwood, after he has been
+knocked down by the dogs, addresses the inmates of the 'Heights,'
+'with several incoherent threats of retaliation, that, in their
+infinite depth of virulency, smacked of "King Lear."' More than once
+have this story and Shakspeare's great tragedy been named in kinship,
+and Miss Robinson, unaware of Branwell's observation on his own prose
+tale, gives a second place, with 'King Lear,' to 'Wuthering Heights.'
+
+It is impossible to read 'Wuthering Heights' without being struck with
+the part which consumption and death are made to play in the progress
+of the story. Scarcely a character is there depicted in whom we do
+not recognize some trait, some weakness, remotely or more closely,
+indicating deep-seated phthisis; and evidences of a true and certain
+observation, in the writer, are to be found in the pictures of its
+power there delineated. In Branwell's poem on 'Caroline,' we have
+already seen with what certain touch he depicts her death from that
+disease; and how deeply, and almost morbidly, he broods on its
+ravages; and, in one of his later poems, we have a second and more
+striking picture of decline. In Emily's verse anything of the kind is
+entirely wanting; and, indeed, it is what we miss in her poems, even
+more than what we find in Branwell's, that must ever surprise us when
+we look for the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' Branwell, in his
+writings, is often engaged with subjects of real and personal
+interest, and the scheme of his work is apparent. Several of his
+poems, indeed, when once read, leave an impress on the memory which
+is evidence enough of the power and originality by which they are
+inspired. For the most part, Emily's poems are impersonal,
+imaginative, and ideal.
+
+It will be remembered that Mr. Grundy, in his 'Pictures of the Past,'
+has given an account of his last interview with Branwell, which he
+declares took place but a few days before Branwell died. I have shown
+conclusively that the interview is ascribed by Mr. Grundy, and by Miss
+Robinson following him, to a wrong date, and that it took place, in
+fact, in 1846, when the manuscript was still in the author's hands,
+perhaps, indeed, undergoing revision at the time. Branwell, according
+to his friend, had concealed in his coat sleeve, on this occasion, a
+carving-knife, with which, in his frenzy, he designed to kill the
+devil, whose call, he supposed, had summoned him to the inn; and he
+was surprised to find Mr. Grundy there instead. I have surmised that,
+when this grotesque episode occurred, Branwell was but jesting with
+his friend, who, in his surprise, took him altogether _au sérieux_;
+and, remembering that Mr. Grundy says Branwell had declared to him
+before that 'Wuthering Heights' was in great part his own work, it
+will be seen that there are passages in the novel which seem to lend
+probability both to this surmise as to Branwell's intention, and also
+to Mr. Grundy's statement. Thus, in Chapter ix., Hindley Earnshaw
+returns to the house in a state of frenzied intoxication, and, finding
+Nelly Dean stowing away his son in a cupboard, he flies at her with a
+madman's rage, crying: 'By heaven and hell, you've sworn between you
+to murder that child! I know how it is, now, that he is always out of
+my way. But, with the help of Satan, I shall make you swallow the
+carving-knife, Nelly! You needn't laugh; for I've just crammed
+Kenneth, head-downmost, in the Blackhorse marsh; two is the same as
+one--and I want to kill some of you: I shall have no rest till I do!'
+To which Nelly Dean replies, 'But I don't like the carving-knife, Mr.
+Hindley; it has been cutting red herrings. I'd rather be shot, if you
+please.' Again, in Chapter xvii., when Isabella's taunts have stung
+Heathcliff to retaliation, he snatches up a dinner-knife and flings it
+at her head; and she is struck beneath the ear. We may believe, then,
+that when Branwell appeared in this strange guise before his friend,
+he was but jestingly rehearsing in act, with an 'antic disposition'
+such incidents as he had recently described in the volume he had
+mentioned to Mr. Grundy.
+
+Miss Robinson, in her 'Emily Brontë' (p. 95), has some sarcastic
+remarks about Branwell's pride in his family name. 'Proud of his
+name!' she writes: 'He wrote a poem on it, "Brontë," an eulogy of
+Nelson, which won the patronizing approbation of Leigh Hunt, Miss
+Martineau, and others, to whom, at his special request, it was
+submitted. Had he ever heard of his dozen aunts and uncles, the
+Pruntys of Ahaderg? Or if not, with what sensations must the Vicar
+(_sic_) of Haworth have listened to this blazoning forth and
+triumphing over the glories of his ancient name?' Branwell's pride in
+the name of Brontë would have been foolish enough if it had been of
+the nature Miss Robinson supposes; but perhaps it had another meaning.
+At any rate Nelly Dean puts pride of birth in quite a different light
+in 'Wuthering Heights,' where she gives good advice to Heathcliff.
+'You're fit for a prince in disguise,' she says even to the 'little
+Lascar,' the 'American or Spanish castaway.' 'Who knows but your
+father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of
+them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and
+Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors
+and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high
+notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me
+courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!'
+This was exactly what Branwell Brontë did.
+
+There are two other points in which I will indicate correspondences
+between the phraseology and ideas of 'Wuthering Heights' and those of
+Branwell Brontë. In one of his letters here published, Branwell,
+sketching a criminal grinning with the halter round his neck, asks the
+question: 'Is there really such a thing as the _Risus Sardonicus_? Did
+a man ever laugh the morning he was to be hanged?' Now, in the novel,
+Isabella Heathcliff says: 'I was in the condition of mind to be
+shocked at nothing: in fact, I was as reckless as some malefactors
+show themselves at the foot of the gallows.' Lastly, Heathcliff
+declares, speaking of Hindley Earnshaw: 'Correctly, that fool's body
+should be buried at the cross-roads, without ceremony of any kind.'
+Now Branwell was not only familiar with the traditions of suicides
+buried at the cross-roads near Haworth, as well as at similar
+cross-roads, but he was accustomed, in his perambulations through the
+district, when in this direction, to visit the ancient hostel at that
+place: and, indeed, it was this house he fixed upon for the reading of
+the poem he had written, and where he read, as we have seen, in lieu
+of it, the portion, of his novel, surmised to be 'Wuthering Heights,'
+to Mr. Dearden and his other friend. It would be tedious to indicate
+all the minor similarities of expression in the novel to those in
+Branwell's letters.
+
+Yet there are two or three points noticeable in 'Wuthering Heights,'
+which are marked in Emily's verse. Emily's love of Nature, of the
+moors; her deep brooding on the mystery of being, which led her to
+look on the calm of death as an assurance of future rest for all, are
+to be found in her poetry; and, in a lesser degree, also in 'Wuthering
+Heights.' Thus we read, in Chapter xvi. of the story, of Linton and
+his dead wife: 'Next morning--bright and cheerful out of doors--stole
+softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the
+couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had
+his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair
+features were almost as death-like as those of the form beside him,
+and almost as fixed: but _his_ was the hush of exhausted anguish, and
+_hers_ of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips
+wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more
+beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite calm in
+which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed
+on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively echoed the
+words she had uttered a few hours before: "Incomparably beyond and
+above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is
+at home with God!"'
+
+The reflections suggested to Nelly Dean by the spectacle of repose
+presented by the dead Catherine seem to Mr. Reid to be characteristic
+of Emily, speaking 'out of the fulness of her heart.' 'I don't know if
+it be a peculiarity in me,' says the narrator in the story, 'but I am
+seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death,
+should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I
+see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an
+assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they
+have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its
+sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much
+selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so
+regretted Catherine's blessed release! To be sure, one might have
+doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led,
+whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in
+seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her
+corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of
+equal quiet to its former inhabitants.' But Mr. Lockwood is made to
+say, speaking of the housekeeper's anxiety to know if he thinks such
+people are happy in the other world, 'I declined answering Mrs. Dean's
+question, which struck me as something heterodox.' The story also
+concludes, speaking of the head-stones of Edgar Linton, Heathcliff,
+and Catherine: 'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched
+the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the
+soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could
+ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.'
+But there is in these very points a remarkable coincidence of feeling
+between Branwell and Emily also. Indeed, in the expression of these
+thoughts, Branwell's verse is well-nigh more powerful than Emily's. We
+have known his desire for the oblivious peace of 'Real Rest'; and, in
+his letters, he has sketched many head-stones, on one of which are the
+words: 'I implore for rest'; and, in the 'Epistle to a Child in her
+Grave,' he has told us of the freedom from ill of that quiet and
+painless sepulchre. Here are a few stray lines of Branwell's, which
+will serve as illustration of this coincidence:
+
+    'Think not that Life is happiness,
+      But deem it _duty_ joined with _care_;
+    Implore for _hope_ in your distress,
+      And for your answers, get _despair_;
+    Yet travel on, for Life's rough road
+      May end, at last, in rest with _God_!'
+
+Again we may ask: did Branwell Brontë write 'Wuthering Heights,'
+or any part of it? The evidence that he did so is, probably,
+insufficient. But let it be remembered that, as stated in his letter
+to Leyland, he had clearly undertaken a three-volume novel, and, in
+one way or other, had written a volume of his story. The charge of
+falsehood brought against Branwell in his statement to Mr. Grundy will
+not now probably be renewed; but there may not be wanting some to say
+that Mr. Grundy is in error in connecting what his friend said to him
+about his own novel with some allusion of his sister's to 'Wuthering
+Heights,' and that those gentlemen who believe the novel Branwell read
+to them to be the same as that attributed to Emily are in error also.
+It has been said that, on the rare occasions on which the father or
+brother entered the room where the sisters were writing their novels,
+nothing was said of the work in progress. But it must be confessed
+that these views meet with little encouragement from what we know of
+the history of that period.
+
+We have seen that, prior to the autumn of 1845, Branwell had been
+employed in writing his novel; a little later, we have reason to
+suspect that he is not going on with it, and we find him writing a
+poem with the same theme as a contemporary one of Emily's. We then
+find the sisters taking up novel writing with precisely Branwell's
+views of the profit to be derived from it. When he writes to Leyland
+on the 28th of April, 1846, shortly before the poems of his sisters
+were published, and while they are finishing their novels, Branwell
+has ceased to speak of his, but says that, if he were in London
+personally, he would try a certain publisher with his poems. Now it
+was an edition of Wordsworth by this same publisher that Charlotte
+had, four months earlier, fixed upon as a model for the sisters' own
+volume of poems. Branwell, then, however strained his relations with
+his sister Charlotte might be at this late date, must have known that
+his sisters were writing their tales. Why, then, the change in his
+aims? Why is he, who had propounded that view of the superior
+advantages of prose over poetic writing, which afterwards determined
+the sisters to write novels, silent about his own, and thinking of
+publishing his poems? and never again do we hear of any attempt on his
+part to finish his novel, though he lived a year after his sisters'
+works were published. What had become of his novel in the interim?
+
+Perhaps there is evidence, then, to warrant us in throwing out a
+suggestion that there may have been some measure of collaboration
+between Branwell and his sister, that he originated the idea, moulded
+the characters, and wrote the earlier portion of the work, which she,
+taking, revised, amended, completed, and imbued with enough of an
+individual spirit to give unity to the whole. In support of this view,
+it may be noted that, though there is no break in the style of
+'Wuthering Heights,' yet all the interests of the original story are,
+in a manner, completed in the seventeenth chapter--that is, something
+more than half-way through the book. In that first portion of it we
+trace the vehement passion of Heathcliff for Catherine up to her
+death. We see his enmity to Edgar Linton, which is satisfied by his
+possession of Linton's sister, whom he hates and despises, but who is
+the mother of a child to be heir to Thrushcross Grange, and we see the
+death of this unhappy wife. In this first portion of the novel is
+unrolled also the gradual growth of Heathcliff's hatred of Earnshaw,
+from the time when he says: 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay
+Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at
+last. I hope he will not die before I do,' up to the death of that
+miserable character, whose son remains an ignorant dependent, because
+his drunken father has been lured to make away with his wealth at the
+gaming-table to his Mephistophelian pursuer. Here is depicted that
+dark and malevolent spirit which ranks Heathcliff with the demons, as
+where he says: 'I have no pity--I have no pity! The more the worms
+writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails. It is a moral
+teething, and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the
+increase of pain.'
+
+In the second part of the story, opening with the eighteenth chapter,
+we are occupied with the fates of the children of Linton, Earnshaw,
+and Heathcliff. We learn how the latter trains up his miserable,
+puling son for the purpose of marrying the daughter of Linton, which
+he forcibly brings about, and thus completes his possession of the
+Grange; how he endeavours to pervert the youthful Hareton Earnshaw, to
+'see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another with the same wind
+to twist it;' and in the end how his vengeance is completely thwarted.
+Thus there are two distinct parts in 'Wuthering Heights,' one being
+the completion and complement of the other.
+
+As some evidence for the view here thrown out, I may mention that, in
+reading 'Wuthering Heights' in order to discover what correspondences
+there might exist between it and Branwell's writings, in letters,
+etc., I was very much struck with the fact that, for every five of
+such correspondences which I discovered in the first part of the
+novel, I could find only one in the latter. We need not, therefore, be
+surprised if, in the concluding half of 'Wuthering Heights,' Branwell
+has stood to the author as model for some details of character, though
+these can be very few. Yet Nelly Dean does say of Heathcliff's love
+for Catherine: 'He might have had a monomania on the subject of his
+departed idol; but on every other point his wits were as sound as
+mine.'[40]
+
+        [40] 'Wuthering Heights,' chap. xxxiii.
+
+The collaboration which I have mentioned would by no means imply
+unfair action on the part of Emily Brontë: she was ever a kind,
+gentle, and faithful friend to Branwell, and had looked forward,
+perhaps more anxiously than her sisters, to his success in the world.
+There would be nothing extraordinary, then, in Branwell handing over
+to his favourite sister, to whom he was always grateful for her
+abiding affection, the work which he had begun, and which he, perhaps,
+felt himself dissatisfied with, or unable to complete, or in his
+supplying her with a plot, and assisting her with his experience in
+the delineation of the characters in any story she might wish to
+produce. To have done so would be quite consistent with what we know
+of him; and he never claimed the authorship, so far as I know, after
+the occasion of Mr. Grundy's visit to the parsonage twelve months
+before the publication of the novel; and he read it to two or three
+personal friends only, and to these, if my supposition be correct,
+perhaps before his sister had taken up the work.
+
+One other circumstance, besides the disappearance of Branwell's novel,
+finds explanation in this view of the matter: that Emily, who never
+undertook a second novel, produced, not only the most original and
+powerful of the contemporary tales of the sisters, but one that is
+also a much longer story than 'The Professor,' by Charlotte, and half
+as long again as 'Agnes Grey,' by Anne. Here, then, must probably
+remain the question of the origin of 'Wuthering Heights.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+BRANWELL BRONTË AND 'THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.'
+
+Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in
+consequence of her Brother's Conduct--Supposition of Some that
+Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon--The Characters are
+Entirely Distinct--Real Sources of the Story--Anne Brontë at
+Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of
+Branwell.
+
+
+Charlotte Brontë, who never dreamed of attributing the production
+of so dire a story as 'Wuthering Heights,' by her sister Emily,
+o brooding on Branwell's misfortunes, has, however, in her
+remarks on Anne Brontë's second novel, 'The Tenant of Wildfell
+Hall,'--meant by its author as a tale of warning against the evils of
+intemperance,--intimated that it was carried out as a duty by Anne, in
+consequence of the impression made upon her by her brother's conduct;
+and certain writers, questioning the statement of Charlotte that the
+characters are fictitious, have concluded that, in Arthur Huntingdon,
+we have 'a picture' and a 'portrait' of Branwell Brontë. It seems to
+me, rightly considered, a cruel thing to Anne Brontë to believe that
+she has given us a portrait of her brother in the character of the
+perfidious Huntingdon. Had her brother been thus vile, she could not
+have borne to write over the details of his character; were he not
+like Huntingdon, she could not have libelled him so.
+
+As none of the biographers of the Brontë sisters ever knew Branwell,
+it is probable that the Branwell Brontë of the biographies owes more
+to the supposed Branwell of the novels, than the characters in the
+novels do to the brother of the Brontës. It is Huntingdon's wit,
+superficial as it is, that has connected him with the ideal of
+Branwell Brontë. A few traits of his, indeed, there may be in
+Huntingdon, but they are not the worst of those depicted in that
+character. The contempt for gambling which Huntingdon expresses may
+be taken as an instance.
+
+We shall, however, look in vain for any true resemblance between the
+characters of Arthur Huntingdon and Branwell Brontë, and, certainly,
+in almost every respect, one is a direct contrast to the other. The
+biographer of Emily Brontë says, indeed, that Branwell 'sat to Anne
+sorrily enough for the portrait of Henry (_sic_) Huntingdon;' but I
+would ask where that portraiture lies? Huntingdon, be it marked, is
+not only a drunkard, but he is a libertine, a man who has even the
+callous brutality to recount to his trusting wife, as she sits by him
+on the sofa, endeavouring to amuse him, the 'stories of his former
+amours, always turning upon the ruin of some confiding girl, or the
+cozening of some unsuspecting husband; and when I express my horror
+and indignation,' she says, 'he lays it to the charge of jealousy, and
+laughs till the tears run down his cheeks.' But it was different with
+Branwell, against whom it has never been charged that he sank to these
+low depths of criminal debauchery, indulgence, and treachery; and even
+those who have recounted the story of his passion for the wife of his
+employer, are compelled to say that he remained pure, and shrank in
+horror from the advances which they suppose she made. Huntingdon's
+vicious disposition, too, is so sunk in selfishness, and there is in
+him such a cold brutality,--as where on many an occasion he triumphs
+over his powerless wife,--that he is placed in absolute contrast to
+Branwell, with his confiding, considerate, open-hearted, and generous
+nature.
+
+It is but necessary to allude to Huntingdon's hypocrisy to establish
+a further difference between his character and Branwell's; and it
+is, moreover, very distinctive of Huntingdon's mind that he is,
+throughout, utterly irreverent and irreligious, to such an extent that
+he jests at sacred things, and declares that his wife's piety is
+enough to make him jealous of his Maker. Again he says, when he places
+her hand on the top of his head, and it sinks in a bed of curls,
+'rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle;' 'if God meant me to
+be religious, why didn't He give me a proper organ of veneration?'
+This irreverence he carries with him into domestic life, and he
+invades the sanctity of human affection, and the places the heart
+keeps holy, with his gross and insensate brutality. How different is
+this from Branwell Brontë, in whose character reverence and affection,
+above all things, were strong! Can we imagine Huntingdon dwelling so
+fondly in the affection of the long departed, as Branwell does in his
+poems of 'Caroline;' can we imagine him venerating as a precious
+possession to his dying day the sacred memories of his early years, as
+his supposed prototype did? What 'swell of thought,' seeming to fill
+'the bursting heart, the gushing eye' with the memories of bygone
+years, could flood the shallow brain of the selfish and unfeeling
+Huntingdon? And Huntingdon, too, is afflicted with that well-known
+complaint of the continual drinker; he loses all interest in the
+affairs of life, and exists in perpetual levity. 'There is always a
+"but" in this imperfect world,' says his wife, 'and I do wish he would
+sometimes be serious. I cannot get him to write or speak in real,
+solid earnest. I don't much mind it now, but if it be always so what
+shall I do with the serious part of myself?' I would ask when Branwell
+Brontë displayed this unseemly levity? if he did not always write and
+speak in solid earnest; if, indeed, he did not live in the very midst
+of that storm and stress of acute feeling which Huntingdon's wretched
+nature was incapable of experiencing at all?
+
+Lastly, Helen Huntingdon tells us that her husband is impenetrable to
+good and lofty thoughts, that he never reads anything but newspapers
+and sporting magazines, that she wishes he would take up some literary
+study, or learn to draw or play; and that, when deprived of his
+friends, his condition is comfortless, unalleviated as it is by the
+consolations of intellectual resources, and the answer of a good
+conscience towards God. What, then, were Branwell's mental resources?
+His thoughts, on the contrary, were good and lofty enough; he was a
+student of literature, and especially a reader of the great poets; he
+had, indeed, taken up literary work; and he could and did both draw,
+and play on the organ; and when he was deprived of society, or cast
+into trouble, he found his consolation in his literary labours, and we
+have seen that, for the very purpose of obtaining alleviation in
+distress, he had written a volume of his novel. In short, he was, as
+far as his intellectual character and habits were concerned, exactly
+what Helen Huntingdon wished her husband might be.
+
+If, then, there is no resemblance between Branwell Brontë's
+disposition, character, and capabilities and those of Huntingdon in
+the novel, we might, after what has been said, surely expect to find
+that, in the unique point in which there is a correspondence of
+fact--their indulgence in drink--there would be some similar traits.
+But here, again, the resemblance is of the faintest, while the
+differences are radical. Huntingdon, for instance, is a continual and
+inveterate drinker; Branwell drank but occasionally, and had long
+periods of temperance: Huntingdon drinks for the love of drink;
+Branwell drank in order to drown his sorrows. It is, moreover, made a
+special point by the Brontë biographers that part of Branwell's
+intemperance was in taking opium, but this feature does not exist in
+Huntingdon, though Anne was clearly acquainted with the practice, for
+she mentions in the novel that Lord Lowborough at one time took it.
+
+But, for the character of Huntingdon, we must look elsewhere. The
+account Charlotte gave of one whom the Brontës had known well, will
+show from what sources Anne drew her plot.
+
+'You remember Mr. and Mrs. ----? Mrs. ---- came here the other day,
+with a most melancholy tale of her wretched husband's drunken,
+extravagant, profligate habits. She asked papa's advice; there was
+nothing, she said, but ruin before them. They owed debts which they
+could never pay. She expected Mr. ----'s instant dismissal from his
+curacy; she knew, from bitter experience, that his vices were utterly
+hopeless. He treated her and her child savagely; with much more to the
+same effect. Papa advised her to leave him for ever, and go home, if
+she had a home to go to. She said this was what she had long resolved
+to do; and she would leave him directly, as soon as Mr. B----
+dismissed him. She expressed great disgust and contempt towards him,
+and did not affect to have the shadow of regard in any way. I do not
+wonder at this, but I do wonder she should ever marry a man towards
+whom her feelings must always have been pretty much the same as they
+are now. I am morally certain no decent woman could experience
+anything but aversion towards such a man as Mr. ----. Before I knew,
+or suspected his character, and when I rather wondered at his
+versatile talents, I felt it in an uncontrollable degree. I hated to
+talk with him--hated to look at him; though, as I was not certain that
+there was substantial reason for such a dislike, and thought it absurd
+to trust to mere instinct, I both concealed and repressed the feeling
+as much as I could; and, on all occasions, treated him with as much
+civility as I was mistress of. I was struck with Mary's expression of
+a similar feeling at first sight; she said, when we left him, "That is
+a hideous man, Charlotte!" I thought, "He is indeed."'[41]
+
+        [41] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. ix.
+
+And here is another case known to the Brontës. 'Do you remember my
+telling you--or did I ever tell you--about that wretched and most
+criminal Mr. ----? After running an infamous career of vice, both in
+England and France, abandoning his wife to disease and total
+destitution in Manchester, with two children and without a farthing,
+in a strange lodging-house? Yesterday evening Martha came upstairs to
+say that a woman--"rather lady-like," as she said--wished to speak to
+me in the kitchen. I went down. There stood Mrs. ----, pale and worn,
+but still interesting-looking and cleanly and neatly dressed, as was
+her little girl who was with her. I kissed her heartily. I could
+almost have cried to see her, for I had pitied her with my whole soul
+when I heard of her undeserved sufferings, agonies, and physical
+degradation. She took tea with us, stayed about two hours, and frankly
+entered into a narrative of her appalling distresses.... She does not
+know where Mr. ---- is, and of course can never more endure to see
+him. She is now staying a few days at E---- with the ----s, who, I
+believe, have been all along very kind to her, and the circumstance is
+greatly to their credit.'[42]
+
+        [42] T. Wemyss Reid's 'Charlotte Brontë, a Monograph,' chap.
+        vii., p. 83.
+
+It was with cases like these before them that the Brontës wrought the
+infelicity of Heathcliff and Isabella, of Huntingdon and Helen. They
+felt themselves compelled to represent life as it appeared to them,
+they said.
+
+Consumption and intemperance, the curses of our island and our
+climate, are found not the less in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. A
+cold and humid atmosphere, like poverty and want, begets a recourse to
+stimulants, and, with some natures, the bounds of moderation are soon
+passed. The prevalence of the latter evil had entered deeply into
+Anne's thoughts. Her brother's occasional indulgence had made it
+familiar to her; but we should clearly commit an error, as well as a
+great injustice to her, in supposing that, in the character of
+Huntingdon, she wished to present his failings to the public.
+
+A careful study of the question has, indeed, convinced me, not only
+that Huntingdon is no portrait of Branwell Brontë, but that he is
+distinctly and designedly his very antitype. The author of 'Wildfell
+Hall' could scarcely have created a character so completely different
+from Branwell, unless she intended to do so; for, otherwise, writing
+under the influence of circumstances, and the inspiration of the
+moment, something of his strong personality must surely have found its
+way into the book. It is pleasant to be thus able to record, as an act
+of justice to Anne Brontë, that, though she had been compelled to
+witness the results of intemperance both in Branwell and in others,
+she purposely conveyed her lesson of these evils in the acts and
+thoughts of a character utterly distinct from her brother. Indeed, she
+was at considerable pains--which have unfortunately availed little--to
+prevent even a suspicion that her brother was the prototype of
+Huntingdon; for, to remove that impression, she has placed the hero of
+the story, Gilbert Markham, to a considerable extent, in Branwell's
+very circumstances. There is no resemblance between Markham's
+character and Branwell's, beyond that of an ardent and generous
+temperament; but it should be observed that--exactly as with
+Branwell--Markham is enamoured of a married woman, the death of whose
+husband he anxiously awaits; that this passion is attributed to him as
+a monomania--'A monomania,' says his brother Fergus, 'but don't
+mention it; all right but that;' and, lastly, that Markham, too,
+thinks, as Branwell did, that the deceased husband of the lady 'might
+have so constructed his will as to place restrictions upon her
+marrying again.'
+
+It should likewise be observed that 'Wildfell Hall' is just as much
+a protest against _mariages de convenance_, as it is against
+intemperance; but what had this to do with the family circumstances of
+the Brontës? It had far more to do with such instances as that of 'Mr.
+and Mrs. ----,' quoted above from Charlotte's letter, where infelicity
+was combined with intemperance, as it is in the case of Arthur and
+Helen Huntingdon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+BRANWELL'S FAILINGS.--PUBLICATION OF 'JANE EYRE.'
+
+Novel-writing--The Sisters' Method of Work--Branwell's Failing Health
+and Irregularities--'Jane Eyre'--Its Reception and Character--It was
+not Influenced by Branwell--Letter and Sketches of Branwell, 1848.
+
+
+But, at this time, neither 'Wuthering Heights' nor 'The Tenant of
+Wildfell Hall' was before the public. It was not, indeed, till the
+summer of 1847 that the former, with 'Agnes Grey,' was accepted for
+publication. Meanwhile Anne was toiling away at her second book, and
+Charlotte was writing 'Jane Eyre,' under spells of inspiration.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell has told us that the sisters were wont to put away their
+work at nine o'clock, and to walk about the sitting-room, talking over
+the plots of their stories, and discussing the incidents of them. Once
+or twice a week each was accustomed to read to the others what she had
+written, and hear the opinions they passed upon it. Mr. Brontë retired
+early to rest, and was in ignorance of the nature of the work going
+on, for his daughters never spoke to him of it, any more than they did
+to their friends. The writing of the sisters was, in fact, a secret
+shared only by their brother Branwell, who unquestionably gave his
+advice upon it, and instructed them on many points, besides, of
+practical value in their dealings with publishers and literary men,
+which their small knowledge of the world caused them to overlook.
+
+But, at the time, Branwell's health was visibly failing, and it became
+evident that, though naturally stronger than his sisters, he was not
+exempt from the consumptive tendency of his family. All his endeavours
+to obtain employment had proved futile. His physical health had long
+been giving way, and this soon rendered him incapable of sustained
+exertion. Much of his strange conduct arose probably from the reaction
+of this weakness on a mind endowed with so much intellectual power.
+
+In most winters on these Yorkshire hills there are spells of severe
+frost and cold, and these were always times of suffering to the
+Brontës. Influenza would become epidemic at Haworth, and seldom
+neglected the inmates of the parsonage, close by the churchyard as the
+house was. Mr. Brontë had struggled hard to have proper drainage
+introduced into the village, but in vain. There was, indeed, 'such a
+series of North-pole days' in the December of 1846, as Charlotte did
+not remember; the sky looked like ice, and the wind was as keen as a
+two-edged blade. The consequence was that all the house was laid up
+with coughs and colds. Anne suffered from asthma; Mr. Brontë and
+Branwell had influenza and cough. Anxiously must they have watched
+every indication of change in the wind, and longed for the southwest
+breezes that, even in winter, sometimes came over the moors with all
+the softness of spring; and, on this occasion, they were not long
+disappointed, and Anne became much better. The novel writing went on
+as before. Branwell's weakness and failings sometimes broke in upon
+this employment, but we do not find that, during the year 1847, he
+gave such trouble as would be likely to influence his sisters' work.
+Of course he had little or no money at hand, and we know that he had
+contracted some small obligations during the period of distraction of
+the previous year. The result of this was that a sheriff's-officer
+arrived at Haworth, and Branwell's debts had to be paid, whereat his
+sister Charlotte seems to have been very angry, for she appears
+afterwards to accuse herself of being 'too demonstrative and
+vehement.' About three months later Charlotte was again in doubt about
+Branwell; she says his behaviour was 'extravagant,' and that he
+dropped 'mysterious hints,' which led her to believe that he had
+contracted further debts. In this, however, she was mistaken.
+
+In the May of 1847, Charlotte invited 'E.' to visit her, and said that
+Branwell was quieter, for the good reason that he had got to the end
+of a considerable sum of money he became possessed of in the spring,
+and was obliged to restrict himself in some degree. 'You must,' she
+continues, 'expect to find him weaker in mind, and the complete rake
+in appearance. I have no apprehension of his being uncivil to you; on
+the contrary, he will be as smooth as oil.' It would appear that he
+had had some sum laid out, which he then recovered; but, as we have
+seen, he had got into debt before, and, in his alarm at the prospect
+of imprisonment in York Castle, it is said, told his friends, in the
+neighbourhood where he had been tutor, of his straits; upon which the
+widow of his late employer sent him money in kindness of heart,
+through a third person. At this period he expended much of his time at
+home in reading, and he wrote several poems.
+
+At the end of July, Charlotte, as we have been told, consulted her
+brother as to the reason why Messrs. Smith and Elder, to whom she had
+sent 'The Professor,' did not reply. He at once set it down to her not
+having enclosed a postage stamp. On the 2nd of August, she wrote
+again, and promptly received the considerate answer which encouraged
+her to send to them, on the twenty-fourth of the same month, her
+three-volume work, 'Jane Eyre.' This was accepted, and given to the
+world in the following October. Meanwhile, in the beginning of August,
+'E.' had paid her visit to the parsonage, and the friends had enjoyed
+the glorious weather in walking on the moors. Charlotte had returned
+the visit almost immediately, and the proofs of 'Jane Eyre' were
+corrected by her during her absence, sitting even at the same table
+with her friend, to whom, curiously enough, she said not a word about
+the work in hand. Upon her return to Haworth, she wrote: 'I reached
+home, and found all well. Thank God for it.' 'Wuthering Heights' and
+'Agnes Grey' still lingered in the hands of the publisher, from whom
+the authors had obtained but impoverishing terms; 'a bargain,' says
+Mrs. Gaskell, in mentioning the circumstance, 'to be alluded to
+further.' Nothing more, however, appears in the 'Life of Charlotte' on
+the subject; and we may hope that the celebrity which the novels of
+the 'Messrs. Bell' soon acquired, made a substantial difference in the
+first terms of the agreement. During the next three months, Charlotte
+was in correspondence with Messrs. Smith and Elder, Mr. G. H. Lewes,
+and Mr. W. S. Williams, in respect of the reviews of 'Jane Eyre,'
+which were then appearing.
+
+'Jane Eyre' came upon the reading world of 1847 as a veritable
+revelation. It was a tragic story of the feelings, so different in
+character from the trite affectations of the commonplace novel of the
+day; it was informed with such a passionate energy, and filled with
+such soul-absorbing interests, that it was received at once as a
+monument of great and undoubted genius. Reading the book to-day, we
+can easily understand why Charlotte Brontë gained such a mastery over
+the spirits of her time, and earned for herself an imperishable
+renown. She would do the same now. The strange, lonely, unfriended
+childhood of Jane Eyre, the experiences she undergoes at Gateshead,
+and at the Lowood School, and her confidence and self-reliance through
+them all, mark the story as vitally true; but, when this plain little
+personage manifests the depths of her feelings, and calls forth our
+human sympathies in her hopes and her sorrows; when we read the
+terrific tragedy of her relationship with Rochester, and are shaken
+with the storm and stress of the feelings that move her; when, above
+all, we see her come out from the shadow, with her nobility and purity
+unsullied, though once more she is friendless and alone, we are
+carried beyond ourselves in admiration of the genius who has painted a
+picture at once so truly human and so very strange.
+
+'Jane Eyre,' the book, was the natural and unforced outcome of its
+author's personality, and, though Jane Eyre, the character, is not
+Charlotte Brontë in the sense in which Lucy Snowe is, yet in Charlotte
+Brontë were all the powers and capabilities that moved Jane Eyre. This
+book, then, came upon people in 1847 as a revelation; they felt
+themselves in the hands of a very Titan, and were carried on by an
+uncontrollable stream. But there were some amongst them who struggled
+against its influence, when they found that the shallow bounds of
+conventionality had been far overpassed, and when they saw that its
+author was little skilled in the ways of the world. These revolted
+against the power that made them, perforce, interested in a character,
+in Rochester, who had fallen away from the high Christian ideal. Hence
+arose that outcry against what was termed the 'immorality' of the
+book, against its 'coarseness,' its 'laxity of tone,' and the
+'heathenish doctrine of religion' that filled it, which gave such
+pain, in the parsonage at Haworth, to the simple-minded girl, its
+author, against whom the dictum of the 'Quarterly Review' was written:
+'If we ascribe the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but
+to ascribe it to one who has for some sufficient reason long forfeited
+the society of her own sex.'
+
+But such critics as these forgot that the people whom we love most in
+life, are not those who are supremely noble, absolutely perfect,
+superhuman, and angelic; but those who are beautiful and true in spite
+of their failings, and though clogged with all the faults with which
+our humanity has laden them; those who, like the child in Wordsworth's
+ode, live 'trailing clouds of glory' with them from divinity, in the
+midst of the shame and sin of the world. These are the lights which
+illumine 'Jane Eyre,' with a loveliness that is truly and perfectly
+human. So the book made its way, after the wild fervour of its first
+reception, to a pinnacle in English literature where it must ever
+remain, as the work of a great and original genius, and, as we now
+know, of a true and noble woman.
+
+Small need was there, then, that Mrs. Gaskell should seek to explain
+those features of Charlotte's genius, which brought down upon 'Jane
+Eyre' and its author such expressions of blame as these, by references
+to her brother's character and history, as she understood them.
+Whatever may have been the case with the novels of Emily and Anne,
+those of Charlotte were clearly the outcome of her own nature and of
+her own experience, and were uninfluenced in one way or other by her
+brother. If she takes a suggestion from his affairs at all, she deals
+with it coldly or sternly. Take for instance that passage I have
+quoted from 'The Professor,' where William Crimsworth speaks of his
+recollection of an instance of domestic treachery.
+
+In December, 1847, appeared the works of Ellis and Acton Bell. The
+Christmas of that year found the three sisters noted in the world of
+authors--Currer Bell, famous. Not often can so much be recorded of a
+family. Branwell seems to have been considerably elated by their
+success, and the festivities of the season were indulged in by him to
+his injury. His feeble health was soon affected by things that would
+have had little influence upon ordinarily strong men, and he suffered
+the consequences. On the 11th of January, 1848, Charlotte writes:--'We
+have not been very comfortable here at home lately. Branwell has, by
+some means, continued to get more money from the old quarter, and has
+led us a sad life.... Papa is harassed day and night; we have little
+peace; he is always sick; has two or three times fallen down in fits;
+what will be the ultimate end, God knows. But who is without their
+drawback, their scourge, their skeleton behind the curtain? It remains
+only to do one's best, and endure with patience what God sends.' In
+this month the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' appeared.
+
+It must have been in reference to this period that Mrs. Gaskell has
+said it might well have happened that Branwell had shot his father.
+But the statement is an exaggeration; and, indeed, I have been told,
+both by Martha Brown and Nancy Wainwright, that Branwell was not
+nearly so bad as Mrs. Gaskell has made him appear. 'If he had wanted
+to shoot his father,' says my informant, 'he could easily have done
+it, for there were loaded guns and pistols hung over the bed-room door
+constantly.' She relates that, on one occasion, she was occupied in
+tidying up the bed-room, and had just taken down the fire-arms to
+dust, when Mr. Brontë entered the room in great consternation,
+forbidding her, at any time thenceforth, on any account whatever, to
+meddle with them, for they were loaded even then, and might have been
+accidentally discharged to her own danger. He again hung up the arms
+himself. Mr. Brontë carried on this singular practice, and could not
+be induced to discontinue it; and, as the reader is aware, Branwell
+and his father occupied this bed-room.
+
+Branwell himself was very conscious of his failings at this time, and
+somewhat ashamed of them. He writes to Leyland during the January of
+1848: 'I was _really_ far enough from well when I saw you last week at
+Halifax; and, if you should happen to see Mrs. ---- of ----, you would
+greatly oblige me by telling her that I consider her conduct towards
+me as most kind and motherly, and that, if I did anything during
+temporary illness, to offend her, I deeply regret it, and beg her to
+take my regret as my apology till I see her again; which I trust will
+be ere long.' He continues, speaking in general terms of his literary
+work, and his poems, mentioning especially the poem of 'Caroline,'
+which he had written a long time before, and concludes by promising a
+longer letter later on.
+
+There is prefixed to this letter a drawing, one of the strangest that
+Branwell ever made,--which he advises his friend to destroy,--a
+portrait of himself, head and shoulders, vigorously executed with the
+pen, and an admirable likeness too, in profile, grave and thoughtful,
+wearing his spectacles, but a portrait of Branwell in what a plight!
+For, just as the martyrs of old are represented with the knife planted
+in their breast, and the rope placed round their neck, so has Branwell
+pictured himself, with the halter about his throat, in the morbid
+martyrdom of his feverish imagination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+BRANWELL'S LATER POETICAL WORKS.
+
+Branwell's Poetical Work--Sketch of the Materials which he intended
+to use in the Poem of 'Morley Hall'--The Poem--The Subject left
+Incomplete--Branwell's Poem, 'The End of All'--His Letter to Leyland
+asking an Opinion on his Poem, 'Percy Hall'--Observations--The Poem.
+
+
+Branwell's poetical work in this period, when his health was failing,
+is incomplete, for there remain two pieces from his hand, both of
+which are fragments only. The first of these is 'Morley Hall,' which
+he was writing for his friend Leyland, but which he never lived to
+finish. He designed it to be an epic, in several cantos, dealing with
+a succession of romantic episodes, of which an elopement that actually
+took place, as I have previously had occasion to mention, was the
+chief feature. The part he completed was the introductory canto, or
+rather a portion of it, which is given below; but, since this was a
+work into which he entered with much spirit, and which would have been
+a long and important one, had it been completed, it may not be amiss
+here to sketch briefly the materials with which he proposed to work.
+
+Morley Hall, or all that remains of it, is situated in the parish of
+Leigh, in the county of Lancaster; and was the residence of two
+families in succession, which became allied by marriage, and attained
+some celebrity. The first family was that of Leyland, originally of
+the place of that name in Lancashire, and afterwards, for many
+generations preceding the reign of King Henry VIII., residing at
+Morley Hall.
+
+In Henry VIII.'s time the mansion was owned by Sir William Leyland, or
+Leland, whose family consisted of Thomas, his son and heir, and his
+daughters Anne and Elizabeth, by his marriage with Anne, daughter and
+heiress of Allan Syngleton of Whitgill, in Craven, Esq. Living in
+great opulence at Morley, Sir William was visited by the learned
+antiquary, his friend, and probably his relative, John Leland. This
+writer says of his visit: 'Cumming from Manchestre towards Morle, Syr
+William Lelande's howse, I passid by enclosid grounde, ... leving on
+the left hand a mile and more of, a fair place of Mr. Langforde's
+caulled Agecroft.... Morle, Mr. Lelande's Place, is buildid, saving
+the Fundation, of stone squarid that risith within a great Moote a vi
+foot above the water, al of tymbre, after the commune sort of building
+of Houses of the Gentilmen for most of Lancastreshire. Ther is as much
+Plesur of Orchardes, of great Varite of Frute and fair made Walkes and
+Gardines as ther is in any Place of Lancastreshire.'[43]
+
+        [43] Itinerary, vol. 5, p. 83.
+
+Sir William was succeeded by Thomas, his son, who had married Anne,
+daughter of Sir John Atherton, and had issue Robert, his son and
+heir,[44] and two daughters, Anne and Alice. Anne married Edward
+Tyldesley, of Tyldesley, with whom the legend, versified by Mr.
+Peters, and on which Branwell intended to write at greater length,
+alleges that she eloped. The tradition of this event still lingers at
+Morley Hall. It is said that when the attachment sprang up between
+Anne, the eldest daughter of Thomas Leyland, and Edward Tyldesley, the
+connection was forbidden by the lady's father. It is further said
+that, regardless of this prohibition, a night was fixed upon for an
+elopement, and that, when the inmates of the house were buried in
+sleep, it was arranged she should tie a rope round her waist, the
+loose end of which she should throw across the moat to Tyldesley, who
+was to be in waiting, and, with another, should lower herself into the
+water, and be drawn to the land by him. The legend says this was
+successfully accomplished, and that the marriage was celebrated before
+the elopement was known to the family.[45]
+
+        [44] Inquisition _post mortem_ of Thomas Leyland of the
+        Morleys, co. Lanc., Esq. (Yorkshire lands) taken at
+        Bradford, co. York, 11th Sept., 6 Eliz.
+
+        [45] 'The White Rose of York,' 1834, pp. 226-229.
+
+It is remarkable that, while Thomas Leyland had a legitimate son and
+heir in Robert Leyland, the manor-house of Morley and its demesnes
+passed into the family of Tyldesley by marriage alone, as if there had
+been no such person.
+
+There are other stories relating to this family, of wild and weird
+interest, with which Branwell was acquainted; but this passing
+allusion is all that the scope of the present work will allow.
+
+Of the family of Tyldesley of Morley was the brave Sir Thomas, a
+major-general in the royal army, who was slain at Wigan on the 25th of
+August, 1651. To this circumstance Branwell alludes in his poem. The
+fragment is as follows:--
+
+    MORLEY HALL,
+
+    LEIGH--LANCASHIRE.
+
+    'When Life's youth, overcast by gathering clouds
+    Of cares that come like funeral-following crowds,
+    Wearying of that which is, and cannot see
+    A sunbeam burst upon futurity,
+    It tries to cast away the woes that are
+    And borrow brighter joys from times afar.
+    For what our feet tread may have been a road
+    By horses' hoofs pressed 'neath a camel's load;
+    But what we ran across in childhood's hours
+    Were fields, presenting June with May-tide flowers:
+    So what was done and borne, if long ago,
+    Will satisfy our heart, though stained by tears of woe.
+
+    'When present sorrows every thought employ,
+    Our father's woes may take the garb of joy,
+    And, knowing what our sires have undergone,
+    Ourselves can smile, though weary, wandering on.
+    For if our youth a thunder-cloud o'ershadows,
+    Changing to barren swamps Life's flowering meadows,
+    We know that fiery flash and bursting peal
+    Others, like us, were forced to hear and feel;
+    And while they moulder in a quiet grave,
+    Robbed of all havings--worthless all they have--
+    We still, with face erect, behold the sun--
+    Have bright examples in what has been done
+    By head or hand--and, in the times to come,
+    May tread bright pathways to our gate of doom.
+
+    'So, if we gaze from our snug villa's door,
+    By vines or honeysuckles covered o'er,
+    Though we have saddening thoughts, we still can smile
+    In thinking our hut supersedes the pile
+    Whose turrets totter 'mid the woods before us,
+    And whose proud owners used to trample o'er us;
+    All now by weeds and ivy overgrown,
+    And touched by Time, that hurls down stone from stone.
+    We gaze with scorn on what is worn away,
+    And never dream about our own decay.
+    Thus, while this May-day cheers each flower and tree,
+    Enlivening earth and almost cheering me,
+    I half forget the mouldering moats of Leigh.
+
+    'Wide Lancashire has changed its babyhood,
+    As Time makes saplings spring to timber wood;
+    But as grown men their childhood still remember,
+    And think of Summer in their dark December,
+    So Manchester and Liverpool may wonder,
+    And bow to old halls over which they ponder,
+    Unknowing that man's spirit yearns to all
+    Which--once lost--prayers can never more recall.
+    The storied piles of mortar, brick, and stone,
+    Where trade bids noise and gain to struggle on,
+    Competing for the prize that Mammon gives--
+    Youth killed by toil and profits bought with lives--
+    Will not prevent the quiet, thinking mind
+    From looking back to years when Summer wind
+    Sang, not o'er mills, but round ancestral halls,
+    And, 'stead of engine's steam, gave dews from waterfalls.
+
+    'He who by brick-built houses closely pent,
+    That show nought beautiful to sight or scent,
+    Pines for green fields, will cherish in his room
+    Some pining plant bereft of natural bloom;
+    And, like the crowds which yonder factories hold,
+    Withering 'mid warmth, and in their spring-tide old,
+    So Lancashire may fondly look upon
+    Her wrecks fast vanishing of ages gone,
+    And while encroaching railroad, street, and mill
+    On every side the smoky prospect fill,
+    She yet may smile to see some tottering wall
+    Bring old times back, like ancient Morley Hall.
+    But towers that Leland saw in times of yore
+    Are now, like Leland's works, almost no more--
+    The antiquarian's pages, cobweb-bound,
+    The antique mansion, levelled with the ground.
+
+    'When all is gone that once gave food to pride,
+    Man little cares for what Time leaves beside;
+    And when an orchard and a moat, half dry,
+    Remain, sole relics of a power passed by,
+    Should we not think of what ourselves shall be,
+    And view our coffins in the stones of Leigh.
+    For what within yon space was once the abode
+    Of peace or war to man, and fear of God,
+    Is now the daily sport of shower or wind,
+    And no acquaintance holds with human kind.
+    Some who can be loved, and love can give,
+    While brain thinks, pulses beat, and bodies live,
+    Must, in death's helplessness, lie down with those
+    Who find, like us, the grave their last repose,
+    When Death draws down the veil and Night bids Evening close.
+
+    'King Charles, who, fortune falling, would not fall,
+    Might glance with saddened eyes on Morley Hall,
+    And, while his throne escaped misfortune's wave,
+    Remember Tyldesley died that throne to save.'
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Branwell's next poem of this period is entitled the 'End of All,'
+which is complete, and is one of the most pathetic he ever wrote. It
+constitutes a true picture of his mood, and illustrates, at this time,
+the sombre and troubled nature of his thoughts. He pourtrays, in
+shades of great depth, his reflections on the death of one dear to
+him, whose loss leaves his soul a blank and desolate void, an evil
+which nothing can alleviate or remove. But he dreams for a moment that
+a life of peril in far-off lands, and in battle, strife, and danger,
+that the 'stony joys' of solitary ambition, may shrine the memory of
+sorrows which cannot be destroyed. Yet, even from this cold dream,
+this cruel opiate of the heart, he is recalled by the groans of her
+who is dying, to the consciousness that, with her departure, all will
+go. The bereaved is Branwell himself, and his 'Mary' is doubtless the
+lady of his misplaced affection, over whose loss he still broods in
+melancholy and afflicted language, each pathetic chord vibrating with
+intense mental anguish, as he contemplates the future years of
+desolation in which he is left to wander tombward unaided and alone.
+Here, as in his other poems, the rhythmic sweetness of Branwell's
+verse flows on in words well chosen to express the idea he intends to
+convey, which itself is worked out with great suggestiveness of power.
+
+    THE END OF ALL.
+
+    'In that unpitying Winter's night,
+      When my own wife--my Mary--died,
+    I, by my fire's declining light,
+      Sat comfortless, and silent sighed,
+      While burst unchecked grief's bitter tide,
+    As I, methought, when she was gone,
+      Not hours, but years, like this must bide,
+    And wake, and weep, and watch alone.
+
+    'All earthly hope had passed away,
+      And each clock-stroke brought Death more nigh
+    To the still-chamber where she lay,
+      With soul and body calmed to die;
+      But _mine_ was not her heavenward eye
+    When hot tears scorched me, as her doom
+      Made my sick heart throb heavily
+    To give impatient anguish room.
+
+    '"Oh now," methought, "a little while,
+      And this great house will hold no more
+    Her whose fond love the gloom could while
+      Of many a long night gone before!"
+      Oh! all those happy hours were o'er
+    When, seated by our own fireside,
+      I'd smile to hear the wild winds roar,
+    And turn to clasp my beauteous bride.
+
+    'I could not bear the thoughts which rose
+      Of what _had_ been, and what _must_ be,
+    And still the dark night would disclose
+      Its sorrow-pictured prophecy;
+      Still saw I--miserable me--
+    Long, long nights else, in lonely gloom,
+      With time-bleached locks and trembling knee--
+    Walk aidless, hopeless, to my tomb.
+
+    'Still, still that tomb's eternal shade
+      Oppressed my heart with sickening fear,
+    When I could see its shadow spread
+      Over each dreary future year,
+      Whose vale of tears woke such despair
+    That, with the sweat-drops on my brow,
+      I wildly raised my hands in prayer
+    That Death would come and take me now;
+
+    'Then stopped to hear an answer given--
+      So much had madness warped my mind--
+    When, sudden, through the midnight heaven,
+      With long howl woke the Winter's wind;
+      And roused in me, though undefined,
+    A rushing thought of tumbling seas
+      Whose wild waves wandered unconfined,
+    And, far-off, surging, whispered, "Peace."
+
+    'I cannot speak the feeling strange,
+      Which showed that vast December sea,
+    Nor tell whence came that sudden change
+      From aidless, hopeless misery;
+      But somehow it revealed to me
+    A life--when things I loved were gone--
+      Whose solitary liberty
+    Might suit me wandering tombward on.
+
+    ''Twas not that I forgot my love--
+      That night departing evermore--
+    'Twas hopeless grief for her that drove
+      My soul from all it prized before;
+      That misery called me to explore
+    A new-born life, whose stony joy
+      Might calm the pangs of sorrow o'er,
+    Might _shrine_ their memory, not destroy.
+
+    'I rose, and drew the curtains back
+      To gaze upon the starless waste,
+    And image on that midnight wrack
+      The path on which I longed to haste,
+      From storm to storm continual cast,
+    And not one moment given to view;
+      O'er mind's wild winds the memories passed
+    Of hearts I loved--of scenes I knew.
+
+    'My mind anticipated all
+      The things my eyes have seen since then;
+    I heard the trumpet's battle-call,
+      I rode o'er ranks of bleeding men,
+      I swept the waves of Norway's main,
+    I tracked the sands of Syria's shore,
+      I felt that such strange strife and pain
+    Might me from living death restore.
+
+    'Ambition I would make my bride,
+      And joy to see her robed in red,
+    For none through blood so wildly ride
+      As those whose hearts before have bled;
+      Yes, even though _thou_ should'st long have laid
+    Pressed coldly down by churchyard clay,
+      And though I knew thee thus decayed,
+    I _might_ smile grimly when away;
+
+    'Might give an opiate to my breast,
+      Might dream:--but oh! that heart-wrung groan
+    Forced from me with the thought confessed
+      That all would go if _she_ were gone;
+      I turned, and wept, and wandered on
+    All restlessly--from room to room--
+      To that still chamber, where alone
+    A sick-light glimmered through the gloom.
+
+    'The all-unnoticed time flew o'er me,
+      While my breast bent above her bed,
+    And that drear life which loomed before me
+      Choked up my voice--bowed down my head.
+      Sweet holy words to me she said,
+    Of that bright heaven which shone so near,
+      And oft and fervently she prayed
+    That I might some time meet her there;
+
+    'But, soon enough, all words were over,
+      When this world passed, and Paradise,
+    Through deadly darkness, seemed to hover
+      O'er her half-dull, half-brightening eyes;
+      One last dear glance she gives her lover,
+    One last embrace before she dies;
+      And then, while he seems bowed above her,
+    His _Mary_ sees him from the skies.'
+
+Another poem of Branwell's of this date, the last he ever wrote, is
+entitled 'Percy Hall,' which he did not live to complete. The first
+draft was sent for Leyland's opinion, with the following letter:
+
+    'Haworth, Bradford,
+    'Yorks.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I enclose the accompanying fragment, which is so soiled that I
+    would have transcribed it, if I had had the heart to exert myself,
+    only in order to get from you an opinion as to whether, when
+    finished, it would be worth sending to some respectable
+    periodical, like "Blackwood's Magazine."
+
+    'I trust you got safely home from rough Haworth, and am,
+
+    'Dear Sir,
+
+    'Your most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTË.'
+
+At the foot of the page on which the letter is written, is drawn, in
+pen-and-ink, a low, massive, stone cross, inscribed with the word,
+'POBRE!' standing on the top of a bleak hill, with a wild sky behind;
+and Branwell says of it below: 'The best epitaph ever written. It is
+carved on a rude cross in Spain, over a murdered traveller, and simply
+means "Poor fellow!"' It will be remembered, in connection with this
+idea of Branwell's, that Lord Byron, in one of his letters, describes
+the impression produced upon him by seeing the inscription, 'Implora
+pace!' upon a tomb at Bologna. The poet says: 'When I die, I should
+wish that some friend would see these words, and no other, placed
+above my grave--"Implora pace!"' The perusal of this remark induced
+Mrs. Hemans to write her pathetic little poem which has the Italian
+epitaph for its title.
+
+This letter of Branwell's is particularly interesting, because it
+shows us that, even in the last year of his life, and when dealing
+with the last uncompleted poem he ever wrote, he preserved the
+ambition of appearing in the literary world as a poet; and because he
+again speaks of 'Blackwood's Magazine,' whose value, it will be
+remembered, had impressed itself upon the youthful minds of himself
+and his sisters.
+
+The fragment, 'Percy Hall,' which was enclosed with the letter to
+Leyland, though still morbid, is one of the most exquisite its author
+wrote. Here, by a strange and beautiful coincidence--if coincidence it
+be--we find Branwell, in his latest work, as in his youthful ones,
+given in the earlier part of this work, occupied with the dread study
+of a consumptive decline; we find him, in short, tinctured with the
+shadows of his later career, telling again of the death of that
+sister, whose memory he cherished with a life-long affection; and
+perhaps, too, with a deeper insight than the other members of his
+family possessed, he foretells the end that awaited his sisters Emily
+and Anne, from that disease, whose poison was working in his own
+slender frame. The treatment of the subject, indeed, is truly
+characteristic of Branwell's feelings at the time, and of his
+impressions engendered by the mournful malady with which his family
+was afflicted. This poem, like some of those already noticed in the
+former pages of the present work, is distinguished by images, scenes,
+and conceptions, almost invariably animated by the instinctive power
+and originality of genius. His descriptions of the condition of the
+lady, of the way in which weakness has schooled her to regard the
+future--the natural expression doubtless of Branwell at the time--of
+the influences that 'forbade her heart to throb, her spirit to
+despond,' and of the agonized feelings of the survivor, are all
+instinct with the living breath of reality; they have the sublime
+dignity of truth, springing, as they do, from a knowledge far too
+intimate with the sorrows which inspired the poem. Perhaps, in the
+gaiety of the affectionate Percy, Branwell depicts, in some sort, his
+own disposition, though it has never been charged against him that he
+was beguiled by 'syren smiles,' or seduced by the delights of 'play.'
+It seems to me that Branwell's poetical genius is as much higher than
+that of his sister Emily as hers was superior to the talents of
+Charlotte and Anne, in their versified productions. Beautiful, wild,
+and touching, like strains from the harp of Æolus, as are the
+emanations of Emily's poetical inspiration, they lack the force,
+depth, and breadth of Branwell's more expansive power of imagination,
+as displayed in his best productions; though even Branwell's poetical
+remains contain rather the evidence of power than the full expression
+of it.
+
+    PERCY HALL.
+
+    'The westering sunbeams smiled on Percy Hall,
+    And green leaves glittered o'er the ancient wall
+    Where Mary sat, to feel the summer breeze,
+    And hear its music mingling 'mid the trees.
+    There she had rested in her quiet bower
+    Through June's long afternoon, while hour on hour
+    Stole, sweetly shining past her, till the shades,
+    Scarce noticed, lengthened o'er the grassy glades;
+    But yet she sat, as if she knew not how
+    Her time wore on, with Heaven-directed brow,
+    And eyes that only seemed awake, whene'er
+    Her face was fanned by summer evening's air.
+    All day her limbs a weariness would feel,
+    As if a slumber o'er her frame would steal;
+    Nor could she wake her drowsy thoughts to care
+    For day, or hour, or what she was, or where:
+    Thus--lost in dreams, although debarred from sleep,
+    While through her limbs a feverish heat would creep,
+    A weariness, a listlessness, that hung
+    About her vigour, and Life's powers unstrung--
+    She did not feel the iron gripe of pain,
+    But _thought_ felt irksome to her heated brain;
+    Sometimes the stately woods would float before her,
+    Commingled with the cloud-piles brightening o'er her,
+    Then change to scenes for ever lost to view,
+    Or mock with phantoms which she never knew:
+    Sometimes her soul seemed brooding on to-day,
+    And then it wildly wandered far away,
+    Snatching short glimpses of her infancy,
+    Or lost in day-dreams of what yet might be.
+
+    'Yes--through the labyrinth-like course of thought--
+    Whate'er might be remembered or forgot,
+    Howe'er diseased the dream might be, or dim,
+    Still seemed the _Future_ through each change to swim,
+    All indefinable, but pointing on
+    To what should welcome her when Life was gone;
+    She felt as if--to all she knew so well--
+    Its voice was whispering her to say "farewell;"
+    Was bidding her forget her happy home;
+    Was farther fleeting still--still beckoning her to come.
+
+    'She felt as one might feel who, laid at rest,
+    With cold hands folded on a panting breast,
+    Has just received a husband's last embrace,
+    Has kissed a child, and turned a pallid face
+    From this world--with its feelings all laid by--
+    To one unknown, yet hovering--oh! how nigh!
+
+    'And yet--unlike that image of decay--
+    There hovered round her, as she silent lay,
+    A holy sunlight, an angelic bloom,
+    That brightened up the terrors of the tomb,
+    And, as it showed Heaven's glorious world beyond,
+    Forbade her heart to throb, her spirit to despond.
+
+    'But, who steps forward, o'er the glowing green,
+    With silent tread, these stately groves between?
+    To watch his fragile flower, who sees him not,
+    Yet keeps his image blended with each thought,
+    Since but for _him_ stole down that single tear
+    From her blue eyes, to think how very near
+    Their farewell hour might be!
+
+                          'With silent tread
+    Percy bent o'er his wife his golden head;
+    And, while he smiled to see how calm she slept,
+    A gentle feeling o'er his spirit crept,
+    Which made him turn toward the shining sky
+    With heart expanding to its majesty,
+    While he bethought him how more blest _its_ glow
+    Than _that_ he left one single hour ago,
+    Where proud rooms, heated by a feverish light,
+    Forced vice and villainy upon his sight;
+    Where snared himself, or snaring into crime,
+    His soul had drowned its hour, and lost its count of time.
+
+    'The syren-sighs and smiles were banished now,
+    The cares of "play" had vanished from his brow;
+    He took his Mary's hot hand in his own,
+    She raised her eyes, and--oh, how soft they shone!
+    Kindling to fondness through their mist of tears,
+    Wakening afresh the light of fading years!--
+    He knew not why she turned those shining eyes
+    With such a mute submission to the skies;
+    He knew not why her arm embraced him so,
+    As if she _must_ depart, yet _could not_ let him go!
+
+    'With death-like voice, but angel-smile, she said,
+    "My love, they need not care, when I am dead,
+    To deck with flowers my capped and coffined head;
+    For all the flowers which I should love to see
+    Are blooming now, and will have died with me:
+    The same sun bids us all revive to-day,
+    And the same winds will bid us to decay;
+    When Winter comes we all shall be no more--
+    Departed into dust--next, covered o'er
+    By Spring's reviving green. See, Percy, now
+    How red my cheek--how red my roses blow!
+    But come again when blasts of Autumn come;
+    _Then_ mark their changing leaves, their blighted bloom;
+    Then come to my bedside, then look at _me_,
+    How changed in all--_except my love for thee_!"
+
+    'She spoke, and laid her hot hand on his own;
+    But he nought answered, save a heart-wrung groan;
+    For oh! too sure, her voice prophetic sounded
+    Too clear the proofs that in her face abounded
+    Of swift Consumption's power! Although each day
+    He'd seen her airy lightness fail away,
+    And gleams unnatural glisten in her eye;
+    He had not dared to dream that she could die,
+    But only fancied his a causeless fear
+    Of losing something which he held so dear;
+    Yet--now--when, startled at her prophet-cries,
+    To hers he turned his stricken, stone-like eyes,
+    And o'er her cheek declined his blighted head.
+    He saw Death write on it the _fatal red_--
+    He saw, and straightway sank his spirit's light
+    Into the sunless twilight of the starless night!
+
+    'While he sat, shaken by his sudden shock,
+    Again--and with an earnestness--she spoke,
+    As if the world of her Creator shone
+    Through all the cloudy shadows of her own:
+    "Come grieve not--darling--o'er my early doom;
+    'Tis well that Death no drearier shape assume
+    Than this he comes in--well that widowed age
+    Will not extend my friendless pilgrimage
+    Through Life's dim vale of tears--'tis well that Pain
+    Wields not its lash nor binds its burning chain,
+    But leaves my death-bed to a mild decline,
+    Soothed and supported by a love like thine!"'
+
+My copy of the poem is illustrated with a portrait, by J. B. Leyland,
+in pen-and-ink, of the ideal Percy. The drawing is bold and effective;
+and, though not intended for an exact portrait of Branwell, bears some
+resemblance to him in general character. The sketch is signed,
+'Northangerland,' at the top; and, at the bottom, 'Alexander Percy,
+Esq.;' while the artist's name is discerned among the shadows which
+fall from the figure of Percy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+FAME AT HAWORTH.
+
+Charlotte Corresponds on Literary Subjects--Novels--Confession of
+Authorship--Branwell's Failing Health--He Writes to Leyland--Branwell
+and Mr. George Searle Phillips--Branwell's Intellect Retains its
+Power--His Description of 'Professor Leonidas Lyon'--The latter
+Gentleman's Account of his Reading of 'Jane Eyre'--Branwell's Remarks
+on Charlotte and the Work.
+
+
+The early months of the year 1848 proved a severe trial for the Brontë
+family, as they did to the whole of the Haworth villagers. Influenza
+and other ailments were prevalent, and the sisters did not escape the
+former: Anne, indeed, suffered from a severe cough, with some fever,
+and her friends became alarmed. The position of the parsonage in
+relation to the churchyard rendered it unhealthy; but, at the instance
+of Mr. Brontë, a new grave-yard was opened in another place. He did
+not, however, succeed in his attempt to get a good supply of water
+laid on to each house.
+
+Charlotte, at the time, was still in correspondence with Mr. Lewes and
+Mr. Williams, about the review of 'Jane Eyre' in 'Fraser's Magazine,'
+and about other literary subjects. She was still keeping the secret of
+the authorship of her book from her friends, putting off 'E.' with
+evasive letters, and wishing her to 'laugh or scold A---- out of the
+publishing notion.' 'Wuthering Heights' had not been received by the
+public with much favour, and we do not hear of any further literary
+work by Emily. But Charlotte was writing 'Shirley,' and Anne was going
+on with 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' despite a consumptive
+listlessness that was upon her, such as Branwell describes in the wife
+of 'Percy;' and, in her letter written in January, Anne told 'E.' that
+they had done nothing 'to speak of' since she was at Haworth; yet they
+contrived to be busy from morning till night. In the spring, however,
+when this friend visited the Brontës again, full confession of
+authorship was made, and the poems and novels were shown to her. The
+identity of Mr. Brontë's daughters with the 'Messrs. Bell,' had,
+however, been known to some, in connection with the poems, at an
+earlier date, and was occasionally spoken of, though the fact was not
+made public. Branwell himself was at home, quieter, but still failing
+in health and strength, for the constitutional taint, aided by his low
+spirits, and a bronchitis which had become chronic, was telling upon
+him.
+
+'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' was submitted to the publisher of
+'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey,' and accepted by him in the June
+of this year. If the first works of Ellis and Acton Bell were
+undervalued because they were believed to be the earlier productions
+of the author of 'Jane Eyre,' Acton's new volume derived enhanced
+importance from being thought to be a production of the same hand.
+'Jane Eyre' had had a great run in America, and a publisher there had
+offered Messrs. Smith and Elder a high price for early sheets of the
+next work of its author, which they accepted. But the publishers of
+'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' believing that Acton Bell was but a
+second name assumed by Currer Bell, made a similar offer to another
+American house. This circumstance led to questions and explanations;
+and Charlotte and Anne determined to visit London, in order to assure
+Messrs. Smith and Elder that they were indeed distinct persons. The
+publishers were very much astonished to see the two delicate ladies,
+and they made them very welcome. Charlotte and Anne went to the Opera,
+they went to the Royal Academy and the National Gallery, and they
+visited Mr. Smith and Mr. Williams before returning to Haworth.
+
+They found Branwell at home, physically the same as when they left
+him, gradually failing from the chronic bronchitis which had lasted
+through the summer, and with the perceptible wasting away of decline.
+Writing to his friend Leyland on July 22nd, he speaks of 'five months
+of utter sleeplessness, violent cough, and frightful agony of mind.'
+'Long have I resolved,' he continues, 'to write to you a letter of
+five or six pages, but intolerable mental wretchedness and corporeal
+weakness have utterly prevented me.' The letter is signed, 'Yours
+sincerely, but nearly worn out, P. B. Brontë.' Charlotte attributed
+his illness to indulgence solely, and she had no suspicion that the
+end was but two months away. She writes on July 28th: 'Branwell is the
+same in conduct as ever. His constitution seems much shattered. Papa,
+and sometimes all of us, have sad nights with him. He sleeps most of
+the day, and consequently will lie awake at night. But has not every
+house its trial?'[46] But Branwell's condition of health was not such
+as to keep him within doors, and there were revivals, as in Anne's
+case also, which permitted him to visit his friends. I spoke to him
+once in Halifax at the time, and he was often seen in the village of
+Haworth.
+
+        [46] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xvi.
+
+An interesting episode occurred in August or September, for an account
+of which we are indebted to Mr. George Searle Phillips.[47] We learn
+from it that, in the midst of physical decay and mental distress,
+Branwell's intellect retained its power to the last; and we learn also
+what pride he took in the works of his sisters, and in the reputation
+they had made. I can myself, from personal knowledge, endorse all that
+Mr. Phillips says as to Branwell's brilliancy of intellect at this
+time. When Charlotte and Anne went to London, they had assumed the
+name of Brown; but their real name and the place of their residence
+were communicated to some people, and it was not long before it became
+quietly known. Then began the stream of pilgrims to the shrine of
+genius at Haworth, which has continued from that day to this, and will
+for many more. One gentleman, indeed, at the time, stayed three days
+at Haworth, maintaining a close intimacy with Branwell, and we know,
+from Mr. Phillips' narrative, in what light Branwell looked upon the
+first-comers.
+
+        [47] 'Branwell Brontë,' _The Mirror, a reflex of the World's
+        Literature_, 1872.
+
+'Branwell,' says his friend, 'during the latter part of my
+acquaintance with him, was much altered for the worse, in his personal
+appearance; but if he had altered in the same direction mentally, as
+his biographer says he had, then he must have been a man of immense
+and brilliant intellect. For I have rarely heard more eloquent and
+thoughtful discourse, flashing so brightly with random jewels of wit,
+and made more sunny and musical with poetry, than that which flowed
+from his lips during the evenings I passed with him at the "Black
+Bull," in the village of Haworth. His figure was very slight, and he
+had, like his sister Charlotte, a superb forehead. But, even when
+pretty deep in his cups, he had not the slightest appearance of the
+sot that Mrs. Gaskell says he was. "His great tawny mane"--meaning
+thereby the hair of his head--was, it is true, somewhat dishevelled;
+but, apart from this, he gave no sign of intoxication. His eye was as
+bright, and his features were as animated, as they very well could be;
+and, moreover, his whole manner gave indications of intense
+enjoyment.'
+
+Branwell described some of the characters in the novels, and talked
+much about his sisters, and especially about Charlotte, whose
+celebrity, he said, had already attracted more strangers to the
+village than had been known before; and Mr. Phillips gives the
+following account of the visit of one gentleman, an enthusiastic
+admirer of 'Jane Eyre,' whose somewhat eccentric personality he has
+veiled under the style and title of 'Leonidas Lyon, Professor of Greek
+in the London University':--
+
+'One evening, as we sat together in the little parlour of the Inn, the
+landlord entered, and asked Branwell if he would see a gentleman who
+wanted to make his acquaintance.
+
+'"He's a funny fellow," said the landlord; "and is somebody, I dare
+swear, with lots of money."
+
+'As the landlord spoke, a squat little dapper fellow, with a white
+fur hat on his head, an umbrella under his arm, and a pair of blue
+spectacles on his nose, strutted into the room _sans cérémonie_. He
+approached the table in a very fussy and excited manner, exclaiming:
+
+'"Landlord, bring us some brandy. I must have the pleasure of drinking
+a glass with the brother of that distinguished lady, who wrote the
+great book that made London blaze. Three glasses,--landlord--do you
+hear? And you, sir, are the great lady's brother, I presume? Professor
+Leonidas Lyon, sir, has the honour of introducing himself to your
+distinguished notice."
+
+'Branwell responded, gravely:
+
+'"Patrick Branwell Brontë, sir, has the honour of welcoming you to
+Haworth, and begging you to be seated."
+
+'Whereupon the little man bowed and scraped, and laughed a
+good-humoured laugh all over his good, round face, and said it was an
+honour he could not have hoped for, to sit as a guest at the same
+board, as he might say, "with the brother, the very flesh and blood,
+of the great lady who wrote the book."
+
+'Here the brandy and water came in, and the little man grew merrier
+still, and more communicative. He was a Professor of Greek at the
+London University, and, chancing to be at Smith's, the London
+publisher's, whose friend Williams was a "wonderful man of letters--a
+very wonderful man indeed!"--Williams asked the Professor if he had
+seen the book of the season--"the immense book," he called it--which
+was going to make one good reputation, and half a dozen fortunes. Mr.
+Williams praised it so highly that he (the Professor) grew wild about
+it, and asked where it could be got. Upon this, he threw a sovereign
+to pay for it, and ran home without his change, to read it. "It was
+prodigious, sir," he exclaimed.'
+
+The Professor went on in high praise of 'Jane Eyre,' and told Branwell
+and Mr. Phillips that his bed-time was ten o'clock, but that, when
+reading the book, he had sat on, completely absorbed, until six
+o'clock in the morning, when the housemaid came. Then he had retired
+to his own room, but, instead of going to bed, had sat on the edge of
+it, until he finished the story at ten A.M. Branwell said this history
+of a Professor's reading of 'Jane Eyre' made him laugh 'as if he would
+split his sides.' And when he told Charlotte about it the next day,
+she laughed heartily, too, as did the other sisters, when she went up
+stairs to tell them, and their laughter moved Branwell to renewed
+merriment.
+
+'When the Professor's story was ended,' continues Mr. Phillips, 'he
+tried to cajole Branwell into introducing him to the "great lady" who
+wrote the book. He was dying to see her, he said, and had come all the
+way down into Yorkshire, from London, in the fond hope of getting a
+glimpse of her, and perhaps of touching the hem of her garment. When
+he found that Branwell fought shy of the proposition he actually
+offered him a large sum of money, and then, taking from his fob a
+valuable gold watch, laid it on the table, and said he would throw
+that in to boot, if he would only let him see her and shake hands with
+her....
+
+'Poor Branwell spoke of his sister in most affectionate terms, such as
+none but a man of deep feeling could utter. He knew her power, and
+what tremendous depths of passion and pathos lay hid in her great
+surging heart, long before she gave expression to them in "Jane Eyre."
+When she wrote the first chapters of her Richardsonian novel, he
+condemned the work as in opposition to her genius--which is good proof
+of his discrimination and critical judgment. But when "The Professor"
+was written, he said that was better, but that she could do better
+still; and, although it is not equal to "Jane Eyre," yet it is a work
+of great originality and dramatic interest.
+
+'"I know," said Branwell, after speaking of Charlotte's talents, "that
+I also had stuff enough in me to make popular stories; but the failure
+of the Academy plan ruined me. I was felled, like a tree in the
+forest, by a sudden and strong wind, to rise no more. Fancy me, with
+my education, and those early dreams, which had almost ripened into
+realities, turning counter-jumper, or a clerk in a railway-office,
+which last was, you know, my occupation for some time. It simply
+degraded me in my own eyes, and broke my heart."
+
+'It was useless,' says Mr. Phillips, 'to remonstrate with him, and yet
+I could not help it, and did my best to rouse the sleeping energies
+within him to noble action once more.
+
+'"It is too late," he said; "and you would say so, too, if you knew
+all." He used to be the oracle of the secluded household in earlier
+days--before the love of drink mastered him. His opinion was
+invariably sought for upon the literary performances of his sisters;
+but at the time I am now speaking of, he was a cipher in the house.'
+
+Such is the account given by Mr. Phillips of his friend; so different
+in its character from that which Mr. Grundy, and, following him, Miss
+Robinson, offer, in the incredible episode of the carving-knife and
+the slaying of the devil, unless we believe the incident--which that
+gentleman states to have taken place at this period, how erroneously
+we have seen--to have been acted, as is most probable, in grotesque
+humour.
+
+During the last two months of his life, Branwell became the object of
+much interest and received some homage; for, his sisters living
+secluded lives, he was generally the only member of the family
+accessible to the public. When he met with strangers, he invariably
+comported himself with becoming dignity, and did not lay himself open
+to the effects of their curiosity. Those who made his acquaintance
+were impressed, as Mr. Phillips was, with his great mental calibre,
+and with the grace and wit of his conversation. One gentleman--himself
+at the present time in the first place in one of the professions--who
+knew Branwell intimately, declares to me that he always believed the
+abilities of Charlotte's brother were such as might have placed him in
+the very front rank of literature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+DEATH OF BRANWELL.
+
+Branwell's failing Health--Chronic Bronchitis and Marasmus--His
+Death--Charlotte's allusions to it--Correction of some Statements
+relating to it--Summary of the subsequent History of the Brontë
+Family.
+
+
+The spring and summer of the year 1848 were wild, wet, and
+unfavourable, and the fine weather in August was of little benefit
+to Branwell. His appetite was diminished, and he was weaker. He was
+suffering, in addition to his chronic bronchitis, from marasmus, a
+consumptive wasting away, arising from hereditary tendency, as well as
+from mental agony and the effects of irregular life. However, neither
+himself nor his family, nor his medical attendants had any
+anticipation of immediate danger.
+
+He was not, indeed, altogether confined to the house, and he was in
+the village only two days before his death; but, on that occasion,
+his strength failed before he reached his home. William Brown, the
+sexton's brother, found him in the lane which leads up to the
+parsonage, quite exhausted, panting for breath, and unable to proceed.
+He was helped to the house, which he never again left alive.
+
+In the last few days of his life, Branwell was more reconciled, more
+subdued, and better feelings filled his mind. The affection of his
+family returned undiminished, and they watched with intense anxiety
+the end of their cherished brother. The strange madness that had
+clouded his mind for so many months, left him now, and the simple
+thoughts and feelings of his early years came back to him again. He
+died on the morning of Sunday, September the 24th. He had talked
+through the night of his mis-spent life, his wasted youth, and his
+shame, with compunction. He was also filled with the
+
+    'Sense of past youth and manhood come in vain,
+    Of genius given, and knowledge won in vain.'
+
+His natural love likewise came out in beautiful and touching words,
+that consoled and satisfied those he was about to leave for ever.
+
+Some time before the end, John Brown entered Branwell's room, and they
+were alone. The young man, though faint and dying, spoke of the life
+they had led together. He took a short retrospect of his past excesses,
+in which the grave-digger had often partaken; but in it he made no
+mention of the lady whose image had distracted his brain. He appeared,
+in the calmness of approaching death, and the self-possession that
+preceded it, to be unconscious that he had ever loved any but the
+members of his family, for the depth and tenderness of which affection
+he could find no language to express. But, presently, seizing Brown's
+hand, he uttered the words: 'Oh, John, I am dying!' then, turning, as
+if within himself, he murmured: 'In all my past life I have done
+nothing either great or good.' Conscious that the last moment was near,
+the sexton summoned the household; and retreated to the belfry. It was
+about nine in the morning when the agony began. Branwell's struggles
+and convulsions were great, and continued for some time: in the last
+gasp, he started convulsively, almost to his feet, and fell dead into
+his father's arms.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell says, of this event: 'I have heard, from one who attended
+Branwell in his last illness, that he resolved on standing up to die.
+He had repeatedly said, that as long as there was life, there was
+strength of will to do what it chose; and, when the last agony began,
+he insisted on assuming the position just mentioned.' This account
+does not accord with that given to me by the Browns, and, perhaps, it
+arose from some exaggeration of what actually took place.
+
+On October the 9th, Charlotte writes thus of her brother's end: 'The
+past three weeks have been a dark interval in our humble home.
+Branwell's constitution has been failing fast all the summer; but
+still neither the doctors nor himself thought him so near his end as
+he was. He was entirely confined to his bed but for one single day,
+and was in the village two days before his death. He died, after
+twenty minutes' struggle, on Sunday morning, September 24th. He was
+perfectly conscious till the last agony came on. His mind had
+undergone the peculiar change which frequently precedes death, two
+days previously; the calm of better feelings filled it; a return of
+natural affection marked his last moments. He is in God's hands now;
+and the All-Powerful is likewise the All-Merciful. A deep conviction
+that he rests at last--rests well after his brief, erring, suffering,
+feverish life--fills and quiets my mind now. The final separation, the
+spectacle of his pale corpse, gave me more acute, bitter pain than I
+could have imagined. Till the last hour comes, we never know how much
+we can forgive, pity, regret a near relative. All his vices were and
+are nothing now. We remember only his woes. Papa was acutely
+distressed at first, but, on the whole, has borne the event well.[48]
+
+        [48] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xvi.
+
+A few days later she wrote to another friend, speaking of her brother's
+death. 'The event to which you allude came upon us indeed with
+startling suddenness, and was a severe shock to us all.... I thank
+you for your kind sympathy. Many, under the circumstances, would
+think our loss rather a relief than otherwise; in truth, we must
+acknowledge, in all humility and gratitude, that God has greatly
+tempered judgment with mercy; but, yet, as you doubtless know from
+experience, the last earthly separation cannot take place between
+near relations without the keenest pangs on the part of the
+survivors. Every wrong and sin is forgotten then; pity and grief
+share the hearts and the memory between them. Yet we are not without
+comfort in our affliction. A most propitious change marked the last
+few days of poor Branwell's life ... and this change could not be
+owing to the fear of death, for within half-an-hour of his decease he
+seemed unconscious of danger.'
+
+Charlotte concludes by referring to her own health, which had given
+way under the strain.[49]
+
+        [49] 'Charlotte Brontë: a Monograph,' by T. Wemyss Reid, p.
+        90.
+
+Branwell was buried in the grave in which the remains of his sisters
+Maria and Elizabeth lay, and his name is placed next after theirs on
+the tablet. Thus, after twenty-three years, he joined in the dust
+those from whom in life he had never been separated in affection.
+
+It would have been well if, when the grave closed over his mortal
+remains, it had buried in oblivion the memory of his failings and
+his sorrows. Charlotte, as we have seen, when her brother was gone,
+remembered nothing but his woes; and, if the biographers of herself
+and her sister Emily had consulted the feelings of those on whom they
+wrote--which have been so touchingly and tearfully expressed by
+Charlotte--they would have drawn the veil over whatever offences
+Branwell, as mortal, might have committed. But, amongst Mrs. Gaskell's
+other statements regarding him, there is one, relating even to his
+death, which cannot be passed over in silence here, since, though she
+had been compelled to omit it, with her other charges, from the second
+edition of her work, Miss Robinson has reproduced it recently in her
+'Emily Brontë.' The statement was to the effect that, when Branwell
+died, his pockets were filled with the letters of the lady whom he had
+admired.[50] To this bold statement Martha Brown gave to me a flat
+contradiction, declaring that she was employed in the sick-room at the
+time, and had personal knowledge that not one letter, nor a vestige of
+one, from the lady in question was so found. The letters were mostly
+from a gentleman of Branwell's acquaintance, then living near the
+place of his former employment. Martha was indignant at the
+misrepresentation.
+
+        [50] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. xvi. 1st
+        Ed.
+
+It may not be amiss here, in the briefest possible way, to give an
+outline of the subsequent history of the Brontë family. Emily's health
+began rapidly to fail after Branwell's death, which was a great shock
+to her, and she never left the house alive after the Sunday succeeding
+it. Her cough was very obstinate, and she was troubled with shortness
+of breath. Charlotte saw the danger, but could do nothing to ward it
+off, for Emily was silent and reserved, gave no answers to questions,
+and took no remedies that were prescribed. She grew weaker daily,
+and the end came on Tuesday, December the 19th. At the same time
+Anne was slowly failing, but she lingered longer. 'Anne's decline,'
+said Charlotte, 'is gradual and fluctuating; but its nature is not
+doubtful.' Unlike Emily, she looked for sympathy, took medicines,
+and did her best to get well. It was arranged at last that Charlotte
+and she should go to Scarborough, hoping the change of air might
+invigorate her, and they left the parsonage on May the 24th, 1849. But
+the change had no beneficial effect, and Anne died on May the 28th, at
+Scarborough, where she was buried.
+
+After this the more purely literary portion of Charlotte's life
+commenced. She completed 'Shirley' early in September, 1849, and
+it was published on October the 26th. Her real name, and the
+neighbourhood in which she resided, became now generally known. The
+reviews showered rapidly; but Charlotte thought that one the best by
+Eugène Forçade, in the 'Revue des deux Mondes.' The cloud now passed
+away from her, and she visited London, made the acquaintance of
+Thackeray, Miss Martineau, and others, and entered eagerly into the
+occupations of literary life. 'Villette' was completed in November,
+1852. Charlotte married the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had long
+been her father's curate, on June the 29th, 1854, and she died on
+Saturday, March the 31st, 1855. The Rev. Patrick Brontë, whom I knew,
+a fine, tall, grey-haired, and venerable old man, survived all his
+children, and died at Haworth on January 7th, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BRANWELL'S CHARACTER.
+
+Branwell's Character in his Poetry--The Pious and Tender Tone of
+ Mind which it Displays--Branwell's Tendency to Dwell on the Past
+rather than on the Future--Illustrated--The Sad Tone of his Mind
+--He is Inclined to be Morbid--The Way in which Branwell regarded
+Nature--Observations on the Character Displayed in his Works.
+
+
+It has often been observed that the life of a poet may best be learned
+from the works he has left behind him. We may fall into error in
+dealing with the circumstances of his external life, and may make
+mistakes as to chronology or facts, and, in this way, may be led often
+to form a false estimate of his character; but, if we discover the
+personality concealed in his writings, if we can grasp the hidden
+spirit by which they are informed, we shall be enabled to follow his
+heart in its cherished affections, to understand the characteristic
+tendency of his thoughts, and to comprehend even the very psychology
+of his soul. This enquiry, it is true, is often difficult in the
+extreme; one cannot always unravel the tangled mysteries in which
+natural expression is wrapped up, nor fully pierce the cloudy medium
+of conventionality or affectation through which it may be dimly
+revealed; it is especially difficult, also, to follow it in the works
+of a writer of a school like that of the Euphuists, or of Pope, where
+the medium is one of exaggerated refinement, or of classical and
+formal preciseness.
+
+But, with the writings of Branwell Brontë, the case is entirely
+different; and for a very simple reason, viz., that everything he
+wrote proceeded from a personal inspiration, and was the direct
+expression of the fulness of emotion, and of vivid thoughts or
+feelings which could scarcely be hidden; because, in short, he wrote
+in the true artistic spirit of having something to say.
+
+If Branwell's affectionate nature led him to dwell upon the memories
+of his earlier years, and upon the thoughts of those dead sisters whom
+he had loved so much, he spoke in the voice of Harriet weeping for the
+departed Caroline; it needed but his remembrance of the fell disease
+that had deprived him of his sisters, and the fearful havoc which it
+was yet to work in his family, to inspire him with the sad fancy of
+his 'Percy Hall.' If he sank into the depths of morbid melancholy, and
+was filled with a consciousness of the worthlessness of ambition, the
+folly of pride, and the universality of sorrow, his sonnets were a
+natural expression, in which he found both relief and consolation.
+
+In his case it requires no Pheidian hand to bring out the statue from
+the marble, but only a sympathetic spirit, a heart filled with the
+affections of humanity, and a mind attuned to thoughts somewhat sad,
+to enable one to enter into every mood in which Branwell wrote, and to
+understand the moral and tender pathos that fills his works. It is
+because Branwell's poems are so fully expressive of his feelings at
+the time when they were written that they are so separately placed in
+this work. But, before we conclude it, it will be well to sum up, in
+a slight sketch, a few of the most characteristic features of his
+writings, and, in so doing, we shall arrive at a correct estimate of
+his disposition and of his poetry together.
+
+The first thing, then, that strikes one in Branwell's verse, beginning
+at its youthful period, is the tone of piety that distinguishes it.
+The simple stanzas which he sent to Wordsworth, even, however
+worthless as poetry, are valuable, because they show us the early bent
+of his mind; and the beautiful lines which he wrote a year later, in
+1838, where he first manifests that consciousness of the vanity of
+earthly things, which his sister Anne also versified, tell us of the
+hope of a heavenly future, which is contrasted, in its serenity, with
+the evils of mortal life. The poem entitled 'Caroline's Prayer,' and
+the one 'On Caroline' also, simple though they are, are evidence of
+a devotional turn of mind; and mark again, in the longer poem of
+'Caroline,' how Harriet finds divine consolation in the calm of Nature:
+
+    'Quiet airs of sacred gladness
+      Breathing through these woodlands wild,
+    O'er the whirl of mortal madness
+      Spread the slumbers of a child;'
+
+and how tenderly she remembers the pious lessons which her dead sister
+had drawn from the sufferings of the Saviour of man, a recollection,
+let it be remembered, which Branwell himself preserved. A little later,
+we find Branwell occupied upon a long poem, of which we possess only
+a fragment, wholly sacred in its character, and moral in its
+purpose,--'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's Grave.' Here Noah, before
+the universal Deluge, in the presence even of the cloudy wall 'piled
+boding round the firmament,' harangues the people, bidding them
+withdraw from sin, ere it be too late. It is true, however, that in the
+later poems, when Branwell's mind is cast into its deepest gloom, this
+disposition is not so prominent, and, perhaps, can be gathered only
+from an abundance of tender touches, which could proceed from nothing
+but a devotional spirit; and thus we may infer that, though he might
+have lost some of his early piety, he never lost the effect of it.
+There is, besides, throughout Branwell's work, the evidence of a justly
+balanced morality, in that he nowhere exalts depraved passions, or
+manifests impiety, or, more than all, corrupts his readers with the
+painting of sensuous ideas, or the description of sensuous incidents.
+And I would ask the reader, in connection with this admirable
+characteristic of his poetry, to remember that he has never been
+charged with indulgence of the kind that has lured away too many men
+of genius and mental power.
+
+The next thing that strikes me in Branwell's poetry is the strong love
+that he manifests for the past, which he seems to value more than the
+present, and whose pleasures he deems sweeter and purer than any the
+future can have in store. This tone of thought could be very well
+understood if we had regard to circumstances of the later period of his
+life, when despair had cut off hope; but it is just as prominent in the
+earliest poems he wrote. It would seem that, to the pensive mind of
+Branwell, all the thoughts of childhood, all the joys of youth and its
+affections, became, as years passed on, hallowed and exalted in the
+golden halo of recollection. There were places in the sanctity of the
+past where the roses of Bendemeer grew, unchanging ever; places to
+which he turned for the joys of memory, when solitude inclined him to
+reflection. These pleasures of memory were often of a pensive order,
+for they were connected with sorrowful events, or they were joys turned
+sorrowful, as joys will turn, when they have been long enough departed.
+In Branwell's letter to Wordsworth, and in his other letters, he
+expresses plenty of honest ambition, and talks bravely of work in the
+future; and he spoke in the same way also. But I have received from his
+poems the impression that this ambition grew from the requirements of
+circumstances, and from literary emulation; that, in fact, the
+constitution of Branwell's mind was of the gentle reflective nature to
+which the pleasures of ambition appear hollow and insufficient in
+themselves. At least it is clear that he dwelt with more satisfaction
+on the past than on the future. So far, indeed, as his poetry is
+concerned, we saw, in 'The End of All,' that it was only when loss made
+the past too painful for thought, that he turned to the stony joys of
+solitary ambition and personal fame. This seems to me to be a very
+tender trait in his character, however little it might fit him to fight
+the battle of life with those who looked for the joys of the future,
+rather than turned to pleasures they could actually taste no more.
+
+In Branwell's thoughtful moods, it required but the woodland sunshine,
+perhaps, or the sound of the distant bells, to bring back memories to
+him, as they brought back to Harriet, in the poem of 'Caroline,' many a
+scene of bygone days, opening the fount of tears, and waking memory to
+the thought
+
+    'Of visions sleeping--not forgot.'
+
+Thus, under the pensive influence, there passed over her
+
+    'That swell of thought, which seems to fill
+      The bursting heart, the gushing eye,
+    While fades all _present_ good or ill
+      Before the shades of things gone by.'
+
+It called up in her, also, the hours when Caroline, too, listening to
+the wild storms of winter, had filled the nights with pictures and
+feelings
+
+    'From far-off memories brought.'
+
+These treasures of memory, to which Branwell refers in many of his
+poems, were to him of a sacred nature, and might not be profaned. He
+tells us, indeed, in one of his sonnets, that the tears of affection
+are dried up by the growth of honours, and by the interests and
+pursuits of life, which
+
+    'Dim or destroy those holy thoughts which cling
+    Round where the forms we loved lie slumbering.'
+
+For the past was thus hallowed by Branwell, because in it lay his
+earliest affections, and his most poignant sorrows. I have had
+occasion, in speaking of several of the poems in this volume, to point
+out the love which he shows for his dead sisters, Maria and Elizabeth,
+and how he mourned them up to the last year of his life. For his
+disposition was of a deeply affectionate order. He has, indeed, painted
+for us too vividly, in both the poems of 'Caroline' and 'Percy Hall,'
+the pangs of separation, and the cheerless void that remains when the
+loved one has departed, to leave us any doubt as to the sensitiveness
+of his nature.
+
+It will not have escaped the reader's attention that Branwell's muse
+sings often morbidly enough, and that,--like some spirit that cannot
+forsake the scene of its mortal sorrows, and haunts the place of its
+affliction--he dwells frequently upon details of a painful kind, that
+others would gladly have relegated to oblivion. In the poem of
+'Caroline,' the picture of his mother, clad in black, is still before
+his eyes; he remembers even the grave-clothes of his sister in her
+coffin, and
+
+    'Her _too_ bright cheek all faded now;'
+
+the closing of the coffin lid, and the lowering of it into its narrow
+bed are yet before his eyes; and painfully he remembers his feeling at
+the grave-side:
+
+    'And wild my sob, when hollow rung
+    The first cold clod above her flung.'
+
+Later, though he was occupied with different subjects, Branwell could
+not entirely free himself from a morbid and painful analysis of the
+physical effects of the disease he dreaded so much; and very
+beautifully does he suggest the picture of consumptive decline and
+early decay.
+
+This tone of thought, and the many misfortunes and gloomy forebodings
+that attended Branwell's later years, had a natural effect in giving
+a mournful cast to almost every emanation of his muse; and we find,
+in effect, throughout the poems here collected, that, save in one
+instance--'The Epicurean's Song'--which we feel to be the production
+of a moment of elation, there is scarcely a line that does not breathe
+a consciousness of sad regret, or of cruel and bitter sorrow.
+
+He was filled with the sense of the futility of human joy, and the
+abiding presence of woe:
+
+    'No! joy _itself_ is but a shade,
+      So well may its remembrance die,
+    But cares, Life's conquerors, never fade,
+      So strong is their reality.'
+
+These sorrows, as years went by, grew so terrible in their crushing
+weight, that the mind could barely withstand them, and Branwell felt,
+in that period when his cry was for peace in death, that, when the
+light of life is gone,
+
+    'There come no sorrows crowding on,
+      And powerless lies Despair.'
+
+With Branwell, indeed, as with Mary in his poem of 'Percy Hall,'
+'thought felt irksome to the heated brain.'
+
+It was then that oblivion became to him a coveted relief from
+immediate woe, and that he envied the dreamless head of the wandering,
+water-borne corpse, whose rolling bed seemed calmer than the turmoil
+of the world.
+
+This figure of the body rocked by the waves of ocean, brings me to a
+consideration of the way in which Branwell regarded Nature, which had
+something very noteworthy in it. It was always remarked by his friends
+that the young poet was a great observer, and took an especial pleasure
+in the works of Nature. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising, at first
+sight, that, in his poems, he does not dwell upon them descriptively or
+in a marked manner, and that we have to infer, from certain suggestive
+touches and pictures--which do, indeed, speak more plainly than words
+could--that he observed them at all. But we learn that the works of
+Nature had for Branwell a deeper significance than for most people,
+that he conceived they had some mysterious sympathy or unspeakable
+connection with human affections, and were, in a manner, the expression
+or immediate reflection of the Deity. Wordsworth, Southey, and
+Coleridge had already looked upon Nature somewhat in this wise; but it
+would be a mistake to suppose that Branwell imitated them: his thoughts
+flow too swiftly and impetuously to admit of such a conclusion. It is
+possible that, if his life had passed calmly, he might have dwelt upon
+the simple beauties of Nature, and found in them a homely harmony with
+familiar ideas; Charlotte and Anne in their poetry scarcely get beyond
+this; but it was different with Emily and Branwell. Emily, with her
+reserved, passionate nature, had a sympathetic spell in the solitary
+moorland; and Branwell, labouring with his sorrows, found, in the
+wildest storms, a being with whom he must battle, or saw, in the mighty
+mountains, an image of unbroken strength and everlasting fortitude,
+such a power as he must strive after and make his own. But, in
+Branwell's earlier poems, this influence is not so marked, and his muse
+is simply attuned to the saddened thoughts in which Nature
+participates. Thus Wordsworth had sung:
+
+    'Fancy, who leads the pastimes of the glad,
+    Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw;
+    Sending sad shadows after things not sad,
+    Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe:
+    Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry
+    Becomes an echo of man's misery.'
+
+And thus we see, in Branwell's 'Caroline,' how, even in its calmness,
+the beautifully suggested picture of eve--when the sunlight slants, and
+the waters cease their motion, and the calm and hush tell of rest from
+labour--is made to harmonize with the plaintive thoughts of Harriet.
+But then comes the more significant question:
+
+    'Why is such a silence given
+      To this summer day's decay,
+    Does our earth feel aught of Heaven,
+      Can the voice of Nature pray?'
+
+What, in short, is the harmonious and sympathetic spell that breathes
+through Nature?
+
+The wild places of the earth, mountains and moorlands, where the storms
+raged, and the great winds blew, were nearest akin to the Titanic
+genius of Branwell and Emily. Thus, in the sonnet, the everlasting
+majesty of Black Comb was held up by Branwell as an example to man, and
+as a contrast to human feebleness; and later, when his woe was most
+acute, he was drawn into a 'communion of vague unity' with Penmaenmawr,
+comparing the living, beating heart of man with the stony hill, and
+begging,
+
+    'Let me, like it, arise o'er mortal care,
+    All woes sustain, yet never know despair,
+    Unshrinking face the griefs I now deplore,
+    And stand through storm and shine like moveless Penmaenmawr.'
+
+And, lastly, in the 'Epistle from a Father to a Child in her Grave,' we
+find him comparing himself with one in the midst of wild mountains:
+
+    'I, thy life's source, was like a wanderer breasting
+    Keen mountain winds, and on a summit resting,
+    Whose rough rocks rise above the grassy mead,
+    With sleet and north winds howling overhead.'
+
+It will be seen from this short inquiry that the poetry of Branwell
+Brontë was entirely introspective, having, almost to the last line,
+some direct reference to his own thoughts or feelings; and that it
+may thus be read as an actual part of the story of his life. The
+disposition it reveals, though often hidden, as the readers of this
+book know, through the effects of folly and indulgence, was one of a
+singularly gentle, affectionate, and sympathetic character; passionate
+and unstable, it is true, but a disposition, nevertheless, that has
+been frequently misunderstood, and not seldom wronged. One of the aims
+of this book has been to set Patrick Branwell Brontë right with the
+public; an attempt, not to clear him from follies and weaknesses that
+really were his--which the public, but for the mistakes of biographers,
+would never have known--but to show that, at any rate, his nature was
+one rather to be admired than condemned. It has aimed also, by the
+publication of his poetical writings, to demonstrate that his genius is
+not unworthy to be ranked with that which made his sisters famous. Yet
+it may, perhaps, be held that the poems here published contain more of
+rich promise than of real fulfilment, rather the earnest of literary
+success than the actual accomplishment of it. But, in reading the
+poetry of Branwell Brontë, which is so uniformly sad, it may be well to
+remember what Mr. Swinburne has said, in speaking of Mr. Browning, that
+'to do justice to any book which deserves any other sort of justice
+than that of the fire or waste-paper basket, it is necessary to read it
+in a fit frame of mind.'
+
+
+THE END.
+
+LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brontë Family, Vol. 2 of 2, by 
+Francis A. Leyland
+
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+<title>The Bront&#235; Family, Vol. II, by Francis A.
+Leyland--A Project Gutenberg eBook</title>
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+<pre>
+
+Project Gutenberg's The Brontë Family, Vol. 2 of 2, by Francis A. Leyland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Brontë Family, Vol. 2 of 2
+       with special reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë
+
+Author: Francis A. Leyland
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2011 [EBook #37844]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRONTË FAMILY, VOL. 2 OF 2 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by StevenGibbs and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<h1>
+THE BRONT&#203; FAMILY
+</h1>
+<br>
+<h3>
+WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
+</h3>
+
+<h2>
+PATRICK BRANWELL BRONT&#203;
+</h2>
+
+<h3>
+VOL. II.
+</h3>
+
+<br>
+<h3>
+BY
+</h3>
+
+<h2>
+FRANCIS A. LEYLAND.
+</h2>
+
+<br>
+<h3>
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+</h3>
+
+<h3>
+VOL. II.
+</h3>
+
+<br>
+<h4>
+LONDON:<br>
+HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,<br>
+13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.<br>
+1886.
+</h4>
+
+<h4>
+<i>All rights reserved.</i>
+</h4>
+
+
+<hr cLass="med">
+
+<p class="section">
+CONTENTS
+
+
+<br>
+<small>OF</small>
+
+
+<br>THE SECOND VOLUME.
+</p>
+
+<table class="contents" summary="Contents">
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#I">CHAPTER I.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">The Sojourn in Brussels Resolved upon&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Why Charlotte fixed on
+Brussels for Higher Education&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte and Emily take up
+their Residence with Madame H&#233;ger&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;A Picture of the Prospect
+in 'Villette'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;At the Pensionnat&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Madame H&#233;ger&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Monsieur
+H&#233;ger&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte likes Brussels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Her Contrast between the
+Belgians and the English&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Death of Miss Branwell&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Return to
+Haworth</td>
+<td class="pg">1</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#II">CHAPTER II.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Branwell at the Parsonage: his Loneliness&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'The Epicurean's
+Song'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Song'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Northangerland&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's
+Grave'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Letter to Mr. Grundy&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Miss Branwell's Death&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Her Will&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Her
+Nephew Remembered&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Injustice done to Him in this Matter by the
+Biographers of his Sisters</td>
+<td class="pg">20</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#III">CHAPTER III.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Christmas, 1842&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell is Cheerful&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte goes to Brussels
+for another Year&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell receives Appointment as Tutor&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell
+visits Halifax, and meets Mr. Grundy there&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's Mental
+Depression in Brussels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mrs. Gaskell attributes it to Branwell's
+Conduct&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Proofs that it was Not so&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's 'Disappointment'
+at Brussels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;She returns to Haworth&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Misplaced
+Attachment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He is sent away to New Scenes</td>
+<td class="pg">33</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#IV">CHAPTER IV.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Branwell after his Disappointment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Parallel for his State of Mind
+in that of Lady Byron&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mrs. Gaskell's Misconceptions&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;True State of
+the Case&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte Illustrates it in her Poem of 'Preference'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+She alludes to Branwell's Condition in 'The Professor'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mrs.
+Gaskell Compelled to Omit her Account in the Later Editions of
+her Work&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Prostration and Ill-health at the Time</td>
+<td class="pg">53</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#V">CHAPTER V.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Review of Branwell's past Experiences of Life&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He seeks Relief
+in Literary Occupation&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He Proposes to Write a Three-volume
+Novel&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Letter on the Subject&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;One Volume Completed&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His
+Capability of Writing a Novel&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Letter to Mr. Grundy on his
+Disappointment</td>
+<td class="pg">78</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#VI">CHAPTER VI.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">'Real Rest'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Comments&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Spirit of Branwell and Emily Identical&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+Letter to Leyland&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell Broods on his Sorrows&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Penmaenmawr'
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Comments&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He still Searches and Hopes for Employment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's
+somewhat Overdrawn Expressions&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Alleged Elopement Proposal&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+Probable Origin of the Story</td>
+<td class="pg">94</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#VII">CHAPTER VII.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">The Sisters as Writers of Poetry&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;They Decide to Publish&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Each
+begins a Novel&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Spirit under which the Work was Undertaken&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+'The Professor'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Agnes Grey'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Wuthering Heights'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's
+Condition&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;A Touching Incident&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Epistle from a Father to a Child
+in her Grave'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Letter with Sonnet&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Publication of the Sisters'
+Poems</td>
+<td class="pg">113</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#VIII">CHAPTER VIII.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Death of Branwell's late Employer&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Disappointment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His
+Letters&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Delusion&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Leyland's Medallion of Him&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mr. Bront&#235;'s
+Blindness&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Statement to Mr. Grundy in Reference to
+'Wuthering Heights'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Sisters Relinquish the Intention of
+Opening a School</td>
+<td class="pg">138</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#IX">CHAPTER IX.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Branwell's Sardonic Humour&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mr. Grundy's Visit to him at
+Haworth&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Errors regarding the Period of it&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Tragic Description
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Probable Ruse of Branwell&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Correspondence between him and
+Mr. Grundy ceases&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Writes to Leyland&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;A Plaintive Verse&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+Another Letter</td>
+<td class="pg">160</td>
+</tr>
+
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#X">CHAPTER X.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">'Wuthering Heights'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Reception of the Book by the Public&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;It
+is Misunderstood&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Its Authorship&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mr. Dearden's Account&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+Statements of Mr. Edward Sloane and Mr. Grundy&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Remarks by Mr.
+T. Wemyss Reid&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Correspondences between 'Wuthering Heights'
+and Branwell's Letters&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The 'Carving-knife Episode'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Further
+Correspondences&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Resemblances of Thought in Branwell and
+Emily</td>
+<td class="pg">178</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#XI">CHAPTER XI.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in
+consequence of her Brother's Conduct&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Supposition of Some that
+Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Characters are
+Entirely Distinct&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Real Sources of the Story&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Anne Bront&#235; at
+Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of
+Branwell</td>
+<td class="pg">216</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#XII">CHAPTER XII.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Novel-writing&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Sisters' Method of Work&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Failing
+Health and Irregularities&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Jane Eyre'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Its Reception and
+Character&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;It was not Influenced by Branwell&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Letter and Sketches
+of Branwell, 1848</td>
+<td class="pg">229</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#XIII">CHAPTER XIII.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Branwell's Poetical Work&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Sketch of the Materials which he
+intended to use in the Poem of 'Morley Hall'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Poem&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The
+Subject left Incomplete&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Poem, 'The End of All'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His
+Letter to Leyland asking an Opinion on his Poem, 'Percy Hall'
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Observations&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Poem</td>
+<td class="pg">242</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#XIV">CHAPTER XIV.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Charlotte Corresponds on Literary Subjects&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Novels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Confession
+of Authorship&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Failing Health&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He Writes to Leyland
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell and Mr. George Searle Phillips&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Intellect
+Retains its Power&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Description of 'Professor Leonidas
+Lyon'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The latter Gentleman's Account of his Reading of 'Jane
+Eyre'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Remarks on Charlotte and the Work</td>
+<td class="pg">264</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#XV">CHAPTER XV.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Branwell's failing Health&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Chronic Bronchitis and Marasmus&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His
+Death&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's allusions to it&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Correction of some Statements
+relating to it&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Summary of the subsequent History of the Bront&#235;
+Family</td>
+<td class="pg">277</td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="chpt"><a href="#XVI">CHAPTER XVI.</a></td>
+</tr>
+
+<tr>
+<td class="hang">Branwell's Character in his Poetry&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Pious and Tender Tone
+of Mind which it Displays&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Tendency to Dwell on the
+Past rather than on the Future&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Illustrated&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Sad Tone of his
+Mind&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He is Inclined to be Morbid&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Way in which Branwell
+regarded Nature&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Observations on the Character Displayed in
+his Works</td>
+<td class="pg">287</td>
+</tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="med">
+
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<b><big>THE BRONT&#203; FAMILY.</big></b>
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="I">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER I.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+CHARLOTTE AND EMILY IN BRUSSELS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+The Sojourn in Brussels Resolved upon&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Why Charlotte fixed on
+Brussels for Higher Education&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte and Emily take up their
+Residence with Madame H&#233;ger&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;A Picture of the Prospect in 'Villette'
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;At the Pensionnat&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Madame H&#233;ger&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Monsieur H&#233;ger&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte likes
+Brussels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Her Contrast between the Belgians and the English&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Death
+of Miss Branwell&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Return to Haworth.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+It was more than a month before Charlotte received the reply from her
+Aunt Branwell. Meanwhile she had waited patiently, pending the anxious
+discussions at the parsonage, and she breathed not a single word of
+the great project to her friend. It was her way to work in obscurity,
+and to let her efforts 'be known by their results.' But at last, as I
+have said, consent was given to her plan; the necessary money was
+forthcoming; and it only remained for her to make the arrangements for
+her journey, and Emily had arrangements to make also. There was much
+of letter-writing to do, letters to Brussels&#8212;whither Charlotte would
+of all cities prefer to go,&#8212;and to many other places; and there were
+clothes to make, and farewells to be said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was a great disappointment to Charlotte,&#8212;when, having left her
+situation at Christmas, 1841, she came to Haworth to join the family
+circle,&#8212;that Branwell could not be there, and it troubled him very
+much too. But the plans were talked over, the letters were written,
+and Charlotte did not repent her boldness,&#8212;nay, she looked forward
+confidently to the venture. It seems a strange ambitious plan to us,
+and one showing little knowledge of the world, this of spending six
+months in Brussels, in that short time to become thoroughly acquainted
+with French, to be improved in Italian, and get a dash of German; and,
+so provided with accomplishments, to set up a successful school at
+Burlington,&#8212;for the Dewsbury Moor project had already been
+relinquished.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Brussels was fixed upon by Charlotte for several reasons: because it
+was a cheap journey, because education could be had there at any rate
+as good as at any other place in Europe, and perhaps better; and then,
+Mary and Martha T&#8212;&#8212;, her friends, were staying at Brussels at the
+Ch&#226;teau de Kokleberg, and Mary, with Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the
+English chaplain, would find the desired <i>pensionnat</i>. But there
+was a temporary disappointment: it was reported that the schools in
+Brussels were not good; and Charlotte immediately set to work to
+discover another establishment, which was found at Lille&#8212;one that
+Baptist Noel recommended, where the terms were &#163;50 for each pupil. It
+had been at last arranged that Charlotte and Emily should journey to
+this place, about the middle of February, 1842, under the escort of
+Madame Marzials, a lady then in London, when again the plans were
+changed. Mrs. Jenkins, the chaplain's wife, had discovered, to
+Charlotte's great delight, the establishment of Madame H&#233;ger in the
+Rue d'Isabelle, at Brussels, which was greatly eulogized, and thither
+it was finally decided that the two sisters could go.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte went to Brussels with a stout heart and in perfect
+confidence, and she left no regrets behind her; but it was not so
+with Emily. The elder sister was cast in a different mould from the
+younger; there was a spice of adventure in her composition, and the
+pleasure, too, of seeing new places was keen. It had been said to her
+by some inward voice, as to Lucy Snowe, who is the truest portrait
+of Charlotte, 'Leave this wilderness, and go out hence;' and she
+answered the query, 'Where?' with a sharp determination; and went out
+to enter into the spirit of the things she met, wherever her mental
+constitution would enable her to do so. 'For background,' she says
+of her journey in 'Villette,' 'spread a sky, solemn and dark blue,
+and&#8212;grand with imperial promise, with tints of enchantment&#8212;strode
+from north to south a God-bent bow, an arch of hope:' but that was to
+be struck out. 'Cancel that, reader&#8212;or rather let it stand, and draw
+thence a moral&#8212;an alliterative, text-hand copy:
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+'"Day-dreams are delusions of the demon."'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+So was Charlotte to be disillusioned. But what a fairyland had she
+fashioned to herself of that gay Belgian capital, and what painful
+memories she brought thence! For, according to Mr. Wemyss Reid,&#8212;and
+doubtless he is right&#8212;her stay in Brussels with Emily, and afterwards
+alone, was the turning-point in Charlotte's career, and the record of
+it in 'Villette' was wrung from her as her heart's blood, amid
+paroxysms of positive anguish. But of these things she knew nothing in
+the January of 1842; then the future slept in sunny calm, so sunny,
+indeed, that to part from Haworth, and those she knew there, her
+father and her brother and sister, gave her scarcely a pang; and
+afterwards, so far as one can trace, from her letters, and from
+'Villette,' which expresses even more, the troubles of the parsonage
+were never acute troubles to her. Her joys and troubles abroad were in
+fact her own, and they were borne and suffered alone.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, with Emily, Haworth was no wilderness, a paradise rather, and
+with bitter pain she left the moors that the coming summer should
+cover with purple billows. For Emily Bront&#235; was inspired far more than
+her sister with the influences of locality and of her home. Amidst the
+distant Yorkshire hills dwelt, too, her father, with Branwell and
+Anne, whom she loved more than all else in the world; and many an
+hour, sitting in the bare rooms of the <i>pensionnat</i>, she pondered
+on their hopes and their sorrows. We cannot say that Emily's sojourn
+in Brussels changed her in any way whatever, nor that she was made by
+it of any nearer kinship with the outside world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Bront&#235; accompanied his daughters, and Mary and her brother, who
+travelled with them to Brussels. They stayed a day or two in London,
+at the Chapter coffee-house in Paternoster Row, and a good deal of
+sight-seeing was done before they left for the Belgian capital. In
+'Villette' Charlotte has told us of her first visit to London, and of
+the travelling to Labassecour, but the actual details refer more
+probably to her second journey thither. Yet we may feel sure that it
+was with the same spirit that she saw the metropolis, that she
+revelled in its busy life and in the earnestness that moved it. We may
+imagine her on the dome of St. Paul's looking over the river with its
+bridges, and, alongside it, the Temple Gardens, and Westminster
+beyond; and we may see her in the classic ground of Paternoster Row.
+Emily has left no record of her feelings on this journey, but we may
+be sure they differed very much from Charlotte's. We have an account
+in 'The Professor' of William Crimsworth's feelings when he entered
+Belgium, and they were doubtless Charlotte's also. 'This is Belgium,
+reader. Look! don't call the picture flat or a dull one&#8212;it was
+neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I left Ostend
+on a fine February morning, and found myself on the road to Brussels,
+nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment possessed an
+edge whetted to the finest; untouched, keen, exquisite.&#8230; Liberty I
+clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of her smile
+and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was proposed at the time that the two sisters should remain in the
+<i>pensionnat</i> until the <i>grandes vacances</i> in September, when
+they were to return home. They were in Brussels then to work, and the
+boisterous schoolgirls found no companions in them, for they remained
+together for a long time, and read and studied apart. These two
+sisters did not easily make friends; they were shy, and their
+companions thought them peculiar&#8212;Charlotte, clad in her plain,
+home-made dress, and Emily, with her gigot sleeves and long, straight
+skirts, walking in the garden together. Mrs. Jenkins told Mrs. Gaskell
+that she asked them to spend Sundays and holidays with her, but at
+last she found that even these visits gave them more pain than
+pleasure, and thenceforth they remained away. This reserve never
+passed from Emily entirely, but Charlotte afterwards gained confidence
+and made friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There were memories, as Mrs. Gaskell records, connected with Madame
+H&#233;ger's house in the Rue d'Isabelle, of medi&#230;val chivalry and romance,
+which are doubtless reflected in the visits of the nun to the
+<i>grenier</i> and the old garden where Lucy Snowe is. From the gay,
+bright Rue Royale four flights of steps lead down to the Rue
+d'Isabelle, and the chimneys of its houses are level with one's feet
+as one stands at the top of them. The quiet street was called the
+Foss&#233; aux Chiens in the thirteenth century, because the ducal kennels
+were there, on the site of Madame H&#233;ger's house; but these gave place
+later to a hospital for the homeless and the poor. Afterwards the
+Arbal&#233;triers du Grand Serment had their place there, and noble company
+visited them, and great ceremonials and feasts they gave. Later again
+the street was called the Rue d'Isabelle, because the Infanta Isabella
+induced the Arbal&#233;triers to allow a road to be made through their
+grounds, and built them in return a noble mansion close by, which was
+afterwards Madame H&#233;ger's.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+William Crimsworth saw the establishment. 'I remember, before entering
+the park, I stood awhile to contemplate the statue of General
+Belliard, and then I advanced to the top of the great staircase just
+beyond, and I looked down into a narrow back street, which I
+afterwards learnt was called the Rue d'Isabelle. I well recollect that
+my eye rested on the green door of a rather large house opposite,
+where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, "Pensionnat de Demoiselles."'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Madame H&#233;ger, the mistress of this <i>pensionnat</i>, was a woman of
+capacity, and understood the duties of her position, but apparently
+Charlotte did not get on very well with her, and in the second year of
+the residence in Brussels they were estranged. It was said that the
+<i>directrice</i> had 'quelque chose de froid et de compass&#233; dans son
+maintien,' which did not prepossess people in her favour; and
+Charlotte, it appears, had little tolerance of her beliefs or her
+prejudices. Monsieur H&#233;ger, unlike his wife, was of a quick and
+energetic nature, choleric and irritable in temperament, but withal
+gentle and benevolent also. It was said that there were few characters
+so noble and admirable as his, that he was a zealous member of the
+Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and that, after days occupied in
+arduous educational work, he was wont to gather the poor together in
+order that he might amuse and instruct them at the same time. He gave
+up his lucrative position, too, as prefect of the studies at the
+Athen&#233;e because he could not succeed in introducing religious
+instruction into the curriculum there. Very many traits of Monsieur
+H&#233;ger's character are reproduced in that of Paul Emanuel.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The school was a large and prosperous one, conducted as continental
+schools usually are, and Charlotte, in a short time, was happy in the
+busy life she led there. She has left an admirable picture, a
+veritable photograph, of the establishment in the pages of 'Villette,'
+which indeed contains her mental history during her sojourn there. The
+training through which she and Emily were put was different from that
+of the other pupils. Monsieur H&#233;ger was quick to perceive that they
+were capable of greater things than most people, so he took the bold
+step of putting them to the higher walks of French literature,
+omitting the general work of grammar and vocabulary; and his
+experiment was justified by its success.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte and Emily, with one other girl and the <i>governante</i> of
+Madame H&#233;ger's children, were the only exceptions to the Catholicism
+of the house, and the Bront&#235;s found that this difference cut them off
+in sympathy from the rest of the inhabitants. 'We are completely
+isolated in the midst of numbers,' says Charlotte; but she adds, 'I
+think I am never unhappy; my present life is so delightful, so
+congenial to my own nature, compared with that of a governess. My
+time, constantly occupied, passes too rapidly.' We do not find that
+news from home gave her trouble, nor that she was particularly uneasy
+in her absence. 'I don't deny,' she says later, 'that I have brief
+attacks of home-sickness; but, on the whole, I have borne a very
+valiant heart so far; and I have been happy in Brussels, because I
+have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte's happiness at this time was in herself. She lived in bright
+anticipation of the time when it should be possible to the sisters to
+open a school, which was to be the reward of their arduous studies,
+and of that love for work and that perseverance of which Monsieur
+H&#233;ger spoke in his letter to Mr. Bront&#235;, written when Charlotte and
+Emily were called to Haworth. Lucy Snowe in 'Villette' tells of such
+hopes; of the tenement which she shall take, with its one large room
+and two or three smaller ones; of the few benches and desks, the black
+tableau, and the <i>estrade</i>, with its chair, tables, chalks, and
+sponge, where she shall teach the day-scholars. 'Madame Beck's
+commencement was&#8212;as I have often heard her say&#8212;from no higher
+starting-point, and where is she now?' This was the hope which Lucy
+Snowe repeated to Monsieur Paul, and it pleased him, though he called
+it 'an Alnaschar dream.' But it was the salt of Charlotte's life
+during the first months of her residence in Brussels.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Brussels was liked by Charlotte, and she calls it a beautiful city;
+and she liked the country about it, though it differed so much from
+her own hilly Haworth. But she did not like its inhabitants; the
+Belgians were to her people of a lower order; she could not enter into
+their pleasures, and she did not understand them. Charlotte, with her
+restricted views of life, came into the midst of strangers; she found
+them different from her ideal, and she was repulsed by them. The two
+books in which she has recorded her impressions of the Belgians are
+occupied with a frequent contrast of 'the daughter of Albion and
+nursling of Protestantism' with 'the foster-child of Rome, the
+proteg&#233;e of Jesuitry,' always to the disadvantage of the latter.
+Mesdemoiselles Eulalie, Hortense, and Caroline in 'The Professor,' and
+Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Ang&#233;lique in 'Villette,' are
+Charlotte's types of the Belgian female&#8212;heavy, stolid,
+unimpressionable to good, sensual, gross, and unintellectual. The
+Labasse-couriennes were 'a swinish multitude,' not to be driven by
+force; 'whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions, they brought
+it out with a careless ease and breadth, altogether untroubled by any
+rebuke of conscience;' and they were cold, animal, and selfish.
+Nevertheless, occupied in her duties, Charlotte was happy, even with
+these companions. We have no actual means of knowing what Emily
+thought of them, for her life amongst them was never reproduced in her
+writings, and it made but little permanent impression upon her.
+Charlotte said that her sister worked 'like a horse,' and that she did
+not get on well with Monsieur H&#233;ger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The two sisters had now friends in Brussels, for they sometimes saw
+Mary and Martha T&#8212;&#8212; who were staying there at the Ch&#226;teau de
+Kokleberg, and these young ladies had cousins in the city, whose house
+was often a pleasant meeting-place. But Emily made little progress
+with these friendships.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The <i>grandes vacances</i> began in September, but Charlotte and
+Emily did not return home then as had been intended; all was well at
+Haworth, and there was no reason why they should. Madame H&#233;ger made a
+proposal that they should remain six months more, Charlotte as English
+teacher, and Emily to instruct some pupils in music; and they were to
+continue their studies and have board without payment, but they were
+offered no salary. These terms were at last accepted, and the sisters
+remained through the long <i>vacances</i> with a few boarders who were
+also there, and Charlotte, at least, was happy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But a year later, when the rooms of the <i>pensionnat</i> were once
+more deserted, and Emily far away in the parsonage at Haworth, there
+can be no doubt that she became again subject to that melancholia
+which had previously been remarked in her when she was at Miss
+Wooler's. The excitement of her first sojourn at Brussels wore off,
+she found no novelty in the things she saw, and she was left to
+solitary reflection a great deal. But her melancholy began with
+herself. 'My youth is leaving me,' she said to Mary; 'I can never do
+better than I have done, and I have done nothing yet,' and she seemed
+at such times, according to this friend, 'to think that most human
+beings were destined by the pressure of worldly interests to lose one
+faculty and feeling after another, till they went dead altogether. I
+hope I shall be put in my grave as soon as I'm dead; I don't want to
+walk about so,' she added. Mary advised her to go home or elsewhere,
+when she was in this state, for the sake of change, and Charlotte
+thanked her for the advice, but did not take it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not,' says Lucy
+Snowe&#8230;. 'My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained
+its cords. How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless!
+How vast and void seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the
+forsaken garden,&#8212;grey now with the dust of a town summer departed!'
+To Lucy Snowe the future gave no promise of comfort; and a sorrowful
+indifference to existence often pressed upon her,&#8212;a 'despairing
+resignation to reach betimes the end of all things earthly.' She found
+the future but a hopeless desert: 'tawny sands, with no green fields,
+no palm-tree, no well in view.' And these were the thoughts, too, that
+oppressed Charlotte Bront&#235; in Brussels and sorely weighed her down. It
+was in one of these fits of depression, overcome with melancholy, that
+she found consolation in the confessional, when she poured her tale of
+solitary sorrow into the ear of a priest&#8212;a P&#232;re Silas, like him in
+'Villette,' who spoke of peace and hope to Lucy Snowe.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Troubles of another kind had, however, broken in sadly enough on the
+close of Charlotte's first <i>vacances</i> in Brussels in 1842, when
+she and Emily were greatly shocked by the death of Martha T&#8212;&#8212; at the
+Ch&#226;teau de Kokleberg, after a very short illness. This was a great
+grief to the little circle in Brussels, for the dead girl had been a
+bright and affectionate companion,&#8212;bewailed under the name of Jessie
+in 'Shirley,'&#8212;and she was deeply lamented. But another grief awaited
+the Bront&#235; sisters; they heard that their aunt Branwell was ill,&#8212;was
+dead; they were wanted at home; and at once, after very hasty
+preparation, they left Brussels, Emily not to return. They came back
+to the parsonage at Haworth, to find the funeral over, and the house
+deprived of one who had been its support and guardian for years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Thus their stay in Brussels was suddenly cut short, and their studies
+were interrupted; but they had learned a good deal during their stay
+there. Monsieur H&#233;ger wrote to console Mr. Bront&#235; on his loss; and
+said that in another year the two girls would have been secured
+against the eventualities of the future. They were being instructed,
+and, at the same time, were acquiring the art of instruction: Emily
+was learning the piano, and receiving lessons from the best Belgian
+professors; and she had little pupils herself. 'Elle perdait donc &#224; la
+fois un reste d'ignorance et un reste plus g&#234;nant encore de timidit&#233;.'
+Charlotte was beginning to give French lessons, and to gain 'cette
+assurance, cet aplomb si n&#233;cessaire dans l'enseignement.' It was this
+kind letter from Monsieur H&#233;ger that afterwards induced Mr. Bront&#235; to
+allow Charlotte to return to Brussels.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="II">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER II.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+OTHER POEMS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Branwell at the Parsonage: his Loneliness&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'The Epicurean's
+Song'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Song'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Northangerland&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's
+Grave'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Letter to Mr. Grundy&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Miss Branwell's Death&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Her Will&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Her
+Nephew Remembered&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Injustice done to Him in this Matter by the
+Biographers of his Sisters.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+During the absence of his sisters Charlotte and Emily in Brussels, and
+while Anne was away as a governess, Branwell no doubt felt lonely at
+the parsonage at Haworth; but he appears to have sought consolation
+from his troubles in the soothing influences of music and poetry. He
+knew that these employments softened many of the difficulties that
+beset the road of human life, and that they introduced men into a
+purer and nobler sphere than that which is called reality. He felt
+that they led 'the spirit on, in an ecstasy of admiration, of sweet
+sorrow, or of unearthly joy, to the music of harmonious, and not
+wholly intelligible words, raising in the mind beauteous and
+transcendent images.' Whatever may have been said as to Branwell's
+proneness to self-indulgence, and his enjoyment of society, even that
+of 'The Bull,' and of the corrupt of Haworth, none of his alleged
+depravity and coarseness of disposition disfigured his verses, however
+deficient his early effusions may have been in the higher excellencies
+of the Muse. From the general tenor of his writings, which is
+religious and sometimes philosophical, he seems, under his
+misfortunes, which were ever with him in one shape or another, to have
+sought consolation in the shadowed paths of poetry and reflection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some lights now and then diversify the general gloom of his stanzas;
+but, even then, an air of sadness still pervades them. More I shall
+find to say on the special features of Branwell's poems in the later
+pages of the present work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He wrote the following verses in 1842:
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE EPICUREAN'S SONG.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'The visits of Sorrow</p>
+<p class="i2">Say, why should we mourn?</p>
+<p>Since the sun of to-morrow</p>
+<p class="i2">May shine on its urn;</p>
+<p class="i4">And all that we think such pain</p>
+<p class="i4">Will have departed,&#8212;then</p>
+<p>Bear for a moment what cannot return;</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'For past time has taken</p>
+<p class="i2">Each hour that it gave,</p>
+<p>And they never awaken</p>
+<p class="i2">From yesterday's grave;</p>
+<p class="i4">So surely we may defy</p>
+<p class="i4">Shadows, like memory,</p>
+<p>Feeble and fleeting as midsummer wave.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'From the depths where they're falling</p>
+<p class="i2">Nor pleasure, nor pain,</p>
+<p>Despite our recalling,</p>
+<p class="i2">Can reach us again;</p>
+<p class="i4">Though we brood over them,</p>
+<p class="i4">Nought can recover them,</p>
+<p>Where they are laid, they must ever remain.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'So seize we the present,</p>
+<p class="i2">And gather its flowers,</p>
+<p>For,&#8212;mournful or pleasant,&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">'Tis all that is ours;</p>
+<p class="i4">While daylight we're wasting,</p>
+<p class="i4">The evening is hasting,</p>
+<p>And night follows fast on vanishing hours.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Yes,&#8212;and we, when night comes,</p>
+<p class="i2">Whatever betide,</p>
+<p>Must die as our fate dooms,</p>
+<p class="i2">And sleep by their side;</p>
+<p class="i4">For <i>change</i> is the only thing</p>
+<p class="i4">Always continuing;</p>
+<p>And it sweeps creation away with its tide.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Here Branwell, writing, contrary to his custom, in a gay mood, forgets
+the failures of the past, diverting his mind from them by seeking
+serenity in the diversions which now and then lighten his path. He is
+perfectly conscious of the fleeting nature of earthly things; and,
+with that natural and felicitous faculty of versification with which
+his images and figures are invariably described, he invests the
+Epicurean with the hopes of the Optimist, or with the indifference of
+the Stoic to the shadows which ever and anon dim the pleasures of
+human existence. There is nothing assuredly in this lyric of the
+'pulpit twang,' to which Miss Robinson refers, nor is it a 'weak and
+characterless effusion.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To the year 1842 belongs the following song which in feeling reminds
+one of Burns' 'Auld Lang Syne.' The subject, however, is distinct, and
+is pervaded by a profound sentiment of enduring affection, and is
+expressive of the deepest feeling in reference to it.
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+SONG.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Should life's first feelings be forgot,</p>
+<p class="i2">As Time leaves years behind?</p>
+<p>Should man's for ever changing lot</p>
+<p class="i2">Work changes in the mind?</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Should space, that severs heart from heart,</p>
+<p class="i2">The heart's best thoughts destroy?</p>
+<p>Should years, that bid our youth depart,</p>
+<p class="i2">Bid youthful memories die?</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Oh! say not that these coming years</p>
+<p class="i2">Will warmer friendships bring;</p>
+<p>For friendship's joys, and hopes, and fears,</p>
+<p class="i2">From deeper fountains spring.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Its feelings to the <i>heart</i> belong;</p>
+<p class="i2">   Its sign&#8212;the glistening eye,</p>
+<p>While new affections on the <i>tongue</i>,</p>
+<p class="i2">Arise and live and die.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'So, passing crowds may <i>smiles</i> awake</p>
+<p class="i2">The passing hour to cheer;</p>
+<p>But only old acquaintance' sake</p>
+<p class="i2">Can ever form a tear.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Leyland was himself a poet, as I have said, and a literary critic of
+ability and judgment. Branwell submitted some poems to him for
+opinion, and he advised his friend to publish them with his name
+appended, rather than under the pseudonym of 'Northangerland,' for he
+considered them creditable to his genius. But Branwell, on July 12th,
+1842, writing to Leyland, asking some technical questions, says, in a
+postscript, 'Northangerland has so long wrought on in secret and
+silence that he dare not take your kind encouragement in the light
+which <i>vanity</i> would prompt him to do.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On August 10th, 1842, he wrote to Leyland in reference to a monument,
+which that sculptor had recently put up at Haworth, and he concluded
+by saying:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'When you see Mr. Constable&#8212;to whom I shall write directly,&#8212;be kind
+enough to tell him that&#8212;owing to my absence from home when it
+arrived, and to the carelessness of those who neglected to give it me
+on my return,&#8212;I have only <i>now</i> received his note. Its
+injunctions shall be gladly attended to; but he would better please me
+by refraining from any slurs on the fair fame of Charles Freeman or
+Benjamin Caunt, Esquires.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell did not lose his early interest in the 'noble science,' but
+continued it with a half-serious constancy. Constable and Leyland
+regarded the pugilistic encounters of the 'Ring' as brutal and
+degrading, but Branwell always professed to defend its champions with
+energy and zeal; and in this letter he playfully alludes to two of
+them. Among his literary labours of the year 1842 is the following
+poem. It is entitled:
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+NOAH'S WARNING OVER METHUSALEH'S GRAVE.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Brothers and men! one moment stay</p>
+<p class="i2">Beside your latest patriarch's grave,</p>
+<p>While God's just vengeance yet delay,</p>
+<p class="i2">While God's blest mercy yet can save.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Will you compel my tongue to say,</p>
+<p class="i2">That underneath this nameless sod</p>
+<p>Your hands, with mine, have laid to-day</p>
+<p class="i2">The <i>last</i> on earth who walked with God?</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Shall the pale corpse, whose hoary hairs</p>
+<p class="i2">Are just surrendered to decay,</p>
+<p>Dissolve the chain which bound our years</p>
+<p class="i2">To hundred ages passed away?</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Shall six-score years of warnings dread</p>
+<p class="i2">Die like a whisper on the wind?</p>
+<p>Shall the dark doom above your head,</p>
+<p class="i2">Its blinded victims darker find?</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Shall storms from heaven <i>without</i> the world,</p>
+<p class="i2">Find wilder storms from hell <i>within</i>?</p>
+<p>Shall long-stored, late-come wrath be hurled;</p>
+<p class="i2">Or,&#8212;will you, can you turn from sin?</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Have patience, if too plain I speak,</p>
+<p class="i2">For time, my sons, is hastening by;</p>
+<p>Forgive me if my accents break:</p>
+<p class="i2">Shall <i>I</i> be saved and <i>Nature</i> die?</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Forgive that pause:&#8212;one look to Heaven</p>
+<p class="i2">Too plainly tells me, he is gone,</p>
+<p>Who long with me in vain had striven</p>
+<p class="i2">For earth and for its peace alone.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'He's gone!&#8212;my Father&#8212;full of days,&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">From life which left no joy for him;</p>
+<p>Born in creation's earliest blaze;</p>
+<p class="i2">Dying&#8212;himself, its latest beam.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'But he is gone! and, oh, behold,</p>
+<p class="i2">Shown in his death, God's latest sign!</p>
+<p>Than which more plainly never told</p>
+<p class="i2">An Angel's presence His design.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'By it, the evening beams withdrawn</p>
+<p class="i2">Before a starless night descend;</p>
+<p>By it, the last blest spirit born</p>
+<p class="i2">From this beginning of an end;</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'By all the strife of civil war</p>
+<p class="i2">That beams within yon fated town;</p>
+<p>By all the heart's worst passions there,</p>
+<p class="i2">That call so loud for vengeance down;</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'By that vast wall of cloudy gloom,</p>
+<p class="i2">Piled boding round the firmament;</p>
+<p>By all its presages of doom,</p>
+<p class="i2">Children of men&#8212;Repent! Repent!'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+This poem has also the impress of sadness, but the onward sweep and
+dignity of its verse are not ruffled by the turbulent undercurrents of
+Branwell's mood. The idea of the piece is well borne out in majestic
+and suitable language, though some instances of that incoherence and
+indefiniteness which, at intervals, distinguish the earlier poems of
+his sisters, may be noticed in it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the latter part of the year 1842 the state of Miss Branwell's
+health became a cause of anxiety to the Bront&#235; family. Acquainted as
+they had been, in years gone by, with sickness and death, they
+sorrowed, in anticipation of the inevitable loss of the lady, who had
+been for long years as a mother to them. Under the shadow which spread
+over their home, Branwell wrote to his friend&#8212;Mr. Grundy&#8212;referring
+to it, saying that he was attending the death-bed of his aunt who had
+been for twenty years as his mother. In another letter to Mr. Grundy,
+of the 29th of October, Branwell thus alludes in affectionate terms to
+her death:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two nights witnessing
+such agonizing suffering as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure;
+and I have now lost the pride and director of all the happy days
+connected with my childhood. I have suffered such sorrow since I last
+saw you at Haworth, that I should not now care if I were fighting in
+India or &#8212;&#8212;, since, when the mind is depressed, danger is the most
+effectual cure. But you don't like croaking, I know well, only I
+request you to understand from my two notes that I have not forgotten
+<i>you</i>, but <i>myself</i>.'<a href="#note1" name="noteref1">
+<small>[1]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte and Emily hurried home from Brussels on the death of their
+aunt, as is stated in the last chapter, to find her already interred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell, alluding to the death of Miss Branwell, has given the
+following version of that lady's will. She says:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'The small property which she (Miss Branwell) had accumulated, by dint
+of personal frugality and self-denial, was bequeathed to her nieces.
+Branwell, her darling, was to have had his share; but his reckless
+expenditure had distressed the good old lady, and his name was omitted
+in her will.'<a href="#note2" name="noteref2">
+<small>[2]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Robinson, implicitly, and without reflection, following this
+author, says:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Miss Branwell's will had to be made known. The little property that
+she had saved out of her frugal income was all left to her three
+nieces. Branwell had been her darling, the only son, called by her
+name; but his disgrace had wounded her too deeply. He was not even
+mentioned in her will.'<a href="#note3" name="noteref3">
+<small>[3]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Elizabeth Branwell had made her will in the year 1833 (when her
+nephew was about fifteen years of age), by which she left the
+following items to the children of Mr. Bront&#235;:&#8212;
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+To Charlotte, an Indian Workbox.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Emily Jane, a Workbox with China top, and an Ivory Fan.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Branwell, a Japanese Dressing-case.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+To Anne, her Watch, Eye Glass, and Chain.
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Amongst these three nieces, her rings, silver spoons, books, clothes,
+&#38;c., were to be divided as their father should think proper. Her
+money, arising from various sources, she left in trust for the benefit
+of her nieces, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bront&#235;, and Elizabeth Jane,
+the daughter of her sister, Jane Kingston, to be equally divided among
+them, when the youngest should have attained the age of twenty-one
+years. But, if these died, all was to go to her niece, Anne Kingston,
+and if she died, the accumulated money was to be divided between the
+children of her 'dear brother and sisters.' Had Branwell, who was one
+of these 'children,' survived his own sisters, and the cousin referred
+to in the will, he would have been one, if not the sole, recipient of
+the accumulated money in question. This contingency was present to
+Miss Branwell's mind when she made the bequest, and it was never
+either altered or revoked.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is amazing that so much ignorance should have been displayed on a
+subject so easily capable of being correctly stated; but it is
+lamentable that this ignorance should have led the biographers of the
+Bront&#235;s, by erroneous statements, to inflict additional and unmerited
+injury on Branwell.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="III">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER III.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+A MISPLACED ATTACHMENT.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Christmas, 1842&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell is Cheerful&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte goes to Brussels for
+another Year&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell receives Appointment as Tutor&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell visits
+Halifax, and meets Mr. Grundy there&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's Mental Depression in
+Brussels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mrs. Gaskell attributes it to Branwell's Conduct&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Proofs
+that it was Not so&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's 'Disappointment' at Brussels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;She
+returns to Haworth&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Misplaced Attachment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He is sent away
+to New Scenes.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+The death of Miss Branwell had brought Charlotte and Emily home from
+Brussels; and Anne, from her situation, was present on the sad
+occasion. When the Christmas holidays came round, the sisters were all
+at home again. Branwell was with them; which was always a pleasure at
+that time, and Charlotte's friend, 'E,' came to see her. Having
+overcome the first pang of grief on the death of their aunt, they
+enjoyed their Christmas very much together. Branwell was cheerful and
+even merry; and in Charlotte's next letter, written in a happy mood
+to her friend, who had just left them, he sent a playful message.
+'Branwell wants to know,' says Charlotte, 'why you carefully excluded
+all mention of him, when you particularly send your regards to every
+other member of the family. He desires to know in what he has offended
+you? Or whether it is considered improper for a young lady to mention
+the gentlemen of a house?'<a href="#note4" name="noteref4">
+<small>[4]</small></a> While they were together, plans for
+the future were talked over with eagerness and hope. Charlotte had
+accepted the proposal of Monsieur H&#233;ger that she should return to
+Brussels for another year, when she would have completed her knowledge
+of French and be fully qualified to commence a school on a footing
+which was yet impossible. Emily was to remain at home now to attend to
+her father's house, and Anne was to return to her situation as
+governess.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell also found occupation as tutor in the same family where Anne
+had been for some time employed. He commenced his duties, in his new
+position, after the Christmas holidays of the year 1842. On his
+arrival at the house of his employer, he was introduced to the members
+of the family; and it is not too much to say that his new friends were
+more than satisfied with his graceful manners, his wit, and the extent
+of his information. Here Branwell felt himself happy; for, contrary to
+his expectation, he had found, to his mind, a pleasant pasture, with
+comparative ease, where he had only looked for the usual drudgery of a
+tutor's work. His family were contented that he was thus respectably
+and hopefully employed. The gentleman, who had engaged Branwell as
+tutor to his son, was a man of some literary attainments; he was fond
+of rural sports, and had an urbane disposition, and quick perceptions.
+His wife was a lady of lofty bearing, of graceful manners, and kindly
+condescension; and, although approaching middle age at the time, was
+possessed of great personal attractions.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the Bront&#235;s were glad at Branwell's appointment, the family he had
+entered were equally gratified that they had obtained a teacher whose
+talents they considered to be equalled only by his virtues. The time
+of his master, who was a clergyman, was often taken up with the duties
+and engagements of his position, and his lady was generally occupied
+with the cares of home and the enjoyments of fashionable country life.
+Branwell was not, therefore, too much harassed in the discharge of his
+duties; and he found, in the family in which he was placed, none of
+the rigid formality which might have rendered his position irksome.
+His occupation was varied by many rambles in the neighbourhood with
+his pupil; and, in the evening, after the duties of the day were
+discharged, when he retired to the farmstead where he lived, his time
+was entirely at his own disposal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Unlike Anne, Branwell was not troubled with an excess of diffidence.
+Being naturally of an amiable and sociable disposition, he soon formed
+acquaintances in the neighbourhood of his sojourn, and among them was
+Dr. &#8212;&#8212;, physician to the family in which he was a tutor. Besides,
+being possessed of a fund of anecdote, combined with an entertaining
+manner of relating stories, that alone made him excellent company,
+Branwell was found to be a thorough musician, for he had further
+cultivated this taste and acquired considerable skill in performance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Six months soon passed away, and Branwell and Anne once more made the
+parsonage at Haworth happy with their presence. One of Branwell's
+first impulses, after his welcome at home, was to visit his friends at
+Halifax; where, on this occasion, he had the pleasure of meeting with
+Mr. Grundy. On the return of himself and his sister to their duties,
+there is no doubt that he continued the exertions he had made to
+conduct himself with such prudent diligence and self-possession as to
+ingratiate himself into the good favour of the family with whom he
+resided.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte was in the Rue d'Isabelle as English teacher; where, having
+gained a familiarity with the French language, though growing
+home-sick and not well, she resolved to remain till the end of the
+year; and, if possible, to acquire a knowledge of German.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was at the beginning of August, as the <i>vacances</i> approached,
+that Charlotte became dispirited. The prospect of five weeks of
+loneliness in a deserted house, in a foreign city, was more than she
+could bear: the last English friend was leaving Brussels: she would
+have no one to whom she could turn her thoughts. 'I forewarn you, I am
+in low spirits,' she writes,&#8212;'that earth and heaven are dreary and
+empty to me at this moment.' For the first time in her life she really
+dreaded the vacation; 'Alas,' she says, 'I can hardly write, I have
+such a dreary weight at my heart; and I do so wish to go home. Is not
+this childish?' Yet she was bravely resolved, despite her weakness, to
+bear up, to stay; but for Charlotte Bront&#235;, as for Lucy Snowe, those
+September days were days of suffering. Once, a little later, her
+resolution failed her. She was alone, on some holiday; the other
+inmates had gone to visit their friends in the city; Charlotte had
+none there now. She was solitary, and felt herself neglected by Madame
+H&#233;ger; she could bear it no longer, so she went to madame herself and
+told her she could not stay; but Monsieur H&#233;ger, hearing of it, with
+characteristic vehemence, pronounced his decision that she should not
+leave, and she remained.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell describes her suffering from depression of mind, arising
+from ill-health, in her second year at Brussels, in gloomy terms, and
+this seems, indeed, to be the main point she is aiming to illustrate.
+She says: 'There were causes for distress and anxiety in the news from
+home, particularly as regarded Branwell. In the dead of the night,
+lying awake at the end of the long deserted dormitory, in the vast and
+silent house, every fear respecting those whom she loved, and who were
+so far off in another country, became a terrible reality, oppressing
+her and choking up the very life-blood in her heart. Those nights were
+times of sick, dreary, wakeful misery, precursors of many such in
+after years.'<a href="#note5" name="noteref5">
+<small>[5]</small></a> Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, in his monograph on Charlotte,
+has very properly taken exception to the manner in which Mrs. Gaskell
+has laid stress upon and exaggerated the occasional depression from
+which Charlotte suffered; and, certainly, there is nothing to show, in
+any of her letters from Brussels, that there was cause for anxiety on
+Branwell's account. On the contrary, there is very good evidence that
+nothing of the kind interfered with his sister's peace. Charlotte left
+Brussels at the end of the year 1843, and arrived at Haworth on the
+2nd of January, 1844. Branwell and Anne were also at home for the
+Christmas holidays, and Charlotte wrote to her friend 'E' in these
+words: 'Anne and Branwell have just left us to return to &#8212;&#8212;; they
+are both wonderfully valued in their situations.'<a href="#note6" name="noteref6">
+<small>[6]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was known, then, that Branwell had given satisfaction to his
+employers, and the happiness at this reunion of the family would have
+been complete had it not been for one circumstance. Charlotte's
+friends were now expecting that she would commence a school. She
+desired it, she says, above all things. She had sufficient money for
+the undertaking, and hoped she had some qualifications for success.
+Yet she could not then enter upon it. 'You will ask me, why?' she
+writes. 'It is on papa's account; he is now, as you know, getting old,
+and it grieves me to tell you that he is losing his sight. I have felt
+for some months that I ought not to be away from him; and I feel now
+it would be too selfish to leave him (at least so long as Branwell and
+Anne are absent) in order to pursue selfish interests of my own.' She
+appears, from an observation in one of her letters, written some time
+after the date at which we have arrived, to have regretted having gone
+to Brussels a second time. She says, 'I returned to Brussels after
+aunt's death against my conscience, prompted by what then seemed an
+irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish folly by a total
+withdrawal for more than two years of happiness and peace of mind.'<a href="#note7" name="noteref7">
+<small>[7]</small></a>
+While Charlotte was still at Brussels she heard that some of her
+friends thought that the '<i>&#233;poux</i> of Mademoiselle Bront&#235;' must be
+on the Continent, since she had declined a situation of &#163;50 a year in
+England, and accepted one at &#163;16, and returned to Belgium. This she
+appears, in a letter to one of them, to deny; though, whether with the
+intention of piquing her friend, or avoiding the question, is not
+distinct. Mr. Reid believes that, in this second sojourn at Brussels,
+Charlotte Bront&#235; passed through an experience of the heart which
+proved the turning-point of her life, and made her what she was; and
+that it was not the subsequent misfortunes of her brother, as Mrs.
+Gaskell asks us to believe, that destroyed the happiness of her
+existence.<a href="#note8" name="noteref8">
+<small>[8]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the middle of March, when the sisters had finished 'shirt-making
+for the absent Branwell,' Charlotte took a holiday to visit her
+friend, by which her health was improved. On her return she found Mr.
+Bront&#235; and Emily well, and a letter from Branwell, intimating that he
+and Anne were pretty well, too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell visited Halifax on the 4th of July of this year. His health
+at that time was not so good as formerly, and his sisters noticed that
+he was excitable. Till within two or three months of his leaving
+Luddenden Foot, when he had attained his twenty-fifth year, though not
+strong, he had enjoyed good health, his spirits having almost always
+been good. In his youth, unlike Charlotte, he had had no experience of
+severe mental depression, no deep suffering from religious melancholy.
+It was only when he turned to reflection that he became serious, and
+that his thoughts were shaded with the sadness evinced in some of his
+early poems. Now, however, his nerve-force was less certain; and,
+being more easily excited, that exuberance of spirit and that
+elasticity of mind which had distinguished him showed symptoms of
+decay. It was not to be expected that he should retain his more
+youthful characteristics through life: and Charlotte has told us,
+about this time, that something within herself, which used to be
+enthusiasm, was tamed down and broken; she longed for an active stake
+in life. As she was unable to leave home, she endeavoured to open a
+School at Haworth Parsonage. Could she have obtained the promise of
+pupils, she proposed to build a wing to the house; but, after meeting
+with more or less encouragement, she found that it was quite
+impossible to induce anyone by preference to send children to a place
+so much exposed to wind and weather. The sisters were not sorry they
+had tried; and, it has been unjustifiably suggested, did not regret
+too much, that they had failed, because they had fears and
+apprehensions respecting Branwell, and thought that the place that
+might be his abode could scarcely be fitted for the home of the
+children of strangers. Branwell and Anne were at home again for the
+Christmas of 1844, and they returned to their duties early in the
+following January. In the course of that month Charlotte writes,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Branwell has been quieter and less irritable, on the whole, than he
+was in the summer.'<a href="#note9" name="noteref9">
+<small>[9]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this time there was no fear of his leaving his employment, and no
+fear that he would be dismissed from it; but a certain excitability
+and fitfulness of manner, a disposition to pass suddenly from gaiety
+to moody disquietude, which Anne had observed in her brother, had
+attracted, also, as has been seen, the serious attention of the other
+sisters, who were alarmed by it, and wondered greatly what the cause
+might be. And, indeed, a change had been coming over Branwell, for six
+months or more, a change which in the beginning had scarcely been
+understood by himself. A new feeling had impressed itself upon his
+heart that he had never experienced before, and against which he
+strove in vain. Branwell, in fact, who had never yet loved beyond the
+confines of his own home, had conceived an infatuated admiration for
+the wife of his employer, which afterwards, with his warm feelings,
+became a deep affection, and finally developed into a fierce and
+over-mastering passion. The lady who had dazzled and confused his
+understanding, as will presently appear, was unaware of the effect she
+had thus produced on the heart of the tutor, and he began to mistake
+her kindly, condescending manners for a return of his affection, an
+illusion which, as the sequel will show, he nursed to the very end of
+his life. Under this peculiar aberration of his mind, he cherished the
+hope that, as his employer was in feeble health, he might ere long be
+in a position to marry the widow, whom he believed to have already
+bestowed her affections upon him; when, being in easy circumstances,
+and possessed, as he termed it, of 'the priceless affluence of
+enduring peace,' he should be abler as he often declared, undisturbed
+by the usual perturbations of literary life, to make sure progress,
+and win for himself a name among the best authors of the day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But at this period of his life Branwell is not known to have written
+much verse, his mind being otherwise occupied. The two following
+beautiful sonnets, however, are from his pen, dated May, 1845, and
+are, together, entitled:
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+THE EMIGRANT.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'When sink from sight the landmarks of our home,</p>
+<p class="i2">And,&#8212;all the bitterness of farewells o'er,&#8212;</p>
+<p>We yield our spirit unto ocean's foam,</p>
+<p class="i2">And in the new-born life which lies before,</p>
+<p class="i2">On far Columbian or Australian shore,</p>
+<p>Strive to exchange time past for time to come:</p>
+<p class="i2">How melancholy, then, if morn restore&#8212;</p>
+<p>(Less welcome than the night's forgetful gloom)</p>
+<p class="i2">Old England's blue hills to our sight again,</p>
+<p>When we, our thoughts seemed weaning from her sky,&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">That <i>pang</i> which wakes the almost silenced pain!</p>
+<p>Thus, when the sick man lies, resigned to die,</p>
+<p class="i2">A well-loved voice, a well-remembered strain,</p>
+<p>Lets Time break harshly in upon Eternity.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>When, after his long day, consumed in toil,</p>
+<p class="i2">'Neath the scarce welcome shade of unknown trees,</p>
+<p>Upturning thanklessly a foreign soil,</p>
+<p class="i2">The lonely exile seeks his evening ease,&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">'Tis not those tropic woods his spirit sees;</p>
+<p>Nor calms, to him, that heaven, this world's turmoil;</p>
+<p class="i2">Nor cools his burning brow that spicy breeze.</p>
+<p>Ah no! the gusty clouds of England's isle</p>
+<p class="i2">Bring music wafted on their stormy wind,</p>
+<p>And on its verdant meads, night's shadows lower,</p>
+<p class="i2">While "Auld Lang Syne" the darkness calls to mind.</p>
+<p>Thus, when the demon Thirst, beneath his power</p>
+<p class="i2">The wanderer bows,&#8212;to feverish sleep consigned,</p>
+<p>He hears the rushing rill, and feels the cooling shower.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+While Branwell's mind was rendered bright by the sunny hopes of a happy
+future, he was enabled to write with pathos, coherency, and beauty, as
+is shown in the foregoing sonnets. But it was his misfortune that his
+mind was hung too finely upon the balance, and that, as the phantasy of
+his affections grew upon him, he became, as will hereafter be
+demonstrated, the victim of an 'overheated and discursive imagination,'
+and at last 'betrayed that monomaniac tendency' which Lucy Snowe says
+she 'has ever thought the most unfortunate with which man or woman can
+be cursed.' He became, in fact, almost as soon as the new passion had
+taken full possession of his heart, a miserable victim to that morbid
+tendency of the mind which, in far lesser degree, characterized his
+sister Charlotte, and of which she seems to have lived in occasional
+dread. It may be noted that when Lucy Snowe is seeking wildly the
+letter, which has been stolen away from her, she accuses herself of
+monomania. These mental perturbations grew upon Branwell day by day.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Time passed on; and, when he had been with his employer some two years
+and a half, during the concluding portion of which the control he had
+exercised over himself was giving way, he began to exhibit the strange
+irregularities of his disposition, and the irresistible fervour of his
+long-suppressed and feverish passion. Great patience and forbearance
+were exercised towards him by the lady of the house; and her sincere
+regard for the feelings of his family forbade her, on the first blush
+of the affair, to be the means of his dismissal from his employment. He
+was not, indeed, dismissed until the step became an absolute necessity.
+The banishment from his post was not, however, long delayed, for
+Branwell had lost his former self-control; and his imprudence overcame
+the reluctance of the lady, who at length made known to her husband,
+while Branwell was absent at home, on his holiday, in the July of 1845,
+what his conduct had been. A letter was at once sent to him by his
+employer, conveying the intimation of his dismissal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have been told much in Charlotte Bront&#235;'s letters to her friend 'E,'
+and in the works of Mrs. Gaskell and other writers, concerning this
+event, which laid prostrate the hopes of Branwell, that requires both
+comment and correction. We have already seen to what a low state of
+mind and body Branwell was for a time reduced by his dismissal from
+Luddenden Foot; but his condition in both was as that of sound health,
+compared with his utter prostration on his expulsion from his last
+employment,&#8212;a condition which renders any adequate description
+impossible. He had, indeed, been supremely happy. For him, the sun of
+prosperity had shone with unsullied splendour, and the rivers of hope
+had flowed with music richer and deeper than any of earth. The roses
+that bloomed in the paradise of his fervid imagination, were
+brighter&#8212;and, as he thought, far more lasting&#8212;than those, far-famed,
+of Suristan, and the green pastures of his hopeful aspirations were
+more fertile and fragrant than he had ever thought possible to him in
+the years gone by. But, suddenly, the paradise which his poetic and
+imaginative spirit had created, was changed, without a moment's
+warning, to a region of sleepless nights and wretched days,&#8212;'eleven
+continuous nights of sleepless horror' he afterwards speaks of,&#8212;where
+his mind, dismayed and incoherent, reeled and shook in agony intense
+and ungovernable.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The distress of the Bront&#235; family on this reverse of Branwell's
+prospects can scarcely be conceived in its entirety. So deeply
+agonizing was the then state of his affairs, that they could think of
+nothing else; and, in their sorrow, had no heart to contemplate the
+future. It was under the immediate influence of this misery that Anne
+Bront&#235; wrote her pathetic poem, 'Domestic Peace,' in which she deplores
+the changed conditions of the family. Charlotte had just returned home
+from a visit to her friend, and found her brother in the condition I
+have described. Thus she speaks of it, under the date of July the 31st,
+1845: 'It was ten o'clock at night when I got home. I found Branwell
+ill. He is so very often, owing to his own fault. I was not therefore
+shocked at first. But when Anne informed me of the immediate cause of
+his present illness I was very greatly shocked. He had last Thursday
+received a note from Mr. &#8212;&#8212;, sternly dismissing him&#8230;. We have had
+sad work with him since. He thought of nothing but stunning or drowning
+his distressed mind. No one in the house could have rest, and at last
+we have been obliged to send him from home for a week with some one to
+look after him. He has written to me this morning, and expresses some
+sense of contrition for his frantic folly. He promises amendment on his
+return, but so long as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace
+in the house. We must all, I fear, prepare for a season of distress and
+disquietude. I cannot now ask Miss &#8212;&#8212; or anyone else.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell's distress had proved so really acute at the disgrace which
+had befallen him that Mr. Bront&#235;, becoming alarmed for the
+consequences, decided to send his son away to new scenes in the hope of
+diverting his mind from the subject. That this was, to some extent,
+successful is evident from Branwell's letter to his sister, in which
+his natural feelings and repentant disposition found expression.
+Branwell had remembered his former visit to Liverpool, and selected
+that place on this occasion, and sailed thence to the coast of Wales.
+The sad feelings that impressed him on the voyage were afterwards
+expressed in verse.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="IV">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER IV.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+'BRANWELL'S FALL,' AS SET FORTH IN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF HIS SISTERS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Branwell after his Disappointment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Parallel for his State of Mind
+in that of Lady Byron&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mrs. Gaskell's Misconceptions&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;True State
+of the Case&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte Illustrates it in her Poem of 'Preference'
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;She alludes to Branwell's Condition in 'The Professor'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mrs.
+Gaskell Compelled to Omit her Account in the Later Editions of her
+Work&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Prostration and Ill-health at the Time.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+After the first shock to his feelings had been sustained, and, by its
+own intensity, toned down to less oppressive anguish and pain, a
+strange calm succeeded in Branwell, more agonizing and appalling to his
+friends than the stormy ebullitions which had preceded it. There is
+evidence that his family at this time misunderstood the actual state of
+his mind, and that their very anxiety about him caused them&#8212;but more
+especially Charlotte&#8212;to regard his acts, irresponsible though they
+might be, as inveterate offences and habitual sins. It has indeed been
+said by some that Charlotte did not afterwards speak to him for the
+space of two years.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reproaches of his sister were probably as unwise as they were
+passionate, unmeasured, and, in outward semblance, unfeeling; yet they
+were censures pronounced in momentary anger, utterances of the deep
+affection she had for her brother, and of sincere sorrow for his
+unhappy, hopeless, and insane passion. But Branwell's friends and
+acquaintances saw clearly that on one subject, and one only, his mind
+had given way; and that was in his conception of the undoubted love
+which the lady of his heart bore him. They also saw, notwithstanding
+this morbid perversion of the ordinary powers of his mind in one
+particular illusion, that he was not affected in his faculty of
+reasoning correctly and consistently on all other subjects. They knew,
+if the Bront&#235; family did not, that Branwell's mind, naturally morbid
+and depressed, had been unhinged by the sudden and unexpected ruin of
+his hopes; and that his heart and his intellect had been so far bruised
+and wounded, that for many of the acts done, and the things said, under
+the abiding grief which followed it, he was irresponsible. This will
+shortly appear.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sisters did not, however, long remain in ignorance of the true
+state of Branwell's mind. They became aware that he suffered from
+monomania touching the object of his sorrow, and the circumstance
+impressed them exceedingly. In several of their novels they have,
+indeed, dwelt upon this condition, and have lamented the misery and
+mental prostration which it entails. Lucy Snowe suffers from it
+severely, as I have mentioned. But, in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,'
+one of the characters charges Gilbert Markham&#8212;whose circumstances are
+precisely those of Branwell in regard to his love for a married
+lady&#8212;with monomania in this very matter; and, in 'Wuthering Heights,'
+speaking of the events that preceded Heathcliff's death, Nelly Dean
+alleges that he suffers from monomania in his love for the wife of
+Edgar Linton. Branwell's sisters, however, never took the tragic view
+of his conduct that impressed Mrs. Gaskell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For a time Branwell could talk of nothing but of the lady to whom he
+was attached, and he made statements of circumstances regarding her
+which had no foundation but in his own heated imagination. The lady, he
+said, loved him to distraction. She was in a state of inconceivable
+agony at his loss. Her husband, cruel, brutal, and unfeeling,
+threatened her with his dire indignation, and deprivation of every
+comfort. Branwell, indeed, told his friend W&#8212;&#8212;, by letter, that, in
+consequence of this persecution, the suffering lady 'had placed herself
+under his protection!' and many other stories, equally unfounded,
+extravagant, and impossible, were circulated. In a word, he went about
+among his friends, telling to each, in strict confidence, the woes
+under which he suffered, and painting in gloomy colours the miseries
+which the lady of his love had been compelled to undergo. If all other
+proof were wanting of the unsound state of Branwell's mind on this one
+point, it would be enough, in all conscience, that he proclaimed
+abroad, of the lady he undertook to protect, circumstances that must
+infallibly redound to her infamy; and which, indeed, in the hands of
+injudicious persons, gave rise to the public scandal of his life, and
+ultimately made his name, and that of the lady whom he had loved and
+traduced in the same breath, of reproach among men.<a href="#note10" name="noteref10">
+<small>[10]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+For Branwell's state of mind at this time, and for the circumstances
+that followed upon it, we have an exact parallel in the case of Lady
+Byron, after her separation from her husband. This unhappy lady, living
+in retirement with her friends, had maintained, for more than five
+years after the poet's death, relations of the most friendly nature
+with his sister, the Honourable Mrs. Leigh. But, at the end of that
+period, weakened by misfortunes and by brooding upon particular evils,
+her mind gave way on one point; and she made, in the full belief of
+their truth, the most horrible of charges against her dead husband and
+his sister. These charges were, by some people, believed for a time;
+but a very little reflection showed that Lady Byron's mind must have
+been unhinged, for all the acts of her life went to disprove the
+statements she made. It was not in the nature of things possible that
+she could remain on affectionate terms with her sister-in-law, had she
+known&#8212;as in her monomania she asserted she did&#8212;the utter depth of
+that sister-in-law's imagined infamy. But it is not to be supposed that
+the unhappy lady was visibly insane; she was, on the contrary, as all
+remarked, gifted with a clear and accurate observation, with a lucid
+and logical method of thought, and with an expression more than
+ordinarily calm and natural.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was precisely the same with Branwell Bront&#235;; for, when the paroxysm
+of his grief was over, though he was ordinarily calm and his thoughts
+always clear and logical, strange impressions and misinterpretations of
+facts grew upon him, and he made, with all the certainty of belief,
+statements of circumstances relating to the lady of his dearest
+affections, redounding to her shame&#8212;which, had he been of sound mind,
+he must not only have known to be false, but would have carried, had
+they been true, in secrecy to the grave.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Just, too, as Lady Byron whispered the story of her woes in strict
+faith to many people, so did Branwell Bront&#235; make confidants of several
+friends, revealing to each the extent of his misfortunes. And, further,
+just as the story circulated by Lady Byron was confided among others to
+good, honest, well-meaning Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who, conceiving herself
+to be the chosen champion of oppressed virtue, rushed into print, in
+'Macmillan' of September, 1869, with the literary <i>bonne-bouche</i>
+she had received; so did Mrs. Gaskell, clad in like panoply, with anger
+far over-riding discretion, publish to the world the scandal she had
+collected from the busy <i>gobe-mouches</i> of Haworth, to the utter
+undoing of the fair fame of Patrick Branwell Bront&#235;, and of the lady on
+whom he had fixed his hopeless affection. The scandal which was spread
+about Lord Byron, through the delusions of his wife, was very soon
+overthrown; but that with which Branwell was concerned, though
+thirty-seven years have passed over his grave, has been republished and
+is still believed&#8212;all the biographers of his sisters having, with one
+accord, consigned his name to obloquy and contempt.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The stories originated by Branwell lost nothing in their circulation,
+but they gained immensely; and years had made the tales of disappointed
+love into scandals unfit to be detailed, when Mrs. Gaskell, eager for
+information, visited Haworth, and collected materials for her work from
+too-willing hands, who added their own embellishments to the original
+statements of Branwell.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In order to show how far Mrs. Gaskell deviated from the right direction
+in her account of these circumstances, it will be better to place
+before the reader much of what she has said in direct reference to it,
+so that the whole matter may be made plain; and, before he closes this
+book, he will probably be convinced that she was wholly misled in her
+version of the story.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell writes: 'All the disgraceful details came out. Branwell
+was in no state to conceal his agony of remorse, or, strange to say,
+his agony of guilty love, from any dread of shame. He gave passionate
+way to his feelings; he shocked and distressed those loving sisters
+inexpressibly; the blind father sat stunned, sorely tempted to curse
+the profligate woman who had tempted his boy&#8212;his only son&#8212;into the
+deep disgrace of deadly crime.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'All the variations of spirits and of temper&#8212;the reckless gaiety, the
+moping gloom of many months were now explained. There was a reason
+deeper than any mere indulgence of appetite, to account for his
+intemperance; he began his career as an habitual drunkard to drown
+remorse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'The pitiable part, as far as he was concerned, was the yearning love
+he still bore to the woman who had got so strong a hold upon him. It is
+true, that she professed equal love; we shall see how her professions
+held good. There was a strange lingering of conscience, when, meeting
+her clandestinely by appointment at Harrogate some months after, he
+refused to consent to the elopement which she proposed; there was some
+good left in this corrupted, weak young man, even to the very last of
+his miserable days. The case presents the reverse of the usual
+features: the man became the victim; the man's life was blighted, and
+crushed out of him by suffering, and guilt entailed by guilt; the man's
+family were stung by keenest shame. The woman&#8212;to think of her father's
+pious name&#8212;the blood of honourable families mixed in her veins&#8212;her
+early home, underneath whose roof-tree sat those whose names are held
+saint-like for their good deeds,&#8212;she goes flaunting about to this day
+in respectable society; a showy woman for her age; kept afloat by her
+reputed wealth. I see her name in county papers, as one of those who
+patronize the Christmas balls; and I hear of her in London
+drawing-rooms. Now let us read, not merely of the suffering of her
+guilty accomplice, but of the misery she caused to innocent victims,
+whose premature deaths may, in part, be laid at her door.'<a href="#note11" name="noteref11">
+<small>[11]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell further states: 'A few months later the invalid husband of
+the woman with whom he had intrigued, died. Branwell had been looking
+forward to this event with guilty hope. After her husband's death, his
+paramour would be free; strange as it seems, the young man still loved
+her passionately, and now he imagined the time was come when they might
+look forward to being married, and live together without reproach or
+blame. She had offered to elope with him; she had written to him
+perpetually; she had sent him money&#8212;twenty pounds at a time; he
+remembered the criminal advances she had made; she had braved shame,
+and her children's menaced disclosures, for his sake; he thought she
+must love him; he little knew how bad a depraved woman can be.'<a href="#note12" name="noteref12">
+<small>[12]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As Mrs. Gaskell had formed no conception of the possible state of
+Branwell's mind, she seems to have known no reason for doubting the
+absolute truth of what she had heard; and, with an overweening
+confidence, and with no deficient expression of righteous indignation,
+she deals with the episode in this startling manner.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In support of the charges thus made, Mrs. Gaskell refers to the
+contents of the will of the lady's husband, by which, she says, what
+property he left to his wife was so left on the condition that she
+never saw Branwell again; and she adds that, on the death of her
+husband, the lady sent her coachman to Haworth; for, at the very time
+when the will was being read, she did not know but that Branwell might
+be on his way to her. Mrs. Gaskell furthers says that, after the
+interview with the coachman, Branwell was found utterly prostrated by
+the intimation that he must never again even see the lady whom he
+thought he might then marry.<a href="#note13" name="noteref13">
+<small>[13]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The biographer of Charlotte, having obtained her information from the
+floating rumours of Haworth, formed an inconsiderate, erroneous, and
+hasty opinion on this affair and its supposed consequences. But she
+found many circumstances in the proceedings of Branwell and his sisters
+which failed to corroborate her views, and that were, in fact, at
+variance with what would naturally have been expected had Branwell's
+misconduct really been of so deep a dye as she states. In order to
+bring out fully the force of what she here says, Mrs. Gaskell had,
+previously, as we have seen, in speaking of Charlotte's stay in
+Brussels eighteen months before, alluded to intelligence from home
+calculated to distress Charlotte exceedingly with fears respecting
+Branwell. Yet, in the January of 1844, shortly after her return from
+Brussels, Charlotte told her friend 'E' that Anne and Branwell were
+'both wonderfully valued in their situations.' And again, writing of
+the year 1845, Mrs. Gaskell says: 'He was so beguiled by this mature
+and wicked woman, that he went home for his holidays reluctantly,
+stayed there as short a time as possible, perplexing and distressing
+them all by his extraordinary conduct&#8212;at one time in the highest
+spirits; at another, in the deepest depression&#8212;accusing himself of
+blackest guilt and treachery, without specifying what they were; and
+altogether evincing an irritability of disposition bordering on
+insanity. Charlotte and her sister suffered acutely from his mysterious
+behaviour &#8230; an indistinct dread was creeping over their minds that he
+might turn out their deep disgrace.'<a href="#note14" name="noteref14">
+<small>[14]</small></a> And it must be added that, when
+in the expurgated edition the opening of this passage was omitted, Mrs.
+Gaskell inserted&#8212;following where she ascribes to the sisters an
+'indistinct dread,'&#8212;these words: 'caused partly by his own conduct,
+partly by expressions of agonizing suspicion in Anne's letters
+home.'<a href="#note15" name="noteref15">
+<small>[15]</small></a> But we know, from Charlotte's letter to her friend, that,
+when she had returned home and found Branwell ill, which she says he
+was often, she was not therefore shocked at first, but, when Anne
+informed her of the immediate cause of his present illness, she was
+very greatly shocked, showing clearly enough that Branwell's dismissal
+and its cause were a complete surprise to her when she heard of them.
+How, then, could Anne's letters home have contained expressions of
+'agonizing suspicion'?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell found it necessary to summarize the portion of Charlotte's
+letter which contained these expressions of surprise, and, in her
+version, significantly enough, the obvious inconsistency is lost. The
+succeeding part also has suffered mutilation in Mrs. Gaskell's work,
+Charlotte's allusion to Branwell's 'frantic folly,' and the sentence,
+'He promises amendment on his return,' being entirely omitted. Mr.
+Wemyss Reid, in publishing this letter, points out the circumstance,
+and says that 'Mrs. Gaskell could not bring herself to speak of such
+flagrant sins as those of which young Bront&#235; had been guilty under the
+name of folly, nor could she conceive that there was any possibility of
+amendment on the part of one who had fallen so low in vice.'<a href="#note16" name="noteref16">
+<small>[16]</small></a> And, if
+we disregard Mrs. Gaskell's view of 'what <i>should have been</i>'
+Charlotte's feelings, and read the letter with the real state of the
+case before us, we shall at once see that, as Branwell had not fallen
+low in vice, the term 'frantic folly,' which his sister employed in
+speaking of his conduct, was precisely that which justly described it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The simple truth respecting Branwell's conduct is this: he had been too
+fond of company and had not escaped its penalty. Doubtless Anne
+occasionally saw influences upon her brother which she would have
+wished entirely absent. Moreover he had, as we have seen, become wildly
+in love. Reluctantly at first, and, from what we know of him, he may,
+probably, in his latest vacation have accused himself of 'blackest
+guilt.' But there is reason to believe that on this episode, as on
+others connected with Branwell Bront&#235;, we have been told not a little
+of what <i>must have ensued</i> from a standpoint of initial error.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the principal accusations which Mrs. Gaskell brings against Mrs.
+&#8212;&#8212; I shall have to speak when I come to consider the consequences to
+Branwell of the final defeat of his hopes; but it may be said here that
+it is clear the lady never wrote letters to Branwell at all. She
+carefully avoided doing anything that might implicate her in the matter
+of Branwell's strange passion, and, so far as any provision of the
+husband's will, which was dated near the end of the year, is concerned,
+Branwell Bront&#235; might never have existed. Mrs. Gaskell cannot have seen
+the document.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If any further evidence of the view Charlotte Bront&#235; took of Branwell's
+conduct, and of that of the lady whose character has been so much
+calumniated be needed, her poem entitled 'Preference' is sufficient. We
+may indeed infer from it that Charlotte herself never believed the
+stories concerning Mrs. &#8212;&#8212; which were in circulation at the time, and
+that she has left, in this production of her pen, her version of how
+the circumstances truly stood. The lady is represented in the poem as
+censuring the person who is making advances to her, and who is
+addressed as a soldier for whom she has a sisterly regard, while she is
+devotedly attached to one of whom she speaks in the warmest terms.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Not in scorn do I reprove thee,</p>
+<p class="i2">Not in pride thy vows I waive,</p>
+<p>But, believe, I could not love thee,</p>
+<p class="i2">Wert thou prince, and I a slave.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+She then tells him that he is deceiving himself in thinking she has
+secret affection for him, and that her coldness towards him is assumed.
+She appeals forcibly to her own personal bearing as proof that she has
+no love for him.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Touch my hand, thou self-deceiver;</p>
+<p class="i2">Nay&#8212;be calm, for I am so;</p>
+<p>Does it burn? Does my lip quiver?</p>
+<p class="i2">Has mine eye a troubled glow?</p>
+<p>Canst thou call a moment's colour</p>
+<p class="i2">To my forehead&#8212;to my cheek?</p>
+<p>Canst thou tinge their tranquil pallor</p>
+<p class="i2">With one flattering, feverish streak?'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Declaring that her goodwill for him is sisterly, she thus continues:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Rave not, rage not, wrath is fruitless,</p>
+<p class="i2">Fury cannot change my mind;</p>
+<p>I but deem the feeling rootless</p>
+<p class="i2">Which so whirls in passion's wind.</p>
+<p>Can I love? Oh, deeply&#8212;truly&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">Warmly&#8212;fondly&#8212;but not thee;</p>
+<p>And my love is answered duly,</p>
+<p class="i2">With an equal energy.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Then she tells him, if he would see his rival, to draw a curtain aside,
+when he will observe him, seated in a place shaded by trees, surrounded
+with books, and employing his 'unresting pen.' Here Charlotte places
+the 'rival' in an alcove, in the grounds of his mansion, privately
+employing his leisure in the retirement of his home; and makes the lady
+show her husband to the soldier who addresses her. She says:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'There he sits&#8212;the first of men!</p>
+<p class="i2">Man of conscience&#8212;man of reason;</p>
+<p>Stern, perchance, but ever just;</p>
+<p class="i2">Foe to falsehood, wrong, and treason,</p>
+<p>Honour's shield and virtue's trust!</p>
+<p class="i2">Worker, thinker, firm defender</p>
+<p>Of Heaven's truth&#8212;man's liberty;</p>
+<p class="i2">Soul of iron&#8212;proof to slander,</p>
+<p>Rock where founders tyranny.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+She declares that her faith is given, and therefore the person she
+addresses need not sue; for, while God reigns in earth and heaven, she
+will be faithful to the man of her heart, to whom she is immovably
+devoted; and who is a 'defender of Heaven's truth'&#8212;her husband.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+No one, perhaps, would be better acquainted than Charlotte with the
+false and foul calumnies on this head, then circulating through the
+village; and it is well that she has left, in her poem of 'Preference,'
+an expression of her feeling as to the affairs which caused so much
+injurious gossip at the time. Yet, however desirous Charlotte might,
+be, in this poem, to clear the character of the lady who has been so
+cruelly aspersed, she appears to have had no mercy on her brother, who
+had been the principal actor in the drama. The following is the picture
+of him, in reference to this sad episode, which she puts into the mouth
+of William Crimsworth in 'The Professor':
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Limited as had yet been my experience of life,' he says, 'I had once
+had the opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an example of the
+results produced by a course of interesting and romantic domestic
+treachery. No golden halo of fiction was about this example; I saw it
+bare and real; and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the
+practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious deception, and
+a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul.
+I had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this
+spectacle; those sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple
+recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote to temptation. They had
+inscribed on my reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching
+on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure&#8212;its hollowness
+disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its
+effects deprave for ever.' It is probable that Charlotte would not have
+wished this passage to be applied literally to her brother; but,
+unfortunately, this, and similar unguarded declarations, have largely
+biassed almost all who have written on the lives and literature of the
+sisters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell, under threat of ulterior proceedings, on the advice of
+her friends, published the edition of 1860, omitting the charges
+referred to, as well as those against Mr. Bront&#235;. She did not, however,
+allow the effect of her first assumption of guilt, or the moral of the
+tale, to be lost. She inserted a few sentences intended to convey to
+the reader that something of the kind had gone wrong with Branwell in
+the place where his sister Anne was governess. Under the circumstances,
+therefore, I have felt it necessary to deal with the subject at large.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may be remarked here that the indignation of the injured lady knew
+no bounds, and that she was only dissuaded from carrying the matter to
+a trial by the earnest desire of her friends, who represented that Mrs.
+Gaskell could not substantiate her statements, and that, as the book
+could not therefore be reprinted as it stood, and its circulation was
+consequently limited, it were better to let the matter rest, rather
+than incur the wide-spread reports of the newspaper press when the
+trial should be before the public; and, moreover, that those who knew
+her did not believe a word of Mrs. Gaskell's unfounded allegations.
+This had its effect, and the lady fretfully acquiesced.<a href="#note17" name="noteref17">
+<small>[17]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Miss Robinson's 'Emily Bront&#235;,' the stories which Charlotte's
+biographer was compelled to omit, have been substantially reproduced;
+and this writer, in supporting similar views to those of Mrs. Gaskell,
+has found it necessary to quote her version of the letter containing
+Charlotte's account of Branwell's disgrace, and has also considerably
+enlarged upon the supposed contents of the letters of Anne. Much
+diffidence has been felt in dealing with this subject so closely; but,
+after the discussion of it in the public prints, consequent on the
+issue of Miss Robinson's book, it is thought the time has come for
+exposing the groundlessness of the stories. The reader will therefore
+observe that I have borne this matter in mind throughout the present
+work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The distraction that overwhelmed Branwell on his dismissal from his
+late employment having caused him eleven nights of 'sleepless horror,'
+his wild attempt to drown his sorrow brought on an attack of delirium
+tremens. On one of these nights, in all likelihood, suddenly falling
+asleep, he overturned the candle and set the bedclothes on fire. The
+smell of burning attracted attention, and the sisters rushed into the
+room to extinguish the smouldering material. This accident would,
+doubtless, have been lost sight of, had it not been for the researches
+of Miss Robinson, to whom the public is indebted for an account of the
+circumstance, which closely reminds us of the rescue of Mr. Rochester
+in 'Jane Eyre,' and of the removal of 'Keeper,' by Emily, from the best
+bed in which he had settled himself. It will be remembered also that,
+on the night when Mr. Lockwood stayed at Wuthering Heights, a similar
+accident befel him, through the candle falling against the books he was
+trying to read.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On his return from Wales Branwell wrote to his friend Leyland, who had
+to visit Haworth professionally, pressing him to come to the parsonage.
+Thus he writes in the midst of his distress. The vision of his hopes
+had become a haunting picture of misery, the prospect of the lady
+becoming free to marry him had not arisen to his mind in his confusion;
+he would never see her again, he would be forgotten; he must
+communicate with her.
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="ralign">
+'Haworth, August 4, 1845.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I need hardly say that I shall be most delighted to see you, as God
+knows I have a tolerably heavy load on my mind just now, and would look
+to an hour spent with one like yourself, as a means of at least,
+temporarily, lightening it. </p>
+
+<p> 'I returned yesterday from a week's journey to Liverpool and North
+Wales, but I found during my absence that, wherever I went, a certain
+woman robed in black, and calling herself "<span
+class="sclc">MISERY</span>," walked by my side, and leant on my arm, as
+affectionately as if she were my legal wife. </p>
+
+<p> 'Like some other husbands, I could have spared her presence. </p>
+
+<p class="close"> 'Yours most sincerely, </p>
+
+<p class="sig"> '<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+There are in one or two of Charlotte Bront&#235;'s letters, written during
+this month, allusions to her brother. She tells us that things are not
+very bright as regards him, though his health, and consequently his
+temper, have been somewhat better this last day or two, because he is
+now '<i>forced</i> to abstain.' And again, on the 18th, 'My hopes ebb
+low indeed about Branwell. I sometimes fear he will never be fit for
+much. The late blow to his prospects and feelings has quite made him
+reckless.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 19th, Branwell sends a short note to Leyland, in which he says,
+'As to my own affairs, I only wish I could see one gleam of light amid
+their gloom. You, I hope, are well and cheerful.'
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="V">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER V.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRANWELL'S PROJECTED NOVEL.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Review of Branwell's past Experiences of Life&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He seeks Relief in
+Literary Occupation&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He Proposes to Write a Three-volume Novel&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His
+Letter on the Subject&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;One Volume Completed&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Capability of
+Writing a Novel&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Letter to Mr. Grundy on his Disappointment.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Branwell had now attained his twenty-eighth year. The reader has seen
+in the early part of this work the intellectual promise of his opening
+career, the evidences of his genius, his versatility, and his mental
+power, and has marked the paths by which he, who was expected to be the
+crowning light of that remarkable family, had been brought, step by
+step, to the very depths of misery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the few short years of his life, Branwell Bront&#235;, having tasted
+the sweets of a noble ambition, and surrendered himself to the
+influences of love, had suffered the agonies of his disappointment and
+disgrace, and was now feeling the very bitterness of despair. Such
+influences as these, shaking the soul with their tempestuous breath,
+cast their sad glamour on the imagination; and he who has felt the
+spell is impressed thenceforth more deeply with the wondrous story of
+life, with the struggle of being, and with the fulness of emotion, and
+has a far deeper insight into the mysteries of human nature. It was in
+this way that Byron, when he had passed through his greatest
+misfortunes, and had abandoned for ever the shores of England, was
+fired with the gloomy glory of 'Manfred' and of 'Cain.' This storm and
+stress of the feelings, when the imagination receives a higher
+consciousness, is as the Eddaic struggle of Sigurd with Fafnir, the
+drinking of the monster's blood, that taught to the dragon-slayer the
+mystic language of the birds. The reader will see how these influences
+told on Branwell Bront&#235;, and how sad the voices of the birds were for
+him; how his muse was inspired with the note of misery, and his longing
+was for peace alone. There seemed, indeed, to be no hope in those days.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, there came at times to Branwell Bront&#235;, as there must come to
+all men in his circumstances, a reaction from the consuming sorrow of
+despair, a longing for action, for mental stimulus, to divert his mind
+from the woe he should never be able to forget. And, with this change
+in his methods of thought, there grew upon him another feeling,
+engendered of his broken sympathy with the actions of his kind: he
+learned to look upon human affairs as a spectator, rather than as one
+who felt any personal interest in them. It was in this way that his
+experience seemed to him to have unveiled the hidden springs of the
+actions of men; and, in recognizing the selfishness of them, he became
+himself something of a cynic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell was in this frame of mind when he resolved, soon after a visit
+to his friend Leyland,&#8212;whom he found engaged upon a tomb and recumbent
+statue of the late Doctor Stephen Beckwith, a benefactor to several
+public institutions in York, to be erected in the Minster there,&#8212;to
+make an effort to arouse himself. With the desire, then, of finding an
+absorbing occupation for his mind, by which he might be able to lay the
+tempest of the heart, the whirlwind of wounded vanity, of injured
+self-esteem, and of blighted hope, which swept through his mind in
+hours of reflection, and drove him to distraction or desperation, he
+turned, with the resolution of a new-born energy, engendered of
+despair, to literary composition. He proposed to himself to depict, as
+best he could, in a fictitious form, and as an ordinary novel, which
+should extend to three volumes, the different feelings that work in the
+human soul. The necessary labour which this undertaking involved, gave
+a stimulus to his ambition, which for a time was sustained; and he
+evidently hoped that he might yet be able to make a place for himself
+in the busy world of letters. At this time the novels of his sisters
+were not in existence, and probably had scarcely been dreamed of.
+Charlotte had not yet lighted on the volume of verse in the handwriting
+of Emily, and the literary future of the sisters had still to dawn upon
+them. Yet Branwell, whose behaviour had given them cause enough for
+disquietude, and whose sorrows were embittering his mind, had now
+braced himself up for an object which they had not attempted, and to
+the accomplishment of which he looked forward with something like
+confidence. In the following letter to his friend Leyland, he discloses
+his design; and it is probable that in this we have almost all the
+direct light upon it which can be found:&#8212;
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="ralign">
+'Haworth, Sept. 10th, 1845.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I was certainly sadly disappointed at not having seen you on the
+Friday you named for your visit, but the cause you allege for not
+arriving was justifiable with a vengeance. I should have been as
+cracked as my cast had I entered a room and seen the labour of weeks or
+months destroyed (apparently&#8212;not, I trust, really) in a
+moment.<a href="#note18" name="noteref18">
+<small>[18]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'That vexation is, I hope, over; and I build upon your renewed promise
+of a visit; for nothing cheers me so much as the company of one whom I
+believe to be a <i>man</i>, and who has known care well enough to be
+able to appreciate the discomfort of another who knows it <i>too</i>
+well. </p>
+
+<p> 'Never mind the lines I put into your hands, but come hither with
+them, and, if they should have been lost out of your pocket on the way,
+I won't grumble, provided you are present to apologize for the
+accident. </p>
+
+<p> 'I have, since I saw you at Halifax, devoted my hours of time,
+snatched from downright illness, to the composition of a three-volume
+<i>novel</i>, one volume of which is completed, and, along with the two
+forthcoming ones, has been really the result of half-a-dozen by-past
+years of thoughts about, and experience in, this crooked path of life.
+</p>
+
+<p> 'I felt that I must rouse myself to attempt something while
+roasting daily and nightly over a slow fire, to while away my torments;
+and I knew that, in the present state of the publishing and reading
+world, a novel is the most saleable article, so that&#8212;where ten
+pounds would be offered for a work, the production of which would
+require the utmost stretch of a man's intellect&#8212;two hundred
+pounds would be a refused offer for three volumes, whose composition
+would require the smoking of a cigar and the humming of a tune. </p>
+
+<p> 'My novel is the result of years of thought; and, if it gives a
+vivid picture of human feelings for good and evil, veiled by the cloak
+of deceit which must enwrap man and woman; if it records, as faithfully
+as the pages that unveil man's heart in "Hamlet" or "Lear," the
+conflicting feelings and clashing pursuits in our uncertain path
+through life, I shall be as much gratified (and as much astonished) as
+I should be if, in betting that I could jump over the Mersey, I jumped
+over the Irish Sea. It would not be more pleasant to light on Dublin
+instead of Birkenhead, than to leap from the present bathos of
+fictitious literature to the firmly-fixed rock honoured by the foot of
+a Smollett or a Fielding. </p>
+
+<p> 'That jump I expect to take when I can model a rival to your noble
+Theseus, who haunted my dreams when I slept after seeing him. But,
+meanwhile, I can try my utmost to rouse myself from almost killing
+cares, and that alone will be its own reward. </p>
+
+<p> 'Tell me when I may hope to see you, and believe me, dear sir, </p>
+
+<p class="close"> 'Yours, </p>
+
+<p class="sig"> '<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+A spirited sketch in pen-and-ink concludes this letter; it represents a
+bust of himself thrown down, and the lady of his admiration holding
+forth her hands towards it with an air of pity, while underneath it is
+the sentence: 'A cast, cast down, but not cast away!'<a href="#note19" name="noteref19">
+<small>[19]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have in this letter an instance of Branwell's general coherency
+under his disappointment, in which the elegance and freedom of his
+style of composition are combined with a consequent and logical
+arrangement of the various parts of his subject; but he cannot help
+concluding his letter with a direct allusion to the lady, whom he
+believes,&#8212;all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding,&#8212;to love him
+with undiminished devotion. Under this fascination he still hopes for
+the prosperity and happiness of which he had before spoken to his
+friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Moreover it will be seen, from Branwell's letter, that he had seriously
+undertaken, in the midst of sorrow, suffering, and ill-health,&#8212;though,
+I have reason to believe, that he had sketched some part of it during
+his tutorship&#8212;the production of a novel, one volume of which he had
+completed. He does not seem to have looked upon it as a great mental
+effort, but rather as the natural outcome of a painful experience, and
+the proper alleviation of a present misery. Yet he designed to give a
+vivid picture of human nature; and, with the strength of experience and
+the consciousness of power, he evidently hoped that it would be a
+better work than those productions of the day, of whose composition he
+speaks so lightly. His experience had, indeed, been such as would well
+enable one of his quick perception to grasp the character, feelings,
+and motives of those around him. His knowledge of the country people of
+the West-Riding was very great; for, sitting, the admired of all
+observers, in the 'Black Bull,' at Haworth, he had met representatives
+of all classes of them. By the parlour fire, in the long winter
+evenings, he had had opportunities enough of entering into the spirit
+of the people; indeed, his letter to John Brown has shown us how he
+reviewed some of them. It was not merely for the enjoyment of an hour
+that he came to their company: he had longed for a glimpse of other
+life than that lived at the parsonage. And the Yorkshire peasants&#8212;whom
+he nevertheless held at their true value&#8212;to those who know their
+dialect, and can enter into their pursuits, as Branwell did and could,
+disclose a fund of shrewd observation, a sharp understanding, and a
+free and natural wit; and they delight in telling the stories of all
+the country side. But they must be understood before they can be
+appreciated. Branwell, too, had been a guest at the homesteads of the
+farmers, in the neighbourhood where he had latterly resided, who were
+always pleased to see him, when he visited them. But he had had
+experience of more fiery emotions than those of peasants; he had longed
+to know something of the deeper life of London, and had found it, at
+last, in the company of pugilists and their patrons.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When the mood was upon him, all these varied experiences flowed with
+voluble eloquence from his lips; and the brightness of his wit and the
+brilliance of his imagination made him, at such times, a most enjoyable
+companion. But he delighted above all things, as has been seen, to
+spend his evenings, when possible, with the little band of literati
+which, in those times, characterized that district; and, in the society
+of Storey the poet of Wharfe, James the historian of Bradford, George
+Searle Phillips, Leyland the sculptor, and others, he found emulation
+and stimulus to better things. But the uses to which, under such
+influences, he put his experiences of life, and the colour that was
+given to them through his maddening misfortunes&#8212;so far as his novel is
+concerned&#8212;can probably never be told. His experience in 'this crooked
+path of life,' during his last half-dozen years, had been sufficiently
+varied; and an instructive story he could doubtless have based upon it.
+But, what became of the volume he wrote, possibly no one can tell; and
+his intention of writing two more was probably not carried out.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From the following letter which Branwell wrote to Mr. Grundy in the
+October of 1845, we learn something of the condition of mind under
+which he must have written; and, from an allusion which it contains, we
+may, probably, infer that he had abandoned his intention of writing the
+two other volumes of his novel.<a href="#note20" name="noteref20">
+<small>[20]</small></a> He says:
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'I fear you will burn my present letter on recognising the handwriting;
+but if you will read it through, you will perhaps rather pity than
+spurn the distress of mind which could prompt my communication, after a
+silence of nearly three (to me) eventful years. While very ill and
+confined to my room, I wrote to you two months ago, hearing you were
+resident engineer of the Skipton Railway, to the inn at Skipton. I
+never received any reply, and as my letter asked only for one day of
+your society, to ease a very weary mind in the company of a friend who
+<i>always</i> had what I always wanted, but most want now,
+<i>cheerfulness</i>, I am sure you never received my letter, or your
+heart would have prompted an answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Since I last shook hands with you in Halifax, two summers ago, my
+life, till lately, has been one of apparent happiness and indulgence.
+You will ask, "Why does he complain, then?" I can only reply by showing
+the under-current of distress which bore my bark to a whirlpool,
+despite the surface waves of life that seemed floating me to peace. In
+a letter begun in the spring of 1845 and never finished, owing to
+incessant attacks of illness, I tried to tell you that I was tutor to
+the son of &#8212;&#8212;, a wealthy gentleman whose wife is sister to the wife
+of &#8212;&#8212;, M.P. for the county of &#8212;&#8212;, and the cousin of Lord &#8212;&#8212;. This
+lady (though her husband detested me) showed me a degree of kindness
+which, when I was deeply grieved one day at her husband's conduct,
+ripened into declarations of more than ordinary feeling. My admiration
+of her mental and personal attractions, my knowledge of her unselfish
+sincerity, her sweet temper, and unwearied care for others, with but
+unrequited return where most should have been given &#8230; although she is
+seventeen years my senior, all combined to an attachment on my part,
+and led to reciprocations which I had little looked for. During nearly
+three years I had daily "troubled pleasure, soon chastised by fear."
+Three months since I received a furious letter from my employer,
+threatening to shoot me if I returned from my vacation, which I was
+passing at home; and letters from her lady's-maid and physician
+informed me of the outbreak, only checked by her firm courage and
+resolution that whatever harm came to her, none should come to me&#8230;. I
+have lain during nine long weeks, utterly shattered in body and broken
+down in mind. The probability of her becoming free to give me herself
+and estate never rose to drive away the prospect of her decline under
+her present grief. I dreaded, too, the wreck of my mind and body,
+which, God knows! during a short life have been severely tried. Eleven
+continuous nights of sleepless horror reduced me to almost blindness;
+and, being taken into Wales to recover, the sweet scenery, the sea, the
+sound of music caused me fits of unspeakable distress. You will say,
+"What a fool!" but if you knew the many causes I have for sorrow, which
+I cannot even hint at here, you would perhaps pity as well as blame. At
+the kind request of Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Baines, I have striven to
+arouse my mind by writing something worthy of being read, but I really
+cannot do so. Of course you will despise the writer of all this. I can
+only answer that the writer does the same, and would not wish to live
+if he did not hope that work and change may yet restore him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Apologizing sincerely for what seems like whining egotism, and hardly
+daring to hint about the days when, in your company, I could sometimes
+sink the thoughts which "remind me of departed days," I fear departed
+never to return,&#8212;I remain, etc.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+In this letter we see that Branwell details to Mr. Grundy the story
+about Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;, which he was publishing whenever he could obtain a
+hearing. He speaks, too, of his ill-health, the shattering of body and
+the breaking down of mind, which at the time prostrated him. Charlotte
+seems scarcely to have credited Branwell's representations of the
+bodily condition into which he had fallen; for she says, in one of her
+letters, a little later, 'Branwell offers no prospect of hope: he
+professes to be too ill to think of seeking employment.'<a href="#note21" name="noteref21">
+<small>[21]</small></a> There are
+passages of a like tendency in others of Charlotte's letters about this
+time; but we shall see presently that, whatever might be his condition
+of health, he was by no means so unsolicitous for employment, or so
+heedless of the future, as she supposed.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="VI">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER VI.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+'REAL REST.'&#8212;'PENMAENMAWR.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+'Real Rest'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Comments&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Spirit of Branwell and Emily Identical&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Letter
+to Leyland&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell Broods on his Sorrows&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Penmaenmawr'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Comments
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He still Searches and Hopes for Employment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's somewhat
+Overdrawn Expressions&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Alleged Elopement Proposal&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Probable
+Origin of the Story.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Though Branwell Bront&#235; was so feeble in health that, despite his
+wishes, he found physical labour impossible, and though the reaction
+from utter despair&#8212;through whose impetus he completed one volume of
+his novel&#8212;had been followed by a condition which led him to think
+worthy literary work beyond his power, we find him, almost at the same
+time, writing two of the finest poems which remain from his hand. It
+has been seen, in the letter addressed to Mr. Grundy, how he declares
+that, owing to the state of his mind, he is unable to undertake any
+literary work worth reading. But we have certain knowledge of an
+immediate movement of his genius, and that it found expression in
+verse, which gave a free course to his feelings. In the following poem
+we have perhaps the most powerful and weird expression of inconsolable
+sorrow ever penned. A strange calm had now succeeded the storms of
+feeling its author had passed through.
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+REAL REST.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'I see a corpse upon the waters lie,</p>
+<p>With eyes turned, swelled and sightless, to the sky,</p>
+<p>And arms outstretched to move, as wave on wave</p>
+<p>Upbears it in its boundless billowy grave.</p>
+<p>Not time, but ocean, thins its flowing hair;</p>
+<p>Decay, not sorrow, lays its forehead bare;</p>
+<p>Its members move, but not in thankless toil,</p>
+<p>For seas are milder than this world's turmoil;</p>
+<p>Corruption robs its lips and cheeks of red,</p>
+<p>But wounded vanity grieves not the dead;</p>
+<p>And, though those members hasten to decay,</p>
+<p>No pang of suffering takes their strength away.</p>
+<p>With untormented eye, and heart, and brain,</p>
+<p>Through calm and storm it floats across the main;</p>
+<p>Though love and joy have perished long ago,</p>
+<p>Its bosom suffers not one pang of woe;</p>
+<p>Though weeds and worms its cherished beauty hide,</p>
+<p>It feels not wounded vanity nor pride;</p>
+<p>Though journeying towards some far off shore,</p>
+<p>It needs no care nor gold to float it o'er;</p>
+<p>Though launched in voyage for eternity,</p>
+<p>It need not think upon what is <i>to be</i>;</p>
+<p>Though naked, helpless, and companionless,</p>
+<p>It feels not poverty, nor knows distress.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Ah, corpse! if thou couldst tell my aching mind</p>
+<p>What scenes of sorrow thou hast left behind,</p>
+<p>How sad the life which, breathing, thou hast led,</p>
+<p>How free from strife thy sojourn with the dead;</p>
+<p>I would assume thy place&#8212;would long to be</p>
+<p>A world-wide wanderer o'er the waves with thee!</p>
+<p>I have a misery, where thou hast none;</p>
+<p>My heart beats, bursting, whilst thine lies like stone;</p>
+<p>My veins throb wild, whilst thine are dead and dry;</p>
+<p>And woes, not waters, dim my restless eye;</p>
+<p>Thou longest not with one well loved to be,</p>
+<p>And absence does not break a chain with thee;</p>
+<p>No sudden agonies dart through thy breast;</p>
+<p>Thou hast what all men covet,&#8212;<span class="sc">Real Rest</span>.</p>
+<p>I have an outward frame, unlike to thine,</p>
+<p>Warm with young life&#8212;not cold in death's decline;</p>
+<p>An eye that sees the sunny light of Heaven,&#8212;</p>
+<p>A heart by pleasure thrilled, by anguish riven&#8212;</p>
+<p>But, in exchange for thy untroubled calm,</p>
+<p>Thy gift of cold oblivion's healing balm,</p>
+<p>I'd give my youth, my health, my life to come,</p>
+<p>And share thy slumbers in thy ocean tomb.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Here the poet, his soul longing for freedom from mortality, his
+crushed and wounded spirit hovering above the salt and restless wave,
+contemplates the pale and ghastly body that floats thereon, and,
+holding communion with it, touches in melancholy and beautiful words
+its isolation and oblivion. Accompanying the dead in its watery
+wanderings, he sees, with keen sympathy, its utter disseverance from
+the world it has left, and contrasts with its condition the hopeless
+sorrow of his own disappointed youth. He delineates, in words of
+singular power and felicity, this weird and lonely picture; and, as an
+artist and a poet, paints wildly, but beautifully, the decay of the
+drowned in the ocean, and of the living, through the effects of
+long-continued woe. Branwell had loved, indeed, however unfortunately;
+and the misery of his passion caused him to turn his reflections within
+upon himself. As with the 'Wandering Jew,' who sees in every rock, in
+every bush, in every cloud, without hope of alleviation from his
+abiding woe, the <i>via crucis</i> of his suffering Lord&#8212;every thought
+of Branwell's gifted mind, every conception of his fertile brain, every
+aspect, to him, of ocean, earth, and sky,&#8212;was, in one way or other,
+instinct with his own initial and irrepressible affection. Apart,
+however, from the illusions respecting the lady of his heart, under
+which he laboured, and which drove him to madness, there was a tendency
+to gloom and despondency implanted in his very nature, a disposition of
+mind in which his sister Emily largely resembled him. To such an extent
+was this the case that, in her poem of 'The Philosopher,' written in
+the October of 1845, she not only gives expression to similar weird
+thoughts and desires, but one might think there had been some
+interchange of ideas between the two,&#8212;that, perhaps, she had read his
+'Real Rest,' and wrote the following words in half-censure of its
+tendency. She is speaking of an enlightening spirit:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Had I but seen his glorious eye</p>
+<p class="i2"><i>Once</i> light the clouds that wilder me;</p>
+<p>I ne'er had raised this coward cry</p>
+<p class="i2">To cease to think, and cease to be;</p>
+<p>I ne'er had called oblivion blest,</p>
+<p class="i2">Nor stretching eager hands to death,</p>
+<p>Implored to change for senseless rest</p>
+<p class="i2">This sentient soul, this living breath&#8212;</p>
+<p>Oh, let me die&#8212;that power and will</p>
+<p class="i2">Their cruel strife may close;</p>
+<p>And conquered good and conquering ill</p>
+<p class="i2">Be lost in one repose!'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+It is noteworthy that Charlotte, also, in the second part of her poem
+'Gilbert,' has used the incident of a corpse floating upon the waters,
+which is seen by the unhappy man in his vision, not, indeed, to give
+him the calm of oblivion, but rather, in contrast to Branwell's poem,
+to wake in him the pains of sorrow and remorse.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again, on the 25th of November, 1845, Branwell wrote to Leyland. He
+could not free himself from the unfortunate ideas which had perverted
+his understanding, but on every other subject he wrote justly.
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="ralign">
+'Haworth,<br>
+'Bradford, Yorks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I send you the enclosed,&#8212;and I ought to tell you why I wished
+anything of so personal a nature to appear in print. </p>
+
+<p>'I have no other way, not pregnant with danger, of communicating
+with one whom I cannot help loving. Printed lines, with my usual
+signature, "Northangerland," could excite no suspicion&#8212;as my late
+unhappy employer shrank from the bare idea of my being able to write
+anything, and had a day's sickness after hearing that Macaulay had sent
+me a complimentary letter; so <i>he</i> won't know the name. </p>
+
+<p>'I sent through a private channel one letter of comfort in her
+great and agonizing present afflictions, but I recalled it through
+dread of the consequences of a discovery. </p>
+
+<p>'These lines have only one merit,&#8212;that of really expressing
+my feelings, while sailing under the Welsh mountain, when the band on
+board the steamer struck up, "Ye banks and braes!" God knows that, for
+many different reasons, those feelings were far enough from pleasure.
+</p>
+
+<p>'I suffer very much from that mental exhaustion which arises from
+brooding on matters useless at present to think of,&#8212;and active
+employment would be my greatest cure and blessing,&#8212;for really,
+after hours of thoughts which business would have hushed, I have felt
+as if I could not live, and, if long-continued, such a state will bring
+on permanent affection of the heart, which is already bothered with
+most uneasy palpitations. </p>
+
+<p>'I should like extremely to have an hour's sitting with you, and,
+if I had the chance, I would promise to try not to look gloomy. You
+said you would be at Haworth ere long, but that "ere" has doubtless
+changed to "ne'er;" so I must wish to get to Halifax some time to see
+you. </p>
+
+<p>'I saw Murray's monument praised in the papers, and I trust you are
+getting on well with Beckwith's, as well as with your own personal
+statue of living flesh and blood. </p>
+
+<p>'Mine, like your Theseus, has lost its hands and feet, and I fear
+its head also, for it can neither move, write, nor think as it once
+could. </p>
+
+<p>'I hope I shall hear from you on John Brown's return from Halifax,
+whither he has gone. </p>
+
+<p class="close">'I remain, &#38;c., </p>
+
+<p class="sig">'<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The poem enclosed was entitled:
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+PENMAENMAWR.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'These winds, these clouds, this chill November storm</p>
+<p>Bring back again thy tempest-beaten form</p>
+<p>To eyes that look upon yon dreary sky</p>
+<p>As late they looked on thy sublimity;</p>
+<p>When I, more troubled than thy restless sea,</p>
+<p>Found, in its waves, companionship with thee.</p>
+<p>'Mid mists thou frownedst over Arvon's shore,</p>
+<p>'Mid tears I watched thee over ocean's roar,</p>
+<p>And thy blue front, by thousand storms laid bare,</p>
+<p>Claimed kindred with a heart worn down by care.</p>
+<p>No smile had'st thou, o'er smiling fields aspiring,</p>
+<p>And none had I, from smiling fields retiring;</p>
+<p>Blackness, 'mid sunlight, tinged thy slaty brow,</p>
+<p>I, 'mid sweet music, looked as dark as thou;</p>
+<p>Old Scotland's song, o'er murmuring surges borne,</p>
+<p>Of "times departed,&#8212;never to return,"</p>
+<p>Was echoed back in mournful tones from thee,</p>
+<p>And found an echo, quite as sad, in me;</p>
+<p>Waves, clouds, and shadows moved in restless change,</p>
+<p>Around, above, and on thy rocky range,</p>
+<p>But seldom saw that sovereign front of thine</p>
+<p>Changes more quick than those which passed o'er mine.</p>
+<p>And as wild winds and human hands, at length,</p>
+<p>Have turned to scattered stones the mighty strength</p>
+<p>Of that old fort, whose belt of boulders grey</p>
+<p>Roman or Saxon legions held at bay;</p>
+<p>So had, methought, the young, unshaken nerve&#8212;</p>
+<p>That, when <span class="sclc">WILL</span> wished, no doubt could cause to swerve,</p>
+<p>That on its vigour ever placed reliance,</p>
+<p>That to its sorrows sometimes bade defiance&#8212;</p>
+<p>Now left my spirit, like thyself, old hill,</p>
+<p>With head defenceless against human ill;</p>
+<p>And, as thou long hast looked upon the wave</p>
+<p>That takes, but gives not, like a churchyard grave,</p>
+<p>I, like life's course, through ether's weary range,</p>
+<p>Never know rest from ceaseless strife and change.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'But, <span class="sc">Penmaenmawr</span>! a better fate was thine,</p>
+<p>Through all its shades, than that which darkened mine;</p>
+<p>No quick thoughts thrilled through thy gigantic mass</p>
+<p>Of woe for what might be, or is, or was;</p>
+<p>Thou hadst no memory of the glorious hour</p>
+<p>When Britain rested on thy giant power;</p>
+<p>Thou hadst no feeling for the verdant slope</p>
+<p>That leant on thee as man's heart leads on hope;</p>
+<p>The pastures, chequered o'er with cot and tree,</p>
+<p>Though thou wert guardian, got no smile from thee;</p>
+<p>Old ocean's wrath their charms might overwhelm,</p>
+<p>But thou could'st still keep thy unshaken realm&#8212;</p>
+<p>While I felt flashes of an inward feeling</p>
+<p>As fierce as those thy craggy form revealing</p>
+<p>In nights of blinding gleams, when deafening roar</p>
+<p>Hurls back thy echo to old Mona's shore.</p>
+<p>I knew a flower, whose leaves were meant to bloom</p>
+<p>Till Death should snatch it to adorn a tomb,</p>
+<p>Now, blanching 'neath the blight of hopeless grief,</p>
+<p>With never blooming, and yet living leaf;</p>
+<p>A flower on which my mind would wish to shine,</p>
+<p>If but one beam could break from mind like mine.</p>
+<p>I had an ear which could on accents dwell</p>
+<p>That might as well say "perish!" as "farewell!"</p>
+<p>An eye which saw, far off, a tender form,</p>
+<p>Beaten, unsheltered, by affliction's storm;</p>
+<p>An arm&#8212;a lip&#8212;that trembled to embrace</p>
+<p>My angel's gentle breast and sorrowing face,</p>
+<p>A mind that clung to Ouse's fertile side</p>
+<p>While tossing&#8212;objectless&#8212;on Menai's tide!</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Oh, Soul! that draw'st yon mighty hill and me</p>
+<p>Into communion of vague unity,</p>
+<p>Tell me, can I obtain the stony brow</p>
+<p>That fronts the storm, as much unbroken now</p>
+<p>As when it once upheld the fortress proud,</p>
+<p>Now gone, like its own morning cap of cloud?</p>
+<p>Its breast is stone. Can I have one of steel,</p>
+<p>To endure&#8212;inflict&#8212;defend&#8212;yet never feel?</p>
+<p>It stood as firm when haughty Edward's word</p>
+<p>Gave hill and dale to England's fire and sword,</p>
+<p>As when white sails and steam-smoke tracked the sea,</p>
+<p>And all the world breathed peace, but waves and me.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Let me, like it, arise o'er mortal care,</p>
+<p>All woes sustain, yet never know despair;</p>
+<p>Unshrinking face the grief I now deplore,</p>
+<p>And stand, through storm and shine, like moveless <span class="sc">Penmaenmawr</span>!'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+These lines are shadowed, like all his other writings, with the grief
+that day and night oppressed him. Throughout the theme, his eager
+yearning for mental quiet is finely expressed; and in it he contrasts
+the strength and calm of the everlasting hill in its chequered history,
+and in the ceaseless changes, and the lights and shadows that fall upon
+it, with his own wild and stormy existence; the lady, whose charms have
+bewildered his imagination, supplying him with a subject for sorrowful
+recollections. The giant hill is the mighty image with which his
+perturbed soul communes, and he implores for strength to enable him to
+rise superior to his misfortunes, and to face, like 'moveless
+Penmaenmawr,' the storm, adversity, and ruin that threaten him. But
+there was little likelihood of the lady seeing these lines.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We find Branwell, at the time, making efforts to obtain some employment
+that would divert him from useless brooding upon the unfortunate
+circumstances that destroyed his peace. Scarcely, also, was he less
+anxious to be away from home, for his presence there had been his
+greatest humiliation when his family knew of his disgrace; yet, with a
+method of which he was master, he appears to have kept silence there on
+the subject his madness made him so ready to repeat to others. However
+his sisters Emily and Anne might regard him, Charlotte, at least,
+looked upon him as one of the fallen. She thus writes to her friend
+concerning him on the 4th of November, 1845: 'I hoped to be able to ask
+you to come to Haworth. It almost seemed as if Branwell had a chance of
+getting employment, and I waited to know the result of his efforts in
+order to say, dear &#8212;&#8212;, come and see us. But the place (a
+secretaryship to a railway committee) is given to another person.
+Branwell still remains at home; and while <i>he</i> is here, <i>you</i>
+shall not come. I am more confirmed in that resolution the more I see
+of him. I wish I could say one word to you in his favour, but I cannot.
+I will hold my tongue. We are all obliged to you for your kind
+suggestion about Leeds; but I think our school schemes are, for the
+present, at rest.' Again, she says on December 31st of the same year:
+'You say well, in speaking of &#8212;&#8212;, that no sufferings are so awful as
+those brought on by dissipation; alas! I see the truth of this
+observation daily proved. &#8212;&#8212; and &#8212;&#8212; must have as weary and
+burdensome a life of it in waiting upon their unhappy brother. It seems
+grievous, indeed, that those who have not sinned should suffer so
+largely.'<a href="#note22" name="noteref22">
+<small>[22]</small></a> Charlotte also, writing to Nancy Garrs, who at times
+assisted at the parsonage, complained of the conduct of her brother;
+but, later, requested that the letter should be destroyed. Her wish was
+complied with.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is, indeed, an almost impossible task to convey to the reader, in
+the pages of a biography, an idea which will, in an adequate degree,
+approach the intimate acquaintance which those who lived, saw, and
+spoke with its subject possessed. And, yet, how necessary is such
+knowledge to the right understanding of anyone's letters! But with what
+chance of a true insight, then, shall we read the letters of Branwell
+Bront&#235; and his sister, if we have an incorrect view of his character?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Robinson has confidently concluded, from certain depreciatory
+references to himself, in his letters to Mr. Grundy, that, at this
+period, 'he was manifestly, and by his own confession, too physically
+prostrate for any literary effort,' with how much accuracy the reader
+has seen and will further see. And Mr. Wemyss Reid, with respect to the
+character of Mr. Bront&#235;, adopting much of Mrs. Gaskell's view of him,
+and relying upon his children's letters, has produced a portrait of him
+to which, as he allows, 'some of those who knew him in his later years,
+including one who is above all others entitled to an opinion on the
+subject, have objected as being over-coloured.' We must not read, then,
+too literally all that we find in the letters. It would be folly to
+take word for word Charlotte's account of her father's anger when she
+announced to him a proposal of marriage which had been made to her, and
+which did not accord with his wish; or to believe that 'compassion or
+relenting is no more to be looked for from papa than sap from
+firewood,' when we know that he afterwards voluntarily gave way, and
+sacrificed his own opinion. Nor would it be right to accept any
+exaggerated confession of Charlotte about herself, in a literal sense.
+And thus it does not sound well in Mrs. Gaskell, after completing her
+account of the outward events of Branwell's life, to say, 'All that is
+to be said more about Branwell Bront&#235; shall be said by Charlotte
+herself, not by me;' and then to proceed to extract such portions of
+the sister's letters as condemned him, and to summarize or repress
+anything favourable. But Miss Robinson has gone further. She, by
+extracting a few censures from various letters, apart in date, and
+leaving out all mention of the chance of the secretaryship in the
+letter of November the 4th, and the words 'to him' in another, has left
+her reader under the impression that, after his dismissal, Branwell
+would not seek employment. 'Such was not his intention,' she says. But
+Branwell's efforts to obtain the secretaryship, to which Charlotte
+alludes, are sufficient evidence of a contrary disposition in him; and
+we shall find that he exerted himself in other directions also.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The failure of the school-keeping has likewise been duly laid to his
+charge, although, as we have seen, Mr. Bront&#235;'s oncoming blindness, in
+the first place, and the difficulty of procuring pupils at Haworth,
+were the causes of its failure. To the reason why no attempt was made
+to open a school elsewhere, I shall have further to allude.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have been told by Mrs. Gaskell that, some months after Branwell's
+dismissal, he met the wife of his former employer clandestinely by
+appointment. 'There was,' she says, 'a strange lingering of conscience,
+when &#8230; he refused to consent to the elopement which she proposed.'<a href="#note23" name="noteref23">
+<small>[23]</small></a>
+Miss Robinson, who adopts this report, thinks that the phrase 'herself
+and estate,' in the letter he sent to Mr. Grundy, throws quite a new
+light upon Mrs. Gaskell's opinion that there were any remains of
+conscience left in Branwell Bront&#235;. She says he counselled 'a little
+longer waiting,'&#8212;that he might become possessed of the property, on
+the death of the lady's husband. But if this incident of the proposed
+elopement had actually taken place, the delay suggested by Branwell
+should surely be held as proof that anything positively dishonourable
+was repulsive to him. The lady, too, had an ample fortune of her own,
+of which, had she proposed an elopement, she would have informed him.
+But, if we consider the possible sources from which such a story as
+this could arise, we may surmise that Mrs. Gaskell,&#8212;who first gave it
+to the public, and on whose authority it alone remains,&#8212;obtained it,
+with the many other incidents she has published, from the current
+scandal of Haworth,&#8212;where else could she have heard it?&#8212;and when we
+remember that the rumours of the village, though magnified a
+hundred-fold, had their origin in the infatuated belief and wild
+statements of Branwell himself, possibly we shall not be wrong if we
+conclude that it had no foundation whatever in fact. Certainly there is
+no sufficient evidence for it. And the story is in itself inherently
+improbable, for it alleges that the lady had been not only regardless
+of her reputation, but had cast to the winds all thoughts of those
+pecuniary considerations which, a little later, upon the death of her
+husband, are stated to have prevented her from marrying in honour the
+supposed object of her affections.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I have, earlier in this work, spoken of a poem on one of the traditions
+of Lancashire, by Mr. Peters, entitled: 'Leyland's Daughter,' which is
+the story of a romantic elopement. Branwell, early in 1846, proposed to
+write a poem on Morley Hall, in the parish of Leigh, where the
+elopement took place in the reign of Edward VI., in which he also would
+touch upon the incident.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This tradition, and Branwell's intended work on the subject, became
+often a topic of conversation both at Haworth and Halifax: and, it is
+not improbable that, some ten years afterwards, when Mrs. Gaskell was
+searching at the former place for materials for her work, the story of
+this ancient elopement had become mixed with the stories of the village
+respecting Branwell and the lady of his late employer, and thus, with
+them, was ready for Mrs. Gaskell's hand, additions having been made as
+to time and place.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="VII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER VII.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+THE SISTERS' POEMS AND NOVELS.&#8212;BRANWELL'S LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+The Sisters as Writers of Poetry&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;They Decide to Publish&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Each
+begins a Novel&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Spirit under which the Work was Undertaken&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+'The Professor'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Agnes Grey'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Wuthering Heights'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's
+Condition&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;A Touching Incident&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Epistle from a Father to a Child
+in her Grave'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Letter with Sonnet&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Publication of the Sisters'
+Poems.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+If Branwell Bront&#235; had devoted himself to literature under the impulse
+of his misfortune, his sisters were not long unoccupied ere they also
+entered upon its pursuit. 'One day, in the autumn of 1845,' says
+Charlotte, 'I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my
+sister Emily's handwriting.' The elder sister was not surprised,
+knowing that the younger could and did write verse; but she thought
+these were no common effusions. 'To my ear,' she says, 'they had also a
+peculiar music&#8212;wild, melancholy, and elevating. My sister Emily was
+not a person of demonstrative character, nor one on the recesses of
+whose mind and feelings even those nearest and dearest to her could,
+with impunity, intrude unlicensed; it took hours to reconcile her to
+the discovery I had made, and days to persuade her that such poems
+merited publication.' Charlotte Bront&#235; here grasped, with unfailing
+precision, the very secret spell which we find in Emily's poetry; the
+strange, wild, weird voice, with which it speaks to us, spoke first of
+all to her, and she felt the heather-scented breath, even as we do, of
+the moorland air on which its music was borne. Anne also produced
+verses, which had 'a sweet, sincere pathos of their own;' and the three
+sisters, believing, after anxious deliberation, that they might get
+their respective productions accepted for publication in one volume,
+set on foot inquiries on the subject, and now adopted the pseudonyms of
+Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which were afterwards to become so
+famous. It was not, however, to be expected that the effusions of
+inexperienced and unknown writers would be of such value as to induce
+any publisher to take them on his own risk. Indeed, Miss Bront&#235; says
+'the great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any kind
+from the publishers to whom we applied.' She wrote to Messrs. Chambers,
+of Edinburgh, asking advice, and received a brief and business-like
+reply, upon which the sisters acted, and at last made way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 28th of January, 1846, Charlotte, as we have been informed,
+wrote to Messrs. Aylott and Jones, asking if they would publish a
+one-volume, octavo, of poems; if not at their own risk, on the authors'
+account. Messrs. Aylott and Jones did not hesitate to accept the latter
+proposal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must have been when the sisters became aware that publishers would
+not accept the poetry of unknown writers on any other terms, that they
+turned their thoughts to prose composition. Branwell, in his dire
+distress, had fixed his attention on the writing of a three-volume
+novel, principally as a refuge from mental disquiet; but his sisters,
+now, with very different feelings, each set to work on a one-volume
+tale. It had occurred to them, we are told, that by novel writing money
+was to be made. They were, in fact, influenced by precisely the view of
+the profit to be derived from fiction which Branwell had propounded in
+his remarkable letter to his friend Leyland. 'Ill-success,' says
+Charlotte, 'failed to crush us: the mere effort to succeed had given a
+wonderful zest to existence; it must be pursued. We each set to work on
+a prose tale: Ellis Bell produced "Wuthering Heights," Acton Bell,
+"Agnes Grey," and Currer Bell also wrote a narrative in one volume.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The business-like way in which the sisters went about their novel
+writing, forbids us to believe that they brooded very much on the
+conduct of their brother when the literary fervour was upon them; but
+Miss Robinson leads her readers to think that his character and
+failings had much to do with the tone which their works assumed.
+Writing under this belief, and with this intention,&#8212;as might have been
+expected,&#8212;she has found it necessary to paint every circumstance
+relating to him, and the inmates of the parsonage, in the darkest
+colours, and often has arrived at conclusions widely different from the
+actual facts. Moreover this writer, in supporting her views, has fallen
+into the serious error of placing the event which completed Branwell's
+disappointment, and its consequences to him, four months earlier than
+they occurred.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The novels which the sisters wrote under the influence of these
+troubles do not, indeed, bear any marked traces of them. 'The
+Professor,' Charlotte's story, which was not published until long
+after, is the direct outcome of her personal experiences in Brussels,
+and the few shadows that one finds in it are the record of such
+troubles as she had there. In this book, Currer Bell describes the life
+of endeavour, which seemed to her the most honourable, the treading of
+those paths in the outer world whose pleasures and pains she had found
+so keen. Already, in the March of 1845, she had written to a friend
+telling her that she was no longer happy at Haworth, though it was her
+duty to remain there. 'There was a time when Haworth was a very
+pleasant place to me; it is not so now. I feel as if we were all buried
+here. I long to travel; to work; to live a life of action.' Thus 'The
+Professor' is the story of the work and of the life of action for which
+the author herself was pining. William Crimsworth, neglected by his
+rich relations, cut off by his brutal brother, seeks his fortune in
+Brussels, and obtains a place as professor of English in a school
+there. He leads a life that Charlotte knows well; he is in the place
+she has learned to love; and he describes, with close observation, the
+character and the routine to which she is so well accustomed. Pelet,
+his master, is an original, as Paul Emanuel is, and Zora&#239;de Reuter is
+the prototype of Madame Beck. These characters are forcibly conceived,
+as is that of Mademoiselle Henri; but the book bears the traces of a
+novice's hand. Thus, how unnatural does the proposal which Crimsworth
+makes to Frances read to us, where, while asking her to be his wife,
+demanding of her what regard she has for him, he says not a word of his
+own devotion to her; and where, even when she grants him all he has
+been hoping for so long, his sole remark is, 'Very well, Frances!' But
+a stronger point of interest for us in the book is the spirit which
+moves Crimsworth in his endeavours, where he struggles with might and
+main, just as Charlotte herself wished to do, for a competency; and
+there is the school, too, which his wife designs and establishes, the
+very pattern of that which was in Charlotte's own mind. It is
+instructive and singular that in this book we find Crimsworth suffering
+from the hypochondria which beset its author, and that, too, at the
+time when he should have been happiest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Man,' he says, 'is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was my
+mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred
+and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to
+an aim, had over-strained the body's comparative weakness. A horror of
+great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had
+known formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a
+prey to hypochondria. She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once
+before in boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and board for a year;
+for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me,
+she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods,
+hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop
+her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree;
+taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of
+bone.' This was the phantom that visited Charlotte also. Of the effect
+of her brother's conduct on her I have found but two passages in 'The
+Professor,'&#8212;that which I have quoted respecting the youth of Victor
+Crimsworth earlier in this volume, and that, in Chapter xx., where
+William Crimsworth leaves Pelet's house lest a 'practical modern French
+novel' should be in process beneath its roof. It was Charlotte's
+design, in writing 'The Professor,' to lend it no charm of romance. Her
+hero was to work his way through life, and to find no sudden turn to
+endow him with wealth, for he was to earn every shilling he possessed,
+and he was not even to marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank in the
+end. 'In the sequel, however,' says Charlotte, 'I find that publishers
+in general scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked
+something more imaginative and poetical;' and for this reason,
+probably, the book did not find a publisher so soon as 'Agnes Grey,'
+and 'Wuthering Heights,' which were sent from the parsonage with it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Agnes Grey,' Anne Bront&#235;'s story, like 'The Professor,' is the picture
+of things its author had known, painted almost as she saw them. Anne's
+experience as a governess had made her acquainted with certain phases
+of life, which she could not but reproduce. Hence Agnes Grey is thrown
+into the sphere of the careless and selfish family of the Bloomfields;
+and afterwards, with the Murrays at Horton Lodge, she sees a kind of
+personal character and social life which, on account of its coldness
+and worldliness, greatly repelled Anne Bront&#235;, with her warm and
+sympathetic nature. She teaches the same lesson of the folly of
+<i>mariages de convenance</i>, and of the wrong of subjecting the
+affections, and bartering happiness for the sake of worldly position,
+which she afterwards dwells upon more strongly in 'The Tenant of
+Wildfell Hall.' It is in this fictitious parallel of Anne Bront&#235;'s own
+experience, if anywhere in her writings, that we might expect to find
+some reflection of the recent history of her brother's fall. Mr. Reid
+has asserted that this formed the dark turning-point in her life, for
+'living under the same roof with him when he went astray,' she 'was
+compelled to be a closer and more constant witness of his sins and his
+sufferings than either Charlotte or Emily.' Her letters home, it has
+been stated, conveyed the news of her dark forebodings. But, all the
+same, the story she wrote, almost under the shadow of her brother's
+disgrace, is the simple, straightforward, humorous narrative of the
+gentle and pious Anne Bront&#235;, revealing not so much as a suspicion of
+vice or thought of evil; and, in this respect, it presents a contrast
+to her second work. There is evidence that when the sisters wrote their
+novels they had already attributed monomania to Branwell, and could
+thus explain his history for themselves. It was not in the nature of
+'Agnes Grey' to be successful as a novel, but we find in it that Anne
+possessed a faculty which scarcely appears in Charlotte's
+writings,&#8212;that of humour. Look, for instance, at the way in which she
+sketches so forcibly, and with such droll perception, the character of
+the youthful Bloomfields, and, afterwards, of Miss Matilda Murray, with
+her equine propensities and masculine tastes.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Wuthering Heights,' the work which Emily Bront&#235; sent from the
+parsonage at the same time, incomparably finer in its powers than
+either 'The Professor' or 'Agnes Grey,' is a dramatic story of passion
+and tragic energy that astonished the world,&#8212;and with which it has
+been said Branwell's life in those days had much concern.
+Inferentially, it is contended that, without the darkening effect on
+her understanding of Branwell's misfortunes, without the neighbourhood
+of the 'brother of set purpose drinking himself to death out of furious
+thwarted passion for a mistress he might not marry,' Emily Bront&#235; could
+not have conceived it. It will, then, perhaps be better to defer the
+study of Emily's production till something more has been said of the
+period in which it was written; and until some new light has been
+thrown upon Branwell's character and career, and upon the anachronistic
+improprieties of previous writers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell passes over the period in which the sisters betook
+themselves to novel writing with little comment. But she keeps in
+remembrance the presence of Branwell while their literary labours
+continued,&#8212;'the black shadow of remorse lying over one in their home.'
+What it was that the biographer of Charlotte supposed stung Branwell's
+conscience is well-known; but, if there had been this cause for it in
+one of a naturally remorseful disposition, as his was, we must have met
+with some expression of it in his letters or poems, for
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,</p>
+<p class="i2">Is like the Scorpion girt by fire.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Yet, perhaps, one of the most significant points to be observed in
+Branwell's writings, and in studying his conduct, is the absence of any
+such remorse. He encouraged himself&#8212;after the first shock of his
+disappointment&#8212;with the hope that time would bring him the happiness
+he wished; and, as some believe, with good and sufficient reason. He
+was unhappy when he thought of the supposed ill-health and sufferings
+of the lady.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is noteworthy that something inconsequent, in putting down
+Branwell's conduct entirely to remorse in this way, was the feature of
+Mrs. Gaskell's work, to which so great an analyzer of motives as George
+Eliot, as shown by her letters published quite recently, took
+exception, and regretted.<a href="#note24" name="noteref24">
+<small>[24]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If we believe Branwell to have been subject to hallucination, we may
+then, perhaps, gain an idea of the true cause of the wretchedness he
+endured when he fell back on his own reflections. His life had been one
+of severe disappointment. Those early aims in art, for which he had
+spent so much preparation, and from which he hoped so much, had fallen
+away before him; his first efforts as usher and tutor had come to
+nothing; then followed the lapse which ended his stay with the railway
+company; and, lastly, the infatuation which had seized him in his late
+employment, with its vision of future opulence, and rest from all
+former change and trouble, ending in dismissal, distraction, and
+disgrace. All these things, rushing back upon his mind in moments of
+reflection, were more than he could bear, and he sought, in various
+ways, some honourable to him, to divert himself from the subject, but
+sometimes in a manner that gave cause for complaint at home, and
+resulted in moodiness and irritability of temper. On the other hand, he
+seems to have felt himself aggrieved by a want of sympathy on the part
+of his family in sufferings they did not comprehend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. George Searle Phillips, with whom Branwell became acquainted at
+Bradford, and who visited him at Haworth, says that he complained
+sometimes of the way in which he was treated at home; and, as an
+instance, relates the following:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'One of the Sunday-school girls, in whom he and all his house took much
+interest, fell very sick, and they were afraid she would not live. "I
+went to see the poor little thing," he said; "sat with her
+half-an-hour, and read a psalm to her, and a hymn at her request. I
+felt very like praying with her too," he added, his voice trembling
+with emotion; "but, you see, I was not good enough. How dare I pray for
+another, who had almost forgotten how to pray for myself! I came away
+with a heavy heart, for I felt sure she would die, and went straight
+home, where I fell into melancholy musings. I wanted somebody to cheer
+me. I often do, but no kind word finds its way even to my ears, much
+less to my heart. Charlotte observed my depression, and asked what
+ailed me. So I told her. She looked at me with a look I shall never
+forget&#8212;if I live to be a hundred years old&#8212;which I never shall. It
+was not like her at all. It wounded me as if some one had struck me a
+blow in the mouth. It involved ever so many things in it. It was a
+dubious look. It ran over me, questioning, and examining, as if I had
+been a wild beast. It said, 'Did my ears deceive me, or did I hear
+aright?' And then came the painful, baffled expression, which was worse
+than all. It said, 'I wonder if that's true?' But, as she left the
+room, she seemed to accuse herself of having wronged me, and smiled
+kindly upon me, and said, 'She is my little scholar, and I will go and
+see her.' I replied not a word. I was too much cut up. When she was
+gone, I came over here to the 'Black Bull,' and made a note of it in
+sheer disgust and desperation. Why could they not give me some credit
+when I was trying to be good?"'<a href="#note25" name="noteref25">
+<small>[25]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the beginning of March, Charlotte returned from a visit to a friend,
+and we hear that she found it very forced work to address her brother
+when she went into the room where he was; but he took no notice, and
+made no reply; he was stupefied; she had heard that he had got a
+sovereign while she was away, on pretence of paying a pressing debt,
+and had changed it, at a public-house, with the expected result.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Charlotte says, on March 31st, 1846: 'I am thankful papa
+continues pretty well, though often made very miserable by Branwell's
+wretched conduct. <i>There</i>&#8212;there is no change but for the worse.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At this time Branwell wrote the following beautiful ode, somewhat
+incomplete in its expression, yet characteristic of his genius, which
+seems to have been inspired by the outcast feelings of which he spoke
+to Mr. Phillips, and to contain some reproach to those who thought him
+deficient in natural affection. It bears date April 3rd, 1846:
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+EPISTLE FROM A FATHER TO A CHILD IN HER GRAVE.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">'From Earth,&#8212;whose life-reviving April showers</p>
+<p>Hide withered grass 'neath Springtide's herald flowers,</p>
+<p>And give, in each soft wind that drives her rain,</p>
+<p>Promise of fields and forests rich again,&#8212;</p>
+<p>I write to thee, the aspect of whose face</p>
+<p>Can never change with altered time or place;</p>
+<p>Whose eyes could look on India's fiercest wars</p>
+<p>Less shrinking than the boldest son of Mars;</p>
+<p>Whose lips, more firm that Stoic's long ago,</p>
+<p>Would neither smile with joy nor blanch with woe;</p>
+<p>Whose limbs could sufferings far more firmly bear</p>
+<p>Than mightiest heroes in the storms of war;</p>
+<p>Whose frame, nor wishes good, nor shrinks from ill,</p>
+<p>Nor feels distraction's throb, nor pleasure's thrill.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">'I write to thee what thou wilt never read,</p>
+<p>For heed me thou <i>wilt not</i>, howe'er may bleed</p>
+<p>The heart that many think a worthless stone,</p>
+<p>But which oft aches for some belov&#233;d one;</p>
+<p>Nor, if that life, mysterious, from on high,</p>
+<p>Once more gave feeling to thy stony eye,</p>
+<p>Could'st thou thy father know, or feel that he</p>
+<p>Gave life and lineaments and thoughts to thee;</p>
+<p>For when thou died'st, thy day was in its dawn,</p>
+<p>And night still struggled with Life's opening morn;</p>
+<p>The twilight star of childhood, thy young days</p>
+<p>Alone illumined, with its twinkling rays,</p>
+<p>So sweet, yet feeble, given from those dusk skies,</p>
+<p>Whose kindling, coming noontide prophesies,</p>
+<p>But tells us not that Summer's noon can shroud</p>
+<p>Our sunshine with a veil of thunder-cloud.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">'If, when thou freely gave the life, that ne'er</p>
+<p>To thee had given either hope or fear,</p>
+<p>But quietly had shone; nor asked if joy</p>
+<p>Thy future course should cheer, or grief annoy;</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">'If then thoud'st seen, upon a summer sea,</p>
+<p>One, once in features, as in blood, like thee,</p>
+<p>On skies of azure blue and waters green,</p>
+<p>Melting to mist amid the summer sheen,</p>
+<p>In trouble gazing&#8212;ever hesitating</p>
+<p>'Twixt miseries each hour new dread creating,</p>
+<p>And joys&#8212;whate'er they cost&#8212;still doubly dear,</p>
+<p>Those "troubled pleasures soon chastised by fear;"</p>
+<p>If thou <i>had'st</i> seen him, thou would'st ne'er believe</p>
+<p>That thou had'st yet known what it was to live!</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">'Thine eyes could only see thy mother's breast;</p>
+<p>Thy feelings only wished on that to rest;</p>
+<p>That was thy world;&#8212;thy food and sleep it gave,</p>
+<p>And slight the change 'twixt it and childhood's grave.</p>
+<p>Thou saw'st this world like one who, prone, reposes,</p>
+<p>Upon a plain, and in a bed of roses,</p>
+<p>With nought in sight save marbled skies above,</p>
+<p>Nought heard but breezes whispering in the grove:</p>
+<p>I&#8212;thy life's source&#8212;was like a wanderer breasting</p>
+<p>Keen mountain winds, and on a summit resting,</p>
+<p>Whose rough rocks rose above the grassy mead,</p>
+<p>With sleet and north winds howling overhead,</p>
+<p>And Nature, like a map, beneath him spread;</p>
+<p>Far winding river, tree, and tower, and town,</p>
+<p>Shadow and sunlight, 'neath his gaze marked down</p>
+<p>By that mysterious hand which graves the plan</p>
+<p>Of that drear country called "The Life of Man."</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">'If seen, men's eyes would loathing shrink from thee,</p>
+<p>And turn, perhaps, with no disgust to me;</p>
+<p>Yet thou had'st beauty, innocence, and smiles,</p>
+<p>And now hast rest from this world's woes and wiles,</p>
+<p>While I have restlessness and worrying care,</p>
+<p>So sure, thy lot is brighter, happier far.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i2">'So let it be; and though thy ears may never</p>
+<p>Hear these lines read beyond Death's darksome river,</p>
+<p>Not vainly from the borders of despair</p>
+<p>May rise a sound of joy that thou art freed from care!'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+On the 6th of April of this year, Charlotte wrote to Messrs. Aylott &#38;
+Jones, informing them that 'the Messrs. Bell' were preparing for the
+press a work of fiction, consisting of three distinct and unconnected
+tales, which might be published either together, as a work of three
+volumes of the ordinary novel size, or separately, as single volumes.
+It was not their intention to publish these at their own expense, and
+they wished to know if Messrs. Aylott would be likely to undertake the
+work, if approved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The novels must have been well on towards completion before the sisters
+ventured on these inquiries. The firm thus addressed kindly offered
+advice, of which Charlotte gladly availed herself to ask some
+questions. These were respecting the difficulty which unknown authors
+find in obtaining assistance from publishers; and Charlotte has indeed
+informed us that the three tales were going about among them 'for the
+space of a year and a half.' But 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey'
+at last found acceptance in the early summer of 1847.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A friendly compact had been made between Branwell and Leyland that the
+latter should model a medallion of his friend, and that Branwell should
+write the poem 'Morley Hall,'&#8212;to which I have had occasion above to
+allude&#8212;a subject in which the sculptor was much interested. Shortly
+after his sister made the inquiries from Messrs. Aylott, Branwell
+visited Halifax to sit for his medallion; and, on the 28th of April, he
+wrote the following letter to his friend:&#8212;
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="ralign">
+'Haworth, Bradford,<br>
+'Yorks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'As I am anxious&#8212;though my return for your kindness will be like
+giving a sixpence for a sovereign lent&#8212;to do my best in my
+intended lines on Morley, I want answers to the following questions&#8230;.
+If I learn these facts, I'll do my best, but in all I try to write I
+desire to stick to probabilities and local characteristics.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I cannot, without a smile at myself, think of my stay for three days
+in Halifax on a business which need not have occupied three hours; but,
+in truth, when I fall back <i>on</i> myself, I suffer so much
+wretchedness that I cannot withstand any temptation to get <i>out</i>
+of myself&#8212;and for that reason, I am prosecuting enquiries about
+situations suitable to me, whereby I could have a voyage abroad. The
+quietude of home, and the inability to make my family aware of the
+nature of most of my sufferings, makes me write:
+</p>
+
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Home thoughts are not with me,</p>
+<p class="i2">Bright, as of yore;</p>
+<p>Joys are forgot by me,</p>
+<p class="i2">Taught to deplore!</p>
+<p>My home has taken rest</p>
+<p>In an afflicted breast,</p>
+<p>Which I have often pressed,</p>
+<p class="i2">But may no more.</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+'Troubles never come alone&#8212;and I have some little troubles astride
+the shoulders of the big one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Literary exertion would seem a resource; but the depression attendant
+on it, and the almost hopelessness of bursting through the barriers of
+literary circles, and getting a hearing among publishers, make me
+disheartened and indifferent, for I cannot write what would be thrown
+unread into a library fire. Otherwise, I have the materials for a
+respectably sized volume, and, if I were in London personally, I might,
+perhaps, try &#8212;&#8212; &#8212;&#8212;, a patronizer of the sons of
+rhyme; though I daresay the poor man often smarts for his liberality in
+publishing hideous trash. As I know that, while here, I might send a
+manuscript to London, and say good-bye to it, I feel it folly to feed
+the flames of a printer's fire. So much for egotism!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I enclose a horribly ill-drawn daub done to while away the time
+this morning. I meant it to represent a very rough figure in stone.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'When all our cheerful hours seem gone for ever,</p>
+<p class="i2">All lost that caused the body or the mind</p>
+<p class="i2">To nourish love or friendship for our kind,</p>
+<p>And Charon's boat, prepared, o'er Lethe's river</p>
+<p>Our souls to waft, and all our thoughts to sever</p>
+<p class="i2">From what was once life's Light; still there may be</p>
+<p class="i2">Some well-loved bosom to whose pillow we</p>
+<p>Could heartily our utter self deliver;</p>
+<p>And if, toward her grave&#8212;Death's dreary road&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">Our Darling's feet should tread, each step by her</p>
+<p>Would draw our own steps to the same abode,</p>
+<p class="i2">And make a festival of sepulture;</p>
+<p>For what gave joy, and joy to us had owed,</p>
+<p>Should death affright us from, when he would her restore?</p></div></div>
+
+<p class="close">
+'Yours most sincerely,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+'<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The sketch, referred to in this letter, is in Indian-ink, and is of a
+female figure, with clasped hands, streaming hair, and averted face. We
+need not entertain a doubt as to whom it is intended to represent. It
+is inscribed, in Spanish, 'Nuestra Se&#241;ora de la Pena'&#8212;Our Lady of
+Grief&#8212;which also appears on a headstone in the sketch.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The sonnet, which concludes this letter to Leyland, is beautiful as it
+is sad, and not only possesses the musical cadences, and completeness
+of theme, so essential in this mode of expression, but exhibits the
+high culture of Branwell's mind, and the direction in which the
+irrepressible emotions of his heart are moved.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell, in this communication, makes no further mention of his novel.
+Yet the experience of his sisters with their poems had only confirmed
+the judgment he expressed six months before, that no pecuniary
+advantage was to be obtained by publishing verse. The sisters had
+expended, on their little volume, over thirty pounds; but they valued
+it rightly as an effort to succeed. It was issued from the press early
+in May.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte had conducted the negotiations with the publishers in a very
+business-like way. She had directed them as to the copies to be sent
+for review, and as to the advertisements, on which she wished to expend
+little. The book appeared, and the world took little note of it: it was
+scarcely mentioned anywhere; but the sisters at Haworth waited
+patiently, and they were not dismayed that they waited in vain; for
+they had new-born hope in their other literary venture of the three
+prose stories. 'The book,' says Charlotte of the Poems, 'was printed:
+it is scarcely known, and all of it that merits to be known are the
+poems of Ellis Bell. The fixed conviction I held, and hold, of the
+worth of these poems has not indeed received the confirmation of much
+favourable criticism; but I must retain it notwithstanding.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his letter Branwell expresses himself as still anxious for
+employment; and wise in the direction in which he seeks it. A total
+change of scene and circumstance would have been, at this time, his
+best cure and greatest blessing. Unhappily, he failed in the attempt;
+and we find him again writing to Mr. Grundy, inquiring for some kind of
+occupation.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="VIII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER VIII.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+DESPONDENCY.&#8212;BRANWELL'S LETTERS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Death of Branwell's late Employer&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Disappointment&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His
+Letters&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Delusion&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Leyland's Medallion of Him&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mr. Bront&#235;'s
+Blindness&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Statement to Mr. Grundy in Reference to
+'Wuthering Heights'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Sisters Relinquish the Intention of Opening
+a School.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+An event occurred, in the early summer of 1846, which plunged
+Branwell into a despair, wilder, and more distracting than the one
+from which he had partially recovered. This resulted from the death
+of his late employer. No doubt, during the interval which had elapsed
+between his dismissal from his tutorship, and the event last named,
+he had encouraged himself, it might be unconsciously for the most
+part, with the hope that, on the death of her husband, the lady on
+whom he doted would marry him. In this frame of mind, when his
+illusion was intensified by the clearance of the path before him, and
+his self-control unbridled, it may not be a subject of wonder, if he
+became troublesome to the inmates of the dwelling afflicted by death.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following story, with variations, has been told as having
+reference to some actual or intended act of indiscretion of Branwell's
+at the time. It has been said that, at this juncture, a messenger was
+sent over to Haworth by Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;, forbidding Branwell 'ever to see
+her again, as, if he did, she would forfeit her fortune.'<a href="#note26" name="noteref26">
+<small>[26]</small></a> It will
+be seen shortly that no such provision was made in her husband's will,
+and that the fortune she had secured to her could not be forfeited by
+any such act of Branwell's. The whole story, therefore, to which Mrs.
+Gaskell and Miss Robinson have devoted so much space may well be
+discredited. But Mrs. Gaskell says absolutely that Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;
+'despatched <i>a</i> servant in hot haste to Haworth. He stopped at
+the "Black Bull," and a messenger was sent up to the parsonage for
+Branwell. He came down, &#38;c.'<a href="#note27" name="noteref27">
+<small>[27]</small></a> Miss Robinson, twenty-five years
+later, amplifies the story. She says: '<i>two</i> men came riding to
+the village post haste. They sent for Branwell, and when he arrived,
+in a great state of excitement, one of the riders dismounted and went
+with him into the "Black Bull."'<a href="#note28" name="noteref28">
+<small>[28]</small></a> Without inquiring into Branwell's
+excitement, or into the variations in the two accounts&#8212;for there is
+but one point in the story on which the two authors are perfectly
+agreed, <i>viz.</i>, that Branwell, on the occasion, 'bleated like a
+calf!'&#8212;there can be little doubt that this case, on such evidence,
+could not get upon its legs before any country jury impanelled to try
+petty causes. But Branwell himself, in his letter to Mr. Grundy, given
+below, says the coachman <i>came</i> to <i>see</i> him, not that the
+lady <i>sent</i> him; and we may justly infer&#8212;if ever he came at
+all&#8212;that he come on his own account, having been personally
+acquainted with Branwell when he was tutor at &#8212;&#8212;. But, can it be
+believed that, supposing Mrs. &#8212;&#8212; to have been enamoured of Branwell,
+as asserted, she could find no other confidant than her 'coachman,' as
+a means of communicating her sorrows and lamentations to the
+distracted object of her devotion? There is, in this story, the
+inconsistency of madness. And it must be borne in mind that the other
+stories, relating to Branwell at the time of his tutorship at &#8212;&#8212;,
+which appear to have so much interested the biographers of Charlotte
+and Emily, have their paternity at Haworth, and are not the more
+trustworthy on that account.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+I regret to trouble the reader still further with the errors of fact,
+and the exaggerated statements into which Mrs. Gaskell has fallen
+respecting this event. She says of Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;: '<i>Her husband had made
+a will, in which what property he left her was bequeathed solely on
+the condition that she should never see Branwell Bront&#235; again</i>.'<a href="#note29" name="noteref29">
+<small>[29]</small></a>
+(The Italics are my own.) Mrs. Gaskell's postulations concerning this
+will are quite as erroneous as that she made in reference to Miss
+Branwell's, so far as it related to her nephew. Indeed, like her other
+allegations respecting this most painful epoch of Branwell's life, she
+derived the information on which they were based, more from hearsay
+than from respectable or documentary evidence. It is clear she never
+saw the wills about which she speaks with so much assurance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;, by virtue of an indenture and a certain marriage
+settlement, was put into possession of an income that would, after her
+husband's death, have enabled her to live for the term of her life
+with Branwell in comparative plenty. To his wife, Mr. &#8212;&#8212;, in
+addition to this, left the interest arising from his real and personal
+estate. She was also principal trustee, executor, and guardian of his
+children. Moreover, he enjoined upon her co-trustees always to regard
+the wishes and interests of his wife, and to do nothing without
+consulting her about the administering of his affairs. But all
+this&#8212;and it is quite usual&#8212;was to continue only during her
+widowhood; and this common arrangement, let it be borne in mind, was
+no more directed against Branwell than anyone else. What then, it may
+well be asked, becomes of Mrs. Gaskell's assertion that the property
+left to Mrs. &#8212;&#8212; was bequeathed solely on the condition that 'she
+should never see Branwell Bront&#235; again'? Whatever Mrs. Gaskell and her
+followers may have asserted respecting Mr. &#8212;&#8212;'s will, it was made
+without the slightest reference to Branwell, who himself misconceived
+its character, and whose very existence is unknown to it, its
+provisions being made without the most distant allusion to the affair
+that worried the unfortunate tutor day and night.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If the widow's love for Branwell had not been a mere figment of his
+wounded humanity, but the real affection which he fervently believed it
+to be, she had now the opportunity, with a sufficient income for the
+residue of her days, of enjoying with him an honourable and peaceful
+life. But the affection that makes sacrifices light, where they present
+themselves, was not there to call for them on behalf of Branwell, even
+had they now been needed. Moreover, there is no evidence worth the name
+that Mrs. &#8212;&#8212; ever committed the acts in relation to him attributed to
+her; on the contrary, the sincere affection and touching reliance on
+his wife, manifested throughout his will, is proof enough that her
+husband had had no cause to call her fidelity in question. It is,
+indeed, true that, while the lady's reputation was unblemished in the
+wide circle of her friends in the neighbourhood of her residence, she
+was being traduced, misrepresented, and belied at Haworth and its
+vicinity alone. This was all known to Charlotte Bront&#235; when she wrote
+her poem of 'Preference.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The state of Branwell's mind, and the extent of his hallucinations
+under their last phase, may be observed in the following letters,
+written in the month of June, 1846, the first being to Mr. Grundy.<a href="#note30" name="noteref30">
+<small>[30]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="ralign">
+'Haworth, Bradford,
+<br>'York.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I must again trouble you with&#8212;' (Here comes another prayer for
+employment, with, at the same time, a confession that his health alone
+renders the wish all but hopeless.) Subsequently he says, 'The
+gentleman with whom I have been is dead. His property is left in trust
+for the family, provided I do not see the widow; and if I do, it
+reverts to the executing trustees, with ruin to her. She is now
+distracted with sorrows and agonies; and the statement of her case, as
+given by her coachman, who has come to see me at Haworth, fills me with
+inexpressible grief. Her mind is distracted to the verge of insanity,
+and mine is so wearied that I wish I were in my grave.
+</p>
+
+<p class="close">
+'Yours very sincerely,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+'<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+He also wrote to Leyland in great distraction.
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'I should have sent you "Morley Hall" ere now, but I am unable to
+finish it at present, from agony to which the grave would be far
+preferable. Mr. &#8212;&#8212; is <i>dead</i>, and he has left his
+widow in a dreadful state of health&#8230;. Through the will, she is left
+quite powerless. The executing trustees' (the principal one of whom, as
+we have seen, was the very lady whose hopeless love for him he was
+deploring) 'detest me, and one declares that, if he sees me, he will
+shoot me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'These things I do not care about, but I do care for the life of
+the one who suffers even more than I do&#8230;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'You, though not much older than myself, have known life. I now
+know it, with a vengeance&#8212;for four nights I have not slept&#8212;for
+three days I have not tasted food&#8212;and, when I think of the state
+of her I love best on earth, I could wish that my head was as cold
+and stupid as the medallion which lies in your studio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I write very egotistically, but it is because my mind is crowded
+with one set of thoughts, and I long for one sentence from a
+friend.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'What shall I <i>do</i>? I know not&#8212;I am too hard to die, and too
+wretched to live. My wretchedness is not about castles in the air,
+but about stern realities; my hardihood lies in bodily vigour;
+but, dear sir, my mind sees only a dreary future, which I as
+little wish to enter on as could a martyr to be bound to a stake.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I sincerely trust that you are quite well, and hope that this
+wretched scrawl will not make me appear to you a worthless fool,
+or a thorough bore.
+</p>
+
+<p class="close">
+'Believe me, yours most sincerely,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+'<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+With this letter was enclosed a pen-and-ink sketch of Branwell bound
+to the stake, his wrists chained together, and surrounded by flames
+and smoke. The rigidity of the muscles, the fixed expression of the
+face, and the manifest beginning of pain are well portrayed.
+Underneath the drawing, in a constrained hand, is written, 'Myself.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again he writes to Leyland a letter in which he dwells on his
+unavailing grief, and vividly points out its effects upon him. He
+says, alluding to the lady of his distracted thoughts, 'Well, my dear
+sir, I have got my finishing stroke at last, and I feel stunned into
+marble by the blow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I have this morning received a long, kind, and faithful letter from
+the medical gentleman who attended &#8212;&#8212; in his last illness, and who
+has since had an interview with one whom I can never forget.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'He knows me <i>well</i>, and pities my case most sincerely&#8230;. It's
+hard work for me, dear sir; I would bear it, but my health is so bad
+that the body seems as if it could not bear the mental shock&#8230;. My
+appetite is lost, my nights are dreadful, and having nothing to do
+makes me dwell on past scenes,&#8212;on her own self&#8212;her own voice&#8212;her
+person&#8212;her thoughts&#8212;till I could be glad if God would take me. In
+the next world I could not be worse than I am in this.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On June the 17th, Charlotte writes:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Branwell declares that he neither can nor will do anything for
+himself; good situations have been offered him, for which, by a
+fortnight's work, he might have qualified himself, but he will do
+nothing except drink and make us all wretched.'<a href="#note31" name="noteref31">
+<small>[31]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would seem that the sisters were unaware of the depth of his
+present misery, and in part misunderstood the disturbed condition of
+their brother's mind at this juncture. But Branwell, although
+suffering great mental prostration under the infliction of any sudden
+and unexpected disappointment, was possessed of considerable
+recuperative power; and, after a period of brooding melancholy over
+his woes, he appeared to take renewed interest in the events that were
+passing around him. This seems to have been the case even under his
+late circumstances; there was, in the depth of his own heart, a woe
+from which he endeavoured to escape by engaging in the pursuits and
+pleasures of his friends.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On the 3rd of July, having, to all appearance, somewhat recovered from
+this disappointment, Branwell wrote to his friend the sculptor:
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'John Brown told me that you had a relievo of my very wretched
+self, framed in your studio.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'If it be a <i>duplicate</i>, I should like the carrier to bring
+it to Haworth; not that I care a fig for it, save from regard for
+its maker,&#8212;but my sisters ask me to try to obtain it; and I write
+in obedience to them.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I earnestly trust that you are heartier than I am, and I promise
+to send you "Morley Hall" as soon as dreary days and nights will
+give me leave to do so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Believe me,
+</p>
+
+<p class="close">
+'Yours most sincerely,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+'<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+This was a life-size medallion of him, head and shoulders, which
+Leyland had modelled. The work was in very high relief, and the
+likeness was perfect. It was inserted in a deep oval recess, lined
+with crimson velvet, and this was fixed in a massive oak frame,
+glazed. It projected, when hung up in the drawing-room of the
+parsonage at Haworth, some eight inches from the wall; this was the
+one Mrs. Gaskell saw, of which she says:&#8212;'I have seen Branwell's
+profile; it is what would be generally esteemed very handsome; the
+forehead is massive, the eye well set, and the expression of it fine
+and intellectual; the nose, too, is good; but there are coarse lines
+about the mouth, and the lips, though of handsome shape, are loose and
+thick, indicating self-indulgence, while the slightly retreating chin
+conveys an idea of weakness of will.'<a href="#note32" name="noteref32">
+<small>[32]</small></a> Mrs. Gaskell had only an
+imperfect view of the work she describes, for it was hung on the wall
+directly <i>opposite</i> to the windows, so that it was destitute of
+any side-light.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Branwell writes to Leyland, on the 16th of July, now more
+himself, and anxious to see his friends:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I enclose the accompanying bill to tempt you to Haworth next
+Monday&#8230;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'For myself, after a fit of horror inexpressible, and violent
+palpitation of the heart, I have taken care of myself bodily, but to
+what good? The best health will not kill <i>acute</i>, and <i>not
+ideal</i>, mental agony.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Cheerful company does me good till some bitter truth blazes through
+my brain, and then the present of a bullet would be received with
+thanks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I wish I could flee to writing as a refuge, but I cannot; and, as to
+<i>slumber</i>, my mind, whether awake or asleep, has been in
+incessant action for seven weeks.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell wrote also to Mr. Grundy.<a href="#note33" name="noteref33">
+<small>[33]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Since I saw Mr. George Gooch, I have suffered much from the accounts
+of the declining health of her whom I must love most in the world, and
+who, for my fault, suffers sorrows which surely were never her due. My
+father, too, is now quite blind, and from such causes literary
+pursuits have become matters I have no heart to wield. If I could see
+you it would be a sincere pleasure, but&#8230;. Perhaps your memory of me
+may be dimmed, for you have known little in me worth remembering; but
+I still think often with pleasure of yourself, though so different
+from me in head and mind.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I invited him,' says Mr. Grundy, 'to come to me at the Devonshire
+Hotel, Skipton, a distance of some seventeen miles, and in reply
+received the last letter he ever wrote.' Branwell says,
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'If I have strength enough for the journey, and the weather be
+tolerable, I shall feel happy in visiting you at the Devonshire on
+Friday, the 31st of this month. The sight of a face I have been
+accustomed to see and like when I was happier and stronger, now
+proves my best medicine.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Mr. Grundy, supposing these letters to have been written in the year
+1848, is in error in stating this to have been the last Branwell ever
+wrote. The Friday Branwell mentions must have been the one that fell
+on the 31st of July, 1846. About the close of that month, Charlotte
+and Emily went to Manchester to consult Mr. Wilson, the oculist, who,
+later, removed the cataract from Mr. Bront&#235;'s eyes. Under these
+circumstances, Branwell failed in his intended journey to Skipton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The cataract had slowly increased as the summer advanced, till at last
+Mr. Bront&#235; was quite blind. This gradual disappearance from his vision
+of the things he knew had necessarily a very depressing effect upon
+him. The thought would sometimes come to him that, if his sight were
+permanently lost, he would be nothing in his parish; but he supported
+himself, for the most part, under his affliction with his accustomed
+stoicism of endurance. His great trouble was that, when his sight
+became so dim that he could barely recognize his children's faces, and
+when he was debarred from using his eyes in reading, he was shut off
+from the solace of his books, and from the sources&#8212;the periodical
+press&#8212;of his knowledge of the current affairs of the outside world,
+wherein he took such intense interest. He was, then, left dependent on
+the information of others, or on his children, who read to him in such
+time as they could spare from literary and household occupations. Yet
+there was hope&#8212;hope of an ultimate restoration of sight, and Mr.
+Bront&#235; was still able to preach, even when he could not see those to
+whom he spoke. It was remarked that even then his sermons occupied
+exactly half-an-hour in delivery. This was the length of time he, with
+his ready use of words, had always found sufficient, and he did not
+exceed it now.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Every inquiry had been made from private friends that might throw
+light upon the chances of success in any possible operation, and it
+was in view of this object that the sisters visited Manchester. There
+they met with Mr. Wilson, who was, however, unable to say positively
+from description whether the eyes were ready for an operation or not.
+He proposed to extract the cataract, and it was accordingly arranged
+that Mr. Bront&#235; should meet him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte took her father to Manchester on the 16th of August, and,
+writing a few days later, she says to her friend, 'I just scribble a
+line to you to let you know where I am, in order that you may write to
+me here, for it seems to me that a letter from you would relieve me
+from the feeling of strangeness I have in this big town. Papa and I
+came here on Wednesday; we saw Mr. Wilson, the oculist, the same day;
+he pronounced papa's eyes quite ready for an operation, and has fixed
+next Monday for the performance of it. Think of us on that day! We got
+into our lodgings yesterday. I think we shall be comfortable; at
+least, our rooms are very good&#8230;. Mr. Wilson says we shall have to
+stay here for a month at least. I wonder how Emily and Anne will get
+on at home with Branwell. They, too, will have their troubles. What
+would I not give to have you here! One is forced, step by step, to get
+experience in the world; but the learning is so disagreeable. One
+cheerful feature in the business is that Mr. Wilson thinks most
+favourably of the case.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte's fears respecting her brother happily proved to be
+unfounded; he was himself anxious about his father's recovery; and, on
+her return, Charlotte, says Mrs. Gaskell, expressed herself thankful
+for the good ensured, and the evil spared during her absence.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+From Charlotte's next letter we learn that the operation was over.
+'Mr. Wilson performed it; two other surgeons assisted. Mr. Wilson says
+he considers it quite successful; but papa cannot yet see anything.
+The affair lasted precisely a quarter-of-an-hour; it was not the
+simple operation of couching, Mr. C. described, but the more
+complicated one of extracting the cataract. Mr. Wilson entirely
+disapproves of couching. Papa displayed extraordinary patience and
+firmness; the surgeons seemed surprised. I was in the room all the
+time, as it was his wish that I should be there; of course, I neither
+spoke nor moved till the thing was done, and then I felt that the less
+I said, either to papa or the surgeons, the better. Papa is now
+confined to his bed in a dark room, and is not to be stirred for four
+days; he is to speak and be spoken to as little as possible.' No
+inflammation ensued, yet the greatest care, perfect quiet, and utter
+privation of light were still necessary to complete the success of the
+operation; and Mr. Bront&#235; remained in his darkened room with his eyes
+bandaged. Charlotte thus speaks of her father under these trying
+circumstances. 'He is very patient, but, of course, depressed and
+weary. He was allowed to try his sight for the first time yesterday.
+He could see dimly. Mr. Wilson seemed perfectly satisfied, and said
+all was right. I have had bad nights from the toothache since I came
+to Manchester.' But, when the danger was over, daily progress was
+made, and Mr. Bront&#235; and his helpful daughter were able to return to
+Haworth at the end of September, when he was fast regaining his sight.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was probably during the six weeks when Mr. Bront&#235; and Charlotte
+were absent in Manchester that Mr. Grundy resolved to visit Branwell.
+He says: 'As he never came to see me, I shortly made up my mind to
+visit him at Haworth, and was shocked at the wrecked and wretched
+appearance he presented. Yet he still craved for an appointment of any
+kind, in order that he might try the excitement of change; of course
+uselessly.'<a href="#note34" name="noteref34">
+<small>[34]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must, it seems, have been on this occasion, in the course of
+conversation at the parsonage, that Branwell made a statement,
+respecting his novel, to Mr. Grundy, which has acquired considerable
+interest. I give it in the words in which Mr. Grundy recalls the
+incident. 'Patrick Bront&#235; declared to me, and what his sister said
+bore out the assertion, that he wrote a great portion of "Wuthering
+Heights" himself.' It should be remembered, in connection with this
+occurrence, that, when Mr. Grundy talked with Branwell and Emily at
+Haworth, the three novels which the sisters had completed a few months
+before, had met only with repeated rejection, and, perhaps, they felt
+little confidence in the ultimate publication of them. 'The
+Professor,' indeed, had come back to Charlotte's hands, curtly
+rejected, on the very day of the operation. Doubtful of ever finding a
+publisher willing to take this tale, or, at any rate, undaunted, she
+had commenced, while her father was confined to his darkened room at
+Manchester, the three-volume story which was afterwards to become
+famous as 'Jane Eyre;' Anne, too, since she had finished 'Agnes Grey,'
+had been busily writing 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' also meant to
+be a three-volume story. So absorbed had the sisters become in novel
+writing, that a suggestion made by a friend, at this period, of a
+suitable place for opening a school, met only with an evasive answer.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Leave home!' exclaims Charlotte, in her reply. 'I shall neither be
+able to find place nor employment; perhaps, too, I shall be quite past
+the prime of life, my faculties will be rusted, and my few
+acquirements in a great measure forgotten. These ideas sting me keenly
+sometimes; but, whenever I consult my conscience, it affirms that I am
+doing right in staying at home, and bitter are its upbraidings when I
+yield to an eager desire for release. I could hardly expect success if
+I were to err against such warnings. I should like to hear from you
+again soon. Bring &#8212;&#8212; to the point, and make him give you a clear,
+not a vague, account of what pupils he really could promise; people
+often think they can do great things in that way till they have tried;
+but getting pupils is unlike getting any other sort of goods.'
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="IX">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER IX.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRANWELL'S LETTERS AND LAST INTERVIEW WITH MR. GRUNDY.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Branwell's Sardonic Humour&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mr. Grundy's Visit to him at Haworth&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+Errors regarding the Period of it&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Tragic Description&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Probable
+Ruse of Branwell&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Correspondence between him and Mr. Grundy ceases
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Writes to Leyland&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;A Plaintive Verse&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Another Letter.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Branwell, having shared the family anxiety, as the time drew near for
+the operation which restored his father's sight, experienced a sense
+of deep relief when all went well; moreover, the keenness of his
+disappointment had had time to soften, and now a grim and sardonic
+humour began to characterize his proceedings and his correspondence.
+In this frame of mind he wrote to Leyland, early in October, 1846, a
+letter illustrated by some of his most spirited pen-and-ink sketches,
+in black and outline. It was headed by a drawing of John Brown, who
+had been engaged in lettering a monument, and who was represented
+under two different aspects. These are in one sketch, divided in the
+middle by a pole, on which is placed a skull. In the first
+compartment, the sexton is exhibited in a state of glorious
+exultation, kicking over the table and stools, while the chair he
+occupies is falling backwards. He holds a tumbler in his right hand,
+and swears, in his Yorkshire dialect, that he is 'King and a hauf!'
+under this, the word 'PARADISE' is inscribed. The second tableau
+represents John Brown commencing his work. On a table-tomb, the
+sexton's maul and chisels are placed. Being in uncertainty as to how,
+or where, to begin, he exclaims, 'Whativver mun I do?' In the corner,
+is a drawing of the western elevation of Haworth Church, and, near to
+Brown, a head-stone, with skull and crossbones, inscribed, 'Here lieth
+the Poor.' Underneath the subject is the word 'PURGATORY.' The
+following is the letter:
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Mr. John Brown wishes me to tell you that, if, by return of post, you
+can tell him the nature of his intended work, and the time it will
+probably occupy in execution, either himself or his brother, or both,
+will wait on you <i>early</i> next week.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'He has only delayed answering your communication from his unavoidable
+absence in a pilgrimage from Rochdale-on-the-Rhine to the Land of Ham,
+and from thence to Gehenna, Tophet, Golgotha, Erebus, the Styx, and to
+the place he now occupies, called Tartarus, where he, along with
+Sisyphus, Tantalus, Theseus, and Ixion, lodge and board together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'However, I hope that, when he meets you, he will join the company
+of Moses, Elias, and the prophets, "singing psalms, sitting on a
+wet cloud," as an acquaintance of mine described the occupation of
+the Blest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'"Morley Hall" is in the eighth month of her pregnancy, and
+expects ere long to be delivered of a fine thumping boy, whom his
+father means to christen <i>Homer</i>, at least, though the mother
+suggests that "Poetaster" would be more suitable; but that sounds
+too aristocratic.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Is the medallion cracked that Thorwaldsen executed of
+<span class="sc">Augustus C&#230;sar</span>?' To this question is appended a drawing
+of a coin, about the size of an ordinary penny, with the head of
+Branwell&#8212;an excellent likeness&#8212;around which the name of the
+emperor is placed. He continues:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I wish I could see you; and, as Haworth fair is held on Monday
+after the ensuing one, your presence there would gratify one of
+the FALLEN.' Here he represents himself as plunging head foremost
+into a gulf.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'In my own register of transactions during my nights and days, I
+find no matter worthy of extraction for your perusal. All is yet
+with me clouds and darkness. I hope you have, at least, blue sky
+and sunshine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Constant and unavoidable depression of mind and body sadly
+shackle me in even trying to go on with any mental effort, which
+might rescue me from the fate of a dry toast, soaked six hours in
+a glass of cold water, and intended to be given to an old maid's
+squeamish cat.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Here is a sketch of the cat, distracted between a tumbler on each
+side held by an attenuated hand.
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+
+<p>
+'Is there really such a thing as the <i>Risus Sardonicus</i>&#8212;the
+sardonic laugh? Did a man ever laugh the morning he was to be
+hanged?'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+The tail-piece to this letter is a drawing of a gallows, a hand
+holding forth the halter to the culprit, who is John Brown, and an
+excellent portrait, grinning at the rope that is to terminate his
+existence!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Grundy&#8212;'very soon'&#8212;visited Haworth again. But I must premise, to
+the account of his visit which Mr. Grundy has published, some
+observations respecting the period at which it occurred. Mr. Grundy,
+having attributed the later letters, which Branwell Bront&#235; addressed
+to him, to the year 1848&#8212;though they really belong to 1846&#8212;has, with
+some appearance of consistency, produced the following picture of his
+friend, under the impression that 'a few days afterwards he died.' But
+the circumstances that Mr. Grundy's journey to Haworth arose out of
+the wish to see him, which Branwell had expressed in a letter written
+at the time when his father was 'quite blind,' and that, as Mr. Grundy
+says his visits followed shortly after Branwell had failed to go to
+Skipton, are themselves sufficient evidence as to the question of
+date.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Grundy says of his final interview: 'Very soon I went to Haworth
+again to see him, for the last time. From the little inn I sent for
+him to the great, square, cold-looking Rectory. I had ordered a dinner
+for two, and the room looked cosy and warm, the bright glass and
+silver pleasantly reflecting the sparkling fire-light, deeply toned by
+the red curtains. Whilst I waited his appearance, his father was shown
+in. Much of the Rector's old stiffness of manner was gone. He spoke of
+Branwell with more affection than I had ever heretofore heard him
+express, but he also spoke almost hopelessly. He said that when my
+message came, Branwell was in bed, and had been almost too weak for
+the last few days to leave it; nevertheless, he had insisted upon
+coming, and would be there immediately. We parted, and I never saw him
+again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Presently the door opened cautiously, and a head appeared. It was a
+mass of red, unkempt, uncut hair, wildly floating round a great, gaunt
+forehead; the cheeks yellow and hollow, the mouth fallen, the thin
+white lips not trembling but shaking, the sunken eyes, once small, now
+glaring with the light of madness&#8212;all told the sad tale but too
+surely. I hastened to my friend, greeted him in the gayest manner, as
+I knew he best liked, drew him quickly into the room, and forced upon
+him a stiff glass of hot brandy. Under its influence, and that of the
+bright, cheerful surroundings, he looked frightened&#8212;frightened of
+himself. He glanced at me a moment, and muttered something about
+leaving a warm bed to come out into the cold night. Another glass of
+brandy, and returning warmth, gradually brought him back to something
+like the Bront&#235; of old. He even ate some dinner, a thing which he said
+he had not done for long; so our last interview was pleasant, though
+grave. I never knew his intellect clearer. He described himself as
+waiting anxiously for death&#8212;indeed, longing for it, and happy, in
+these his sane moments, to think that it was so near. He once again
+declared that that death would be due to the story I knew, and to
+nothing else.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'When at last I was compelled to leave, he quietly drew from his coat
+sleeve a carving-knife, placed it on the table, and holding me by both
+hands, said that, having given up all thoughts of ever seeing me
+again, he imagined when my message came that it was a call from Satan.
+Dressing himself, he took the knife, which he had long had secreted,
+and came to the inn, with a full determination to rush into the room
+and stab the occupant. In the excited state of his mind he did not
+recognise me when he opened the door, but my voice and manner
+conquered him, and "brought him home to himself," as he expressed it.
+I left him standing bareheaded in the road, with bowed form and
+dropping tears. A few days afterwards he died&#8230;. His age was
+twenty-eight.'<a href="#note3" name="noteref35">
+<small>[35]</small></a>5
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mr. Grundy's account of this interview is inconsistent in itself. Of
+course, if his friend had really been so far gone as he represents, it
+is incredible that Mr. Bront&#235; would have been privy to his son's visit
+to the inn. It is quite clear that Mr. Grundy's recollection of the
+interview, and of Branwell's appearance, at this distance of time,
+with Mrs. Gaskell's account before him, has received a new
+significance. I incline to the belief that the truth of the matter is
+this: that, in the spirit of his letters to Leyland, Branwell acted a
+part, and imposed this ruse upon his friend to gratify the peculiar
+humour that was then upon him, an episode which the latter, with his
+erroneous impression as to the date, has been led to depict in
+somewhat lurid colours. It is most probable, indeed, that, like
+Hamlet, he 'put an antic disposition on.' Something confirmatory of
+this view will appear in the next chapter. Among his friends, as I
+know, Branwell would now and then assume an indignant, and sometimes a
+furious mood, and put on airs of wild abstraction from which he
+suddenly recovered, and was again calm and natural, smiling, indeed,
+at his successful impersonation of passions he scarcely felt at the
+time. The absence of further correspondence between Branwell and Mr.
+Grundy, and the fact that the Skipton and Bradford railway, for which
+that gentleman was resident engineer, was fully opened more than a
+year before Branwell's death, seem to indicate that further
+intercourse ceased between the two at this date. It would not,
+perhaps, have been necessary to trouble the reader with these
+explanations, had not Mr. Grundy's narrative of his last evening with
+Branwell appeared to receive some sort of confirmation through its
+republication by Miss Robinson, in her picture of the brother of Emily
+Bront&#235; shortly before his end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Again Branwell wrote to Leyland:
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">Dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I had a letter written, and intended to have been forwarded to
+you a few days after I last left the ensnaring town of Halifax.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'That letter, from being kept so long in my pocket-book, has gone
+out of date, so I have burnt it, and now send a short note as a
+precursor to an awfully lengthy one.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I have much to say to you with which you would probably be sadly
+bored; but, as it will be only asking for advice, I hope you will
+feel as a cat does when her hair is stroked down towards her tail.
+She <i>purrs</i> then; but she <i>spits</i> when it is stroked
+upwards.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I wish Mr. &#8212;&#8212; of &#8212;&#8212; would send me my bill of what I owe him,
+and the moment that I receive my outlaid cash, or any sum that may
+fall into my hands, I shall settle it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'That settlement, I have some reason to hope, will be shortly.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'But can a few pounds make a fellow's soul like a calm bowl of
+creamed milk?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'If it can, I should like to drink that bowl dry.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+    'I shall write more at length (Deo Volente) on matters of much
+    importance to me, but of little to yourself.
+</p>
+
+<p class="close2">
+'Yours in the bonds,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sig2">
+'<span class="sc">Sanctus Patricius Branwellius Bront&#235;io</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+With the foregoing letter, Branwell enclosed a page containing three
+spirited sketches. The first is a scene in which the sculptor and
+Branwell are the principal actors. They are seated on stools, facing
+one another, each holding a wine glass, and, between them on the
+ground, is a decanter. Behind the sculptor is placed the mutilated
+statue of Theseus. A copy of Cowper's 'Anatomy' is open at the
+title-page; and, leaning over it, is a figure of Admodeus, Setebos, or
+some other winged imp, taking sight at the two. The second sketch is
+of Branwell himself, represented as a recumbent statue, resting on a
+slab, under which are the following mournful lines:&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i4">'Thy soul is flown,</p>
+<p class="i4">And clay alone</p>
+<p>Has nought to do with joy or care;</p>
+<p class="i4">So if the light of light be gone,</p>
+<p class="i4">There come no sorrows crowding on,</p>
+<p>And powerless lies DESPAIR.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+The third drawing is a landscape, having in the foreground a
+head-stone, with a skull and crossbones in the semi-circular head. On
+the stone are carved the words, <span class="sclc">HIC JACET</span>. Distant peaked
+hills bound the view. Two pines are to the right of the picture, and
+the crescent moon, which represents a human profile, is accommodated
+with a pipe. Underneath it is inscribed the sentence:
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+'MARTINI LUIGI IMPLORA ETERNA QUIETE!'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following letter, written to Leyland a little later, shows again
+the stormy perturbations of Branwell's mind. He still clings to the
+fond imagination that he is the object of the lady's unwavering
+devotion; and, with the incoherency of the monomania with which he
+continues to be afflicted, he solemnly declares to the sculptor that
+he had said to no one what he is then saying to him; while, in truth,
+he was telling the story of his disappointed hopes to all who would
+hear the recital. The theme is that of a wild, eager, and unavailing
+love&#8212;whose joys and sorrows he tells in vivid words&#8212;which he
+believes to be returned with equal energy and passion.
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I am going to write a scrawl, for the querulous egotism of which
+I must entreat your mercy; but, when I look <i>upon</i> my past,
+present, and future, and then <i>into</i> my own self, I find
+much, however unpleasant, that yearns for utterance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'This last week an honest and kindly friend has warned me that
+concealed hopes about one lady should be given up, let the effort
+to do so cost what it may. He is the &#8212;&#8212;, and was commanded by
+&#8212;&#8212;, M.P. for &#8212;&#8212;, to return me, unopened, a letter which I
+addressed to &#8212;&#8212;, and which the Lady was not permitted to see.
+She too, surrounded by powerful persons who hate me like Hell, has
+sunk into religious melancholy, believes that her weight of sorrow
+is God's punishment, and hopelessly resigns herself to her doom.
+God only knows what it does cost, and will, hereafter, cost me, to
+tear from my heart and remembrance the thousand recollections that
+rush upon me at the thought of four years gone by. Like ideas of
+sunlight to a man who has lost his sight, they must be bright
+phantoms not to be realized again.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I had reason to hope that ere very long I should be the husband
+of a Lady whom I loved best in the world, and with whom, in more
+than competence, I might live at leisure to try to make myself a
+name in the world of posterity, without being pestered by the
+small but countless botherments, which, like mosquitoes, sting us
+in the world of work-day toil. That hope and herself are
+<i>gone</i>&#8212;<i>she</i> to wither into patiently pining
+decline,&#8212;<i>it</i> to make room for drudgery, falling on one now
+ill-fitted to bear it. That ill-fittedness rises from causes which
+I should find myself able partially to overcome, had I bodily
+strength; but, with the want of that, and with the presence of
+daily lacerated nerves, the task is not easy. I have been, in
+truth, too much petted through life, and, in my last situation, I
+was so much master, and gave myself so much up to enjoyment, that
+now, when the cloud of ill-health and adversity has come upon me,
+it will be a disheartening job to work myself up again, through a
+new life's battle, from the position of five years ago, to that
+  from which I have been compelled to retreat with heavy loss and no
+gain. My army stands now where it did then, but mourning the
+slaughter of Youth, Health, Hope, and both mental and physical
+elasticity.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'The last two losses are, indeed, important to one who once built his
+hopes of rising in the world on the possession of them. Noble writings,
+works of art, music, or poetry, now, instead of rousing my imagination,
+cause a whirlwind of blighting sorrow that sweeps over my mind with
+unspeakable dreariness; and, if I sit down and try to write, all ideas
+that used to come, clothed in sunlight, now press round me in funereal
+black; for really every pleasurable excitement that I used to know has
+changed to insipidity or pain.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I shall never be able to realize the too sanguine hopes of my friends,
+for at twenty-nine I am a thoroughly <i>old man</i>, mentally and
+bodily&#8212;far more, indeed, than I am willing to express. God knows
+I do not scribble like a poetaster when I quote Byron's terribly
+truthful words&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'"No more&#8212;no more&#8212;oh! never more on me</p>
+<p class="i2">The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew,</p>
+<p>Which, out of all the lovely things we see,</p>
+<p class="i2">Extracts emotions beautiful and new!"</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+'I used to think that if I could have, for a week, the free range of
+the British Museum&#8212;the library included&#8212;I could feel as
+though I were placed for seven days in Paradise; but now, really, dear
+sir, my eyes would rest upon the Elgin marbles, the Egyptian saloon,
+and the most treasured columns, like the eyes of a dead cod-fish.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'My rude, rough acquaintances here ascribe my unhappiness solely to
+causes produced by my sometimes irregular life, because they have known
+no other pains than those resulting from excess or want of ready cash.
+They do not know that I would rather want a shirt than want a springy
+mind, and that my total want of happiness, were I to step into York
+Minster now, would be far, far worse than their want of a hundred
+pounds when they might happen to need it; and that, if a dozen glasses,
+or a bottle of wine, drives off their cares, such cures only make me
+outwardly passable in company, but <i>never</i> drive off mine.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I know only that it is time for me to be something, when I am nothing,
+that my father cannot have long to live, and that, when he dies, my
+evening, which is already twilight, will become night; that I shall
+then have a constitution still so strong that it will keep me years in
+torture and despair, when I should every hour pray that I might die.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I know that I am avoiding, while I write, one greatest cause of my
+utter despair; but, by G&#8212;&#8212;, sir, it is nearly too bitter
+for me to allude to it!' Here follow a number of references to the
+subject, with which the reader is already familiar, and therefore it is
+unnecessary to repeat them here. Then Branwell continues:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'To no one living have I said what I now say to you, and I should not
+bother yourself with my incoherent account, did I not believe that you
+would be able to understand somewhat of what I meant&#8212;though
+<i>not all</i>, sir; for he who is without hope, and knows that his
+clock is at twelve at night, cannot communicate his feelings to one who
+finds <i>his</i> at twelve at noon.'
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<a name="X">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER X.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRANWELL BRONT&#203; AND 'WUTHERING HEIGHTS.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+'Wuthering Heights'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Reception of the Book by the Public&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;It is
+Misunderstood&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Its Authorship&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Mr. Dearden's Account&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Statements
+of Mr. Edward Sloane and Mr. Grundy&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Remarks by Mr. T. Wemyss
+Reid&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Correspondences between 'Wuthering Heights' and Branwell's
+Letters&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The 'Carving-knife Episode'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Further Correspondences&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;
+Resemblances of Thought in Branwell and Emily.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+We have now become acquainted with the principal features of
+Branwell's career, have obtained some insight into his character, and
+learned much respecting his genius. We have gained also some knowledge
+of the history of the Bront&#235; sisters in that most crucial period of
+their lives, when they returned again to literature with the new
+earnest which led them to fame.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have seen that it was Branwell who first seriously undertook the
+production of a novel, and we have noticed Mr. Grundy's statement
+concerning the authorship of 'Wuthering Heights.' Here, then, is the
+proper place in which to say something on this question; for there
+have not been wanting others also to assert that Branwell was, in
+great part, the writer of it. Miss Robinson, in her 'Emily Bront&#235;,'
+dismisses the assertion as altogether untrue; but she rightly says, as
+all will agree, that 'in the contemptuous silence of those who know
+their falsity, such slanders live and thrive like unclean insects
+under fallen stones.' It cannot, therefore, be inappropriate, in such
+a work as the present, to record, as clearly and succinctly as may be,
+what has been said on the subject, and to make a suggestion&#8212;for it is
+nothing more&#8212;as to what is the truth of the matter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+When 'Wuthering Heights,' after its slow progress through the press,
+was given to the world in the December of 1847, neither the critics
+nor the public were very well able to grasp its meaning. Reviewers, to
+quote Charlotte Bront&#235;, 'too often remind us of the mob of
+Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered before the "writing
+on the wall," and unable to read the characters or make known the
+interpretation.' In 'Wuthering Heights' they found the subject
+disagreeable, the characters brutal, the conception crude, and the
+object of the work wholly unintelligible. The most that could be made
+of it, was that some rude soul in the north of England, burning with
+spite against his species, had set himself, with intent little short
+of diabolical, to lay open the most vicious depths of selfishness and
+crime, which he had embodied in the actions of characters so lost and
+revolting, that the mind recoiled with a shudder from the perusal of
+the monstrosity he had created. One critic, who dwelt at some length
+on the want of 'tone' and polish in the book, surmised that the writer
+of it had suffered, 'not disappointment in love, but some great
+mortification of pride,' which had so embittered his spirit that he
+had prepared this stinging story in vengeance on his species, and had
+flung it, crying, 'There, take that!' with cynical pleasure, in the
+very teeth of humankind.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This writer even felt it his duty to caution young people against the
+book. 'It ought to be banished from refined society,' he says. 'The
+whole tone of the book smacks of lowness.'&#8212;'A person may be
+ill-mannered from want of delicacy of perception or cultivation, or
+ill-mannered intentionally; the author of "Wuthering Heights" is
+both.'&#8212;'But the taint of vulgarity in our author extends deeper than
+mere snobbishness; he is rude, because he prefers to be so.' I quote
+these remarks, as an extreme instance, to show that a critic, who
+could recognize the great imaginative power, the subtlety, the keen
+insight, and the fine dramatic character of 'Wuthering Heights,' yet
+felt such a strong repugnance to its unknown author that he thought
+him unfit to associate with his fellow-men. It never crossed the minds
+of the critics in those times that the book could be by any but a man
+of strong personal character, and one with a wide experience of the
+dark side of human nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+However, a feeling speedily grew up that 'Wuthering Heights' was an
+earlier and immature production, attempted to be palmed off upon the
+public, of the author of 'Jane Eyre,' against whom a charge of bad
+faith was thereby virtually made; and even Sydney Dobell (in the
+'Palladium' of September, 1850), the first critic who had sympathy
+enough with genius to discern the nature and comprehend the
+significance of the book, did not escape this error. It is not
+necessary here to repeat the unfortunate consequences of this
+misunderstanding, which caused Charlotte eventually to throw off the
+disguise, and declare openly that 'Wuthering Heights' was the work of
+her sister Emily. 'Unjust and grievous error!' says Charlotte. 'We
+laughed at it at first, but I deeply lament it now.' In the face of
+her statement, further remark on the authorship was naturally
+silenced; but, from time to time, when the book was discussed, much
+astonishment was manifested that a simple and inexperienced girl, like
+Emily Bront&#235;, had been able to draw, with such nervous and morbid
+analysis, so sombre a picture of the workings of passions which she
+could never have actually known, and of natures 'so relentless and
+implacable, of spirits so lost and fallen,' as those of Heathcliff and
+Hindley Earnshaw.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A writer in the 'Cornhill Magazine'<a href="#note36" name="noteref36">
+<small>[36]</small></a> who attributes to Emily Bront&#235;
+the distinction that she has written a book 'which stands as
+completely alone in the language as does "Paradise Lost," or the
+"Pilgrim's Progress,"' thus speaks of it: 'Its power,' he says, 'is
+absolutely Titanic; from the first page to the last it reads like the
+intellectual throes of a giant. It is fearful, it is true, and perhaps
+one of the most unpleasant books ever written: but we stand in amaze
+at the almost incredible fact that it was written by a slim country
+girl, who would have passed in a crowd as an insignificant person, and
+who had had little or no experience of the ways of the world. In
+Heathcliff, Emily Bront&#235; has drawn the greatest villain extant, after
+Iago. He has no match out of Shakespeare. The Mephistopheles of
+Goethe's "Faust" is a person of gentlemanly proclivities compared with
+Heathcliff&#8230;. But "Wuthering Heights" is a marvellous curiosity in
+literature. We challenge the world to produce another work in which
+the whole atmosphere seems so surcharged with suppressed electricity,
+and bound in with the blackness of tempest and desolation.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps this same grim and Titanic power of 'Wuthering Heights' is one
+reason why many readers do not understand it fully. 'It is possible,'
+Mr. Swinburne says, 'that, to take full delight in Emily Bront&#235;'s
+book, one must have something by natural inheritance of her instinct,
+and something by earlier association of her love of the special points
+of earth&#8212;the same lights, and sounds, and colours, and odours, and
+sights, and shapes of the same fierce, free landscape of tenantless,
+and fruitless, and fenceless moor.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But the composition of 'Wuthering Heights' was in great part
+incomprehensible to Charlotte herself, though she endeavours to
+account for it by a consideration of her sister's character and
+circumstances. For, as we have seen, she says, 'I am bound to avow
+that she had scarcely more practical knowledge of the peasantry
+amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country people who
+sometimes pass her convent gates.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'"Wuthering Heights,"' to quote Charlotte Bront&#235;'s Preface to the new
+edition of it, 'was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of
+homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary
+moor; gazing thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a
+head, savage, swart, sinister; a form moulded with at least one
+element of grandeur&#8212;power. He wrought with a rude chisel, from no
+model but the vision of his meditations. With time and labour, the
+crag took human shape; and there it stands colossal, dark, and
+frowning, half statue, half rock: in the former sense, terrible and
+goblin-like; in the latter, almost beautiful, for its colouring is of
+mellow grey, and moorland moss clothes it; and heath, with its
+blooming bells and balmy fragrance, grows faithfully close to the
+giant's foot.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Many years ago, a writer in the 'People's Magazine,' speaking of the
+authorship of 'Wuthering Heights,' said: 'Who would suppose that
+Heathcliff, a man who never swerved from his arrow-straight course to
+perdition from his cradle to his grave, &#8230; had been conceived by a
+timid and retiring female? But this was the case.' The perusal of this
+sentence led Mr. William Dearden&#8212;author of the 'Star Seer' and the
+'Maid of Caldene'&#8212;who was acquainted with Branwell Bront&#235;, to
+communicate to the 'Halifax Guardian,' in June, 1867, some facts,
+within his personal knowledge, touching the question, which he
+extracted from the MS. preface to his poem entitled, 'The Demon
+Queen,' not then published.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It appears, from this account, that Branwell and Mr. Dearden had
+entered into a friendly poetic contest. Each was to write a poem in
+which the principal character was to have a real or imaginary
+existence before the Deluge. They met, on the occasion, at the 'Cross
+Roads,' a hostel a little more than a mile from Haworth on the road to
+Keighley, where an evening was spent in the reading of their
+respective productions. Leyland was to decide upon the merits of the
+poems. In reference to this meeting Mr. Dearden says,
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p>
+'We met at the time and place appointed &#8230; I read the first act of the
+"Demon Queen;" but, when Branwell dived into his hat&#8212;the usual
+receptacle of his fugitive scraps&#8212;where he supposed he had
+deposited his MS. poem, he found he had by mistake placed there a
+number of stray leaves of a novel on which he had been trying his
+"prentice hand." Chagrined at the disappointment he had caused, he was
+about to return the papers to his hat, when both friends earnestly
+pressed him to read them, as they felt a curiosity to see how he could
+wield the pen of a novelist. After some hesitation, he complied with
+the request, and riveted our attention for about an hour, dropping each
+sheet, when read, into his hat. The story broke off abruptly in the
+middle of a sentence, and he gave us the sequel, <i>viv&#226; voce</i>,
+together with the real names of the prototypes of his characters; but,
+as some of these personages are still living, I refrain from pointing
+them out to the public. He said he had not yet fixed upon a title for
+his production, and was afraid he should never be able to meet with a
+publisher who would have the hardihood to usher it into the world. The
+scene of the fragment which Branwell read, and the characters
+introduced in it&#8212;so far as then developed&#8212;were the same as
+those in "Wuthering Heights," which Charlotte Bront&#235; confidently
+asserts was the production of her sister Emily.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+Another friend of Branwell Bront&#235; also, Mr. Edward Sloane of Halifax,
+author of a work entitled, 'Essays, Tales, and Sketches,' (1849)
+declared to Mr. Dearden that Branwell had read to him, portion by
+portion, the novel as it was produced, at the time, insomuch that he
+no sooner began the perusal of 'Wuthering Heights,' when published,
+than he was able to anticipate the characters and incidents to be
+disclosed.<a href="#note37" name="noteref37">
+<small>[37]</small></a> Thus Mr. Dearden and the late Mr. Sloane claimed to have
+knowledge of 'Wuthering Heights' as the work of Branwell, before it
+was issued from the press; and we have seen that Mr. Grundy declares
+Branwell to have said, with the consent of his sister, that he had
+written 'a great portion of "Wuthering Heights" himself,' a statement
+which, remembering the 'weird fancies of diseased genius' with which
+Branwell had entertained him at Luddenden Foot, inclined Mr. Grundy to
+believe 'that the very plot was his invention rather than his
+sister's.'<a href="#note38" name="noteref38">
+<small>[38]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The evidence for the original ascription of authorship is simple in
+the extreme. Charlotte Bront&#235; has told us in the Biographical Notice,
+as well as in the Preface, which she has prefixed to 'Wuthering
+Heights,' that the book was the work of Ellis Bell; and clearly no
+shadow of doubt was on her mind at the time as to the accuracy of this
+statement; nor had the publisher of the book any uncertainty as to the
+matter. Moreover, the servant Martha is said to have seen Emily Bront&#235;
+writing it. We are told, also, that it is impossible that the upright
+spirit of the gentle Emily could resort to the miserable fraud of
+appropriating a work which was not her own. And, lastly, modern
+critics have not found it difficult to believe that a woman might be
+the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' They see nothing incongruous or
+impossible in the possession, by a feminine intellect, of such a
+searching knowledge of sinister propensities as are developed in that
+book, nor of its descending to those chaotic depths of black moral
+distortion, where it is possible for Hindley Earnshaw, with hideous
+blasphemy, to drink damnation to his soul, that he may be able to
+'punish its Maker,' and where the life-long vengeance of Heathcliff is
+drawn out, with wondrous power, to its ghastly and impotent end.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+How far Charlotte's statement is weakened by the fact that, up to the
+time when she discovered the volume of verse, and the three sisters
+commenced their novels&#8212;at which period it will be remembered one
+volume of Branwell's work was written&#8212;they had made no communication
+to one another of the literary work which each had in progress, is,
+perhaps, a matter for personal opinion. The declaration of Martha
+would probably be of little value, unless we knew that what Emily was
+writing was entirely independent of Branwell's work. And, again, those
+who have sought to defend Ellis Bell from the charge of fraud, have
+perhaps been over hasty; for, so far as I know, that charge has never
+been either made or implied.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As to the capability of Branwell to write 'Wuthering Heights,' not
+much need be said here. Those who read this book will see that,
+despite his weaknesses and his follies, Branwell was, indeed,
+unfortunate in having to bear the penalty, in ceaseless open
+discussion, of 'une fanfaronnade des vices qu'il n'avait pas,' and
+that, moreover, his memory has been darkened, and his acts
+misconstrued, by sundry writers, who have endeavoured to find in his
+character the source of the darkest passages in the works of his
+sisters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Far from being hopelessly a 'miserable fellow,' an 'unprincipled
+dreamer,' an 'unnerved and garrulous prodigal,' as we have been told
+he was, he had, in fact, within him, an abundance of worthy ambition,
+a modest confidence in his own ability, which he was never known to
+vaunt, and a just pride in the celebrity of his family, which, it may
+be trusted, will remove from him, at any rate, the imputation of a
+lack of moral power to do anything good or forcible at all.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Those who have heard fall from the lips of Branwell Bront&#235;&#8212;and they
+are few now&#8212;all those weird stories, strange imaginings, and vivid
+and brilliant disquisitions on the life of the people of the
+West-Riding, will recognize that there was at least no opposition, but
+rather an affinity, between the tendency of his thoughts and those of
+the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' And, as to special points in the
+story, it may be said that Branwell Bront&#235; had tasted most of the
+passions, weaknesses, and emotions there depicted; had loved, in
+frenzied delusion, as fiercely as Heathcliff loved; as with Hindley
+Earnshaw, too, in the pain of loss, 'when his ship struck; the captain
+abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her,
+rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless
+vessel.' He had, too, indeed, manifested much of the doating folly of
+the unhappy master of the 'Heights'; and, finally, there is no doubt
+that he possessed, nevertheless, almost as much force of character,
+determination, and energy as Heathcliff himself.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The following extract from a lecture by Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, will show
+the opinion of that gentleman&#8212;which he applies to prove that Branwell
+was in part the subject of his sister's work&#8212;that there is a distinct
+correspondence in the feelings and utterances of Heathcliff and
+Branwell in this book, which, as he observes, critics have again and
+again declared to be like the dream of an opium-eater, which we have
+seen that Branwell was. Mr. Reid states: 'I said that, perhaps, the
+most striking part of "Wuthering Heights" was that which deals with
+the relations of Heathcliff and Catherine, after she had become the
+wife of another. Whole pages of the story are filled with the ravings
+and ragings of the villain against the man whose life stands between
+him and the woman he loves. Similar ravings are to be found in all the
+letters of Branwell Bront&#235; written at this period of his career; and
+we may be sure that similar ravings were always on his lips, as, moody
+and more than half mad, he wandered about the rooms of the parsonage
+at Haworth. Nay, I have found some striking verbal coincidences
+between Branwell's own language and passages in "Wuthering Heights."
+In one of his own letters there are these words in reference to the
+object of his passion: "My own life without her will be hell. What can
+the so-called love of her wretched, sickly husband be to her compared
+with mine?" Now, turn to "Wuthering Heights," and you will read these
+words: "Two words would comprehend my future&#8212;<i>death</i> and
+<i>hell</i>: existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a
+fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment
+more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he
+couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day."'<a href="#note39" name="noteref39">
+<small>[39]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Mr. Reid had quoted the beginning of this paragraph, another point
+of correspondence would have been perceived between the feelings
+manifested in it and those which had actuated Branwell Bront&#235;.
+Heathcliff is speaking: '"You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?" he
+said. "Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that
+for every thought she spends on Linton, she spends a thousand on me!
+At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it
+haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her
+own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then,
+Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I
+dreamt!"'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have seen that, in the summer of 1845, Branwell lost his
+employment, and returned to the neighbourhood of Haworth, and that he,
+too, at that most miserable period of <i>his</i> life, when he wrote
+his novel, and 'Real Rest,' and 'Penmaenmawr,' had had a notion that
+the lady of his affections had nearly forgotten him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may be observed that Catherine Earnshaw, in an earlier part of the
+book, uses a like antithesis to that quoted by Mr. Reid. 'Whatever our
+souls are made of,' says she, speaking of Heathcliff and herself, 'his
+and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from
+lightning, or frost from fire.' Though it is not strictly accurate
+that in <i>all</i> Branwell's letters at this period there are similar
+ravings, or that such were always on his lips, there are, at all
+events, other coincidences of thought and expression to be found in
+his letters and poems with certain features and passages in 'Wuthering
+Heights,' which are not less striking. A few instances will illustrate
+much in that work which it is not easy to believe could have been
+transcribed by the writer from the utterances of another. Even so
+early as his letter to John Brown, we have seen with what force
+Branwell could express himself when he chose. He speaks in that letter
+of one who 'will be used as the tongs of hell,' and of another 'out of
+whose eyes Satan looks as from windows.' Let us turn to where
+Heathcliff's eyes are described, in Chapter vii. of the novel, as
+'that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their
+windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies;'
+and, in Chapter xvii., where Isabella Heathcliff says of them: 'The
+clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which
+usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not
+fear to hazard another sound of derision.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have noticed how Branwell plays upon the word <i>castaway</i> at
+the close of his letter on his novel. Charlotte has said they all had
+a leaning to Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway,' and appropriated it in one
+way or another; she told Mrs. Gaskell that Branwell had done so. The
+word is used twice in 'Wuthering Heights.' Heathcliff is described as
+having been a 'little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway,' and
+the younger Catherine addresses pious Joseph, oddly enough, and by a
+coincidence singular enough, remembering Branwell's allusion in his
+letter, in these words: 'No, reprobate! you are a castaway&#8212;be off, or
+I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mention may also be made here, with reference to the occurrence of the
+names 'Linton' and 'Hareton' in 'Wuthering Heights,' that, somewhat
+before the time of the writing of his novel, Branwell was accustomed
+frequently to visit a place of the former designation, and that he
+had, as we have seen, when he was in Broughton-in-Furness, a friend of
+the name of Ayrton.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the above letter on his novel it will be remembered, in speaking of
+the character of his work, that Branwell says he hopes to leap from
+the present bathos of fictitious literature to the firmly-fixed rock
+honoured by the foot of a Smollett or a Fielding, and speaks of
+revealing man's heart as faithfully as in the pages of 'Hamlet' or
+'Lear.' In the first four chapters of 'Wuthering Heights,' which serve
+as prelude to the darker portions of the story, we are introduced to
+the inmates of the farm that gives its name to the novel. Mr.
+Lockwood, who has rented Thrushcross Grange of Heathcliff, and has
+come to reside there, relates his experience of two visits he pays to
+his landlord at the 'Heights.' In the excellent humour of this portion
+of the story we are certainly reminded of Branwell Bront&#235;, and perhaps
+of Smollett and Fielding too. The succeeding chapters are related in a
+manner more subdued, proper to the narration of the housekeeper. There
+is just one mention of 'King Lear' in 'Wuthering Heights,' on the
+second of these visits, when, at last, Mr. Lockwood, after he has been
+knocked down by the dogs, addresses the inmates of the 'Heights,'
+'with several incoherent threats of retaliation, that, in their
+infinite depth of virulency, smacked of "King Lear."' More than once
+have this story and Shakspeare's great tragedy been named in kinship,
+and Miss Robinson, unaware of Branwell's observation on his own prose
+tale, gives a second place, with 'King Lear,' to 'Wuthering Heights.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is impossible to read 'Wuthering Heights' without being struck with
+the part which consumption and death are made to play in the progress
+of the story. Scarcely a character is there depicted in whom we do not
+recognize some trait, some weakness, remotely or more closely,
+indicating deep-seated phthisis; and evidences of a true and certain
+observation, in the writer, are to be found in the pictures of its
+power there delineated. In Branwell's poem on 'Caroline,' we have
+already seen with what certain touch he depicts her death from that
+disease; and how deeply, and almost morbidly, he broods on its
+ravages; and, in one of his later poems, we have a second and more
+striking picture of decline. In Emily's verse anything of the kind is
+entirely wanting; and, indeed, it is what we miss in her poems, even
+more than what we find in Branwell's, that must ever surprise us when
+we look for the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' Branwell, in his
+writings, is often engaged with subjects of real and personal
+interest, and the scheme of his work is apparent. Several of his
+poems, indeed, when once read, leave an impress on the memory which is
+evidence enough of the power and originality by which they are
+inspired. For the most part, Emily's poems are impersonal,
+imaginative, and ideal.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It will be remembered that Mr. Grundy, in his 'Pictures of the Past,'
+has given an account of his last interview with Branwell, which he
+declares took place but a few days before Branwell died. I have shown
+conclusively that the interview is ascribed by Mr. Grundy, and by Miss
+Robinson following him, to a wrong date, and that it took place, in
+fact, in 1846, when the manuscript was still in the author's hands,
+perhaps, indeed, undergoing revision at the time. Branwell, according
+to his friend, had concealed in his coat sleeve, on this occasion, a
+carving-knife, with which, in his frenzy, he designed to kill the
+devil, whose call, he supposed, had summoned him to the inn; and he
+was surprised to find Mr. Grundy there instead. I have surmised that,
+when this grotesque episode occurred, Branwell was but jesting with
+his friend, who, in his surprise, took him altogether <i>au
+s&#233;rieux</i>; and, remembering that Mr. Grundy says Branwell had
+declared to him before that 'Wuthering Heights' was in great part his
+own work, it will be seen that there are passages in the novel which
+seem to lend probability both to this surmise as to Branwell's
+intention, and also to Mr. Grundy's statement. Thus, in Chapter ix.,
+Hindley Earnshaw returns to the house in a state of frenzied
+intoxication, and, finding Nelly Dean stowing away his son in a
+cupboard, he flies at her with a madman's rage, crying: 'By heaven and
+hell, you've sworn between you to murder that child! I know how it is,
+now, that he is always out of my way. But, with the help of Satan, I
+shall make you swallow the carving-knife, Nelly! You needn't laugh;
+for I've just crammed Kenneth, head-downmost, in the Blackhorse marsh;
+two is the same as one&#8212;and I want to kill some of you: I shall have
+no rest till I do!' To which Nelly Dean replies, 'But I don't like the
+carving-knife, Mr. Hindley; it has been cutting red herrings. I'd
+rather be shot, if you please.' Again, in Chapter xvii., when
+Isabella's taunts have stung Heathcliff to retaliation, he snatches up
+a dinner-knife and flings it at her head; and she is struck beneath
+the ear. We may believe, then, that when Branwell appeared in this
+strange guise before his friend, he was but jestingly rehearsing in
+act, with an 'antic disposition' such incidents as he had recently
+described in the volume he had mentioned to Mr. Grundy.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Miss Robinson, in her 'Emily Bront&#235;' (p. 95), has some sarcastic
+remarks about Branwell's pride in his family name. 'Proud of his
+name!' she writes: 'He wrote a poem on it, "Bront&#235;," an eulogy of
+Nelson, which won the patronizing approbation of Leigh Hunt, Miss
+Martineau, and others, to whom, at his special request, it was
+submitted. Had he ever heard of his dozen aunts and uncles, the
+Pruntys of Ahaderg? Or if not, with what sensations must the Vicar
+(<i>sic</i>) of Haworth have listened to this blazoning forth and
+triumphing over the glories of his ancient name?' Branwell's pride in
+the name of Bront&#235; would have been foolish enough if it had been of
+the nature Miss Robinson supposes; but perhaps it had another meaning.
+At any rate Nelly Dean puts pride of birth in quite a different light
+in 'Wuthering Heights,' where she gives good advice to Heathcliff.
+'You're fit for a prince in disguise,' she says even to the 'little
+Lascar,' the 'American or Spanish castaway.' 'Who knows but your
+father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of
+them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and
+Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors
+and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high
+notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me
+courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!'
+This was exactly what Branwell Bront&#235; did.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are two other points in which I will indicate correspondences
+between the phraseology and ideas of 'Wuthering Heights' and those of
+Branwell Bront&#235;. In one of his letters here published, Branwell,
+sketching a criminal grinning with the halter round his neck, asks the
+question: 'Is there really such a thing as the <i>Risus
+Sardonicus</i>? Did a man ever laugh the morning he was to be hanged?'
+Now, in the novel, Isabella Heathcliff says: 'I was in the condition
+of mind to be shocked at nothing: in fact, I was as reckless as some
+malefactors show themselves at the foot of the gallows.' Lastly,
+Heathcliff declares, speaking of Hindley Earnshaw: 'Correctly, that
+fool's body should be buried at the cross-roads, without ceremony of
+any kind.' Now Branwell was not only familiar with the traditions of
+suicides buried at the cross-roads near Haworth, as well as at similar
+cross-roads, but he was accustomed, in his perambulations through the
+district, when in this direction, to visit the ancient hostel at that
+place: and, indeed, it was this house he fixed upon for the reading of
+the poem he had written, and where he read, as we have seen, in lieu
+of it, the portion, of his novel, surmised to be 'Wuthering Heights,'
+to Mr. Dearden and his other friend. It would be tedious to indicate
+all the minor similarities of expression in the novel to those in
+Branwell's letters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Yet there are two or three points noticeable in 'Wuthering Heights,'
+which are marked in Emily's verse. Emily's love of Nature, of the
+moors; her deep brooding on the mystery of being, which led her to
+look on the calm of death as an assurance of future rest for all, are
+to be found in her poetry; and, in a lesser degree, also in 'Wuthering
+Heights.' Thus we read, in Chapter xvi. of the story, of Linton and
+his dead wife: 'Next morning&#8212;bright and cheerful out of doors&#8212;stole
+softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the
+couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had
+his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair
+features were almost as death-like as those of the form beside him,
+and almost as fixed: but <i>his</i> was the hush of exhausted anguish,
+and <i>hers</i> of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed,
+her lips wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could
+be more beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite
+calm in which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while
+I gazed on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively
+echoed the words she had uttered a few hours before: "Incomparably
+beyond and above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her
+spirit is at home with God!"'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The reflections suggested to Nelly Dean by the spectacle of repose
+presented by the dead Catherine seem to Mr. Reid to be characteristic
+of Emily, speaking 'out of the fulness of her heart.' 'I don't know if
+it be a peculiarity in me,' says the narrator in the story, 'but I am
+seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death,
+should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I see
+a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an
+assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter&#8212;the Eternity they
+have entered&#8212;where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its
+sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much
+selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so
+regretted Catherine's blessed release! To be sure, one might have
+doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led,
+whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in
+seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her
+corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of
+equal quiet to its former inhabitants.' But Mr. Lockwood is made to
+say, speaking of the housekeeper's anxiety to know if he thinks such
+people are happy in the other world, 'I declined answering Mrs. Dean's
+question, which struck me as something heterodox.' The story also
+concludes, speaking of the head-stones of Edgar Linton, Heathcliff,
+and Catherine: 'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched
+the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the
+soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could
+ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.'
+But there is in these very points a remarkable coincidence of feeling
+between Branwell and Emily also. Indeed, in the expression of these
+thoughts, Branwell's verse is well-nigh more powerful than Emily's. We
+have known his desire for the oblivious peace of 'Real Rest'; and, in
+his letters, he has sketched many head-stones, on one of which are the
+words: 'I implore for rest'; and, in the 'Epistle to a Child in her
+Grave,' he has told us of the freedom from ill of that quiet and
+painless sepulchre. Here are a few stray lines of Branwell's, which
+will serve as illustration of this
+coincidence:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Think not that Life is happiness,</p>
+<p class="i2">But deem it <i>duty</i> joined with <i>care</i>;</p>
+<p>Implore for <i>hope</i> in your distress,</p>
+<p class="i2">And for your answers, get <i>despair</i>;</p>
+<p>Yet travel on, for Life's rough road</p>
+<p class="i2">May end, at last, in rest with <i>God</i>!'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Again we may ask: did Branwell Bront&#235; write 'Wuthering Heights,' or
+any part of it? The evidence that he did so is, probably,
+insufficient. But let it be remembered that, as stated in his letter
+to Leyland, he had clearly undertaken a three-volume novel, and, in
+one way or other, had written a volume of his story. The charge of
+falsehood brought against Branwell in his statement to Mr. Grundy will
+not now probably be renewed; but there may not be wanting some to say
+that Mr. Grundy is in error in connecting what his friend said to him
+about his own novel with some allusion of his sister's to 'Wuthering
+Heights,' and that those gentlemen who believe the novel Branwell read
+to them to be the same as that attributed to Emily are in error also.
+It has been said that, on the rare occasions on which the father or
+brother entered the room where the sisters were writing their novels,
+nothing was said of the work in progress. But it must be confessed
+that these views meet with little encouragement from what we know of
+the history of that period.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We have seen that, prior to the autumn of 1845, Branwell had been
+employed in writing his novel; a little later, we have reason to
+suspect that he is not going on with it, and we find him writing a
+poem with the same theme as a contemporary one of Emily's. We then
+find the sisters taking up novel writing with precisely Branwell's
+views of the profit to be derived from it. When he writes to Leyland
+on the 28th of April, 1846, shortly before the poems of his sisters
+were published, and while they are finishing their novels, Branwell
+has ceased to speak of his, but says that, if he were in London
+personally, he would try a certain publisher with his poems. Now it
+was an edition of Wordsworth by this same publisher that Charlotte
+had, four months earlier, fixed upon as a model for the sisters' own
+volume of poems. Branwell, then, however strained his relations with
+his sister Charlotte might be at this late date, must have known that
+his sisters were writing their tales. Why, then, the change in his
+aims? Why is he, who had propounded that view of the superior
+advantages of prose over poetic writing, which afterwards determined
+the sisters to write novels, silent about his own, and thinking of
+publishing his poems? and never again do we hear of any attempt on his
+part to finish his novel, though he lived a year after his sisters'
+works were published. What had become of his novel in the interim?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Perhaps there is evidence, then, to warrant us in throwing out a
+suggestion that there may have been some measure of collaboration
+between Branwell and his sister, that he originated the idea, moulded
+the characters, and wrote the earlier portion of the work, which she,
+taking, revised, amended, completed, and imbued with enough of an
+individual spirit to give unity to the whole. In support of this view,
+it may be noted that, though there is no break in the style of
+'Wuthering Heights,' yet all the interests of the original story are,
+in a manner, completed in the seventeenth chapter&#8212;that is, something
+more than half-way through the book. In that first portion of it we
+trace the vehement passion of Heathcliff for Catherine up to her
+death. We see his enmity to Edgar Linton, which is satisfied by his
+possession of Linton's sister, whom he hates and despises, but who is
+the mother of a child to be heir to Thrushcross Grange, and we see the
+death of this unhappy wife. In this first portion of the novel is
+unrolled also the gradual growth of Heathcliff's hatred of Earnshaw,
+from the time when he says: 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay
+Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at
+last. I hope he will not die before I do,' up to the death of that
+miserable character, whose son remains an ignorant dependent, because
+his drunken father has been lured to make away with his wealth at the
+gaming-table to his Mephistophelian pursuer. Here is depicted that
+dark and malevolent spirit which ranks Heathcliff with the demons, as
+where he says: 'I have no pity&#8212;I have no pity! The more the worms
+writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails. It is a moral
+teething, and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the
+increase of pain.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the second part of the story, opening with the eighteenth chapter,
+we are occupied with the fates of the children of Linton, Earnshaw,
+and Heathcliff. We learn how the latter trains up his miserable,
+puling son for the purpose of marrying the daughter of Linton, which
+he forcibly brings about, and thus completes his possession of the
+Grange; how he endeavours to pervert the youthful Hareton Earnshaw, to
+'see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another with the same wind
+to twist it;' and in the end how his vengeance is completely thwarted.
+Thus there are two distinct parts in 'Wuthering Heights,' one being
+the completion and complement of the other.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As some evidence for the view here thrown out, I may mention that, in
+reading 'Wuthering Heights' in order to discover what correspondences
+there might exist between it and Branwell's writings, in letters,
+etc., I was very much struck with the fact that, for every five of
+such correspondences which I discovered in the first part of the
+novel, I could find only one in the latter. We need not, therefore, be
+surprised if, in the concluding half of 'Wuthering Heights,' Branwell
+has stood to the author as model for some details of character, though
+these can be very few. Yet Nelly Dean does say of Heathcliff's love
+for Catherine: 'He might have had a monomania on the subject of his
+departed idol; but on every other point his wits were as sound as
+mine.'<a href="#note40" name="noteref40">
+<small>[40]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The collaboration which I have mentioned would by no means imply
+unfair action on the part of Emily Bront&#235;: she was ever a kind,
+gentle, and faithful friend to Branwell, and had looked forward,
+perhaps more anxiously than her sisters, to his success in the world.
+There would be nothing extraordinary, then, in Branwell handing over
+to his favourite sister, to whom he was always grateful for her
+abiding affection, the work which he had begun, and which he, perhaps,
+felt himself dissatisfied with, or unable to complete, or in his
+supplying her with a plot, and assisting her with his experience in
+the delineation of the characters in any story she might wish to
+produce. To have done so would be quite consistent with what we know
+of him; and he never claimed the authorship, so far as I know, after
+the occasion of Mr. Grundy's visit to the parsonage twelve months
+before the publication of the novel; and he read it to two or three
+personal friends only, and to these, if my supposition be correct,
+perhaps before his sister had taken up the work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+One other circumstance, besides the disappearance of Branwell's novel,
+finds explanation in this view of the matter: that Emily, who never
+undertook a second novel, produced, not only the most original and
+powerful of the contemporary tales of the sisters, but one that is
+also a much longer story than 'The Professor,' by Charlotte, and half
+as long again as 'Agnes Grey,' by Anne. Here, then, must probably
+remain the question of the origin of 'Wuthering Heights.'
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="XI">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XI.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRANWELL BRONT&#203; AND 'THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in
+consequence of her Brother's Conduct&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Supposition of Some that
+Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Characters are
+Entirely Distinct&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Real Sources of the Story&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Anne Bront&#235; at
+Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of
+Branwell.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Charlotte Bront&#235;, who never dreamed of attributing the production of
+so dire a story as 'Wuthering Heights,' by her sister Emily, to
+brooding on Branwell's misfortunes, has, however, in her remarks on
+Anne Bront&#235;'s second novel, 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,'&#8212;meant by
+its author as a tale of warning against the evils of
+intemperance,&#8212;intimated that it was carried out as a duty by Anne, in
+consequence of the impression made upon her by her brother's conduct;
+and certain writers, questioning the statement of Charlotte that the
+characters are fictitious, have concluded that, in Arthur Huntingdon,
+we have 'a picture' and a 'portrait' of Branwell Bront&#235;. It seems to
+me, rightly considered, a cruel thing to Anne Bront&#235; to believe that
+she has given us a portrait of her brother in the character of the
+perfidious Huntingdon. Had her brother been thus vile, she could not
+have borne to write over the details of his character; were he not
+like Huntingdon, she could not have libelled him so.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+As none of the biographers of the Bront&#235; sisters ever knew Branwell,
+it is probable that the Branwell Bront&#235; of the biographies owes more
+to the supposed Branwell of the novels, than the characters in the
+novels do to the brother of the Bront&#235;s. It is Huntingdon's wit,
+superficial as it is, that has connected him with the ideal of
+Branwell Bront&#235;. A few traits of his, indeed, there may be in
+Huntingdon, but they are not the worst of those depicted in that
+character. The contempt for gambling which Huntingdon expresses may be
+taken as an instance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+We shall, however, look in vain for any true resemblance between the
+characters of Arthur Huntingdon and Branwell Bront&#235;, and, certainly,
+in almost every respect, one is a direct contrast to the other. The
+biographer of Emily Bront&#235; says, indeed, that Branwell 'sat to Anne
+sorrily enough for the portrait of Henry (<i>sic</i>) Huntingdon;' but
+I would ask where that portraiture lies? Huntingdon, be it marked, is
+not only a drunkard, but he is a libertine, a man who has even the
+callous brutality to recount to his trusting wife, as she sits by him
+on the sofa, endeavouring to amuse him, the 'stories of his former
+amours, always turning upon the ruin of some confiding girl, or the
+cozening of some unsuspecting husband; and when I express my horror
+and indignation,' she says, 'he lays it to the charge of jealousy, and
+laughs till the tears run down his cheeks.' But it was different with
+Branwell, against whom it has never been charged that he sank to these
+low depths of criminal debauchery, indulgence, and treachery; and even
+those who have recounted the story of his passion for the wife of his
+employer, are compelled to say that he remained pure, and shrank in
+horror from the advances which they suppose she made. Huntingdon's
+vicious disposition, too, is so sunk in selfishness, and there is in
+him such a cold brutality,&#8212;as where on many an occasion he triumphs
+over his powerless wife,&#8212;that he is placed in absolute contrast to
+Branwell, with his confiding, considerate, open-hearted, and generous
+nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is but necessary to allude to Huntingdon's hypocrisy to establish a
+further difference between his character and Branwell's; and it is,
+moreover, very distinctive of Huntingdon's mind that he is,
+throughout, utterly irreverent and irreligious, to such an extent that
+he jests at sacred things, and declares that his wife's piety is
+enough to make him jealous of his Maker. Again he says, when he places
+her hand on the top of his head, and it sinks in a bed of curls,
+'rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle;' 'if God meant me to
+be religious, why didn't He give me a proper organ of veneration?'
+This irreverence he carries with him into domestic life, and he
+invades the sanctity of human affection, and the places the heart
+keeps holy, with his gross and insensate brutality. How different is
+this from Branwell Bront&#235;, in whose character reverence and affection,
+above all things, were strong! Can we imagine Huntingdon dwelling so
+fondly in the affection of the long departed, as Branwell does in his
+poems of 'Caroline;' can we imagine him venerating as a precious
+possession to his dying day the sacred memories of his early years, as
+his supposed prototype did? What 'swell of thought,' seeming to fill
+'the bursting heart, the gushing eye' with the memories of bygone
+years, could flood the shallow brain of the selfish and unfeeling
+Huntingdon? And Huntingdon, too, is afflicted with that well-known
+complaint of the continual drinker; he loses all interest in the
+affairs of life, and exists in perpetual levity. 'There is always a
+"but" in this imperfect world,' says his wife, 'and I do wish he would
+sometimes be serious. I cannot get him to write or speak in real,
+solid earnest. I don't much mind it now, but if it be always so what
+shall I do with the serious part of myself?' I would ask when Branwell
+Bront&#235; displayed this unseemly levity? if he did not always write and
+speak in solid earnest; if, indeed, he did not live in the very midst
+of that storm and stress of acute feeling which Huntingdon's wretched
+nature was incapable of experiencing at all?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Lastly, Helen Huntingdon tells us that her husband is impenetrable to
+good and lofty thoughts, that he never reads anything but newspapers
+and sporting magazines, that she wishes he would take up some literary
+study, or learn to draw or play; and that, when deprived of his
+friends, his condition is comfortless, unalleviated as it is by the
+consolations of intellectual resources, and the answer of a good
+conscience towards God. What, then, were Branwell's mental resources?
+His thoughts, on the contrary, were good and lofty enough; he was a
+student of literature, and especially a reader of the great poets; he
+had, indeed, taken up literary work; and he could and did both draw,
+and play on the organ; and when he was deprived of society, or cast
+into trouble, he found his consolation in his literary labours, and we
+have seen that, for the very purpose of obtaining alleviation in
+distress, he had written a volume of his novel. In short, he was, as
+far as his intellectual character and habits were concerned, exactly
+what Helen Huntingdon wished her husband might be.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If, then, there is no resemblance between Branwell Bront&#235;'s
+disposition, character, and capabilities and those of Huntingdon in
+the novel, we might, after what has been said, surely expect to find
+that, in the unique point in which there is a correspondence of
+fact&#8212;their indulgence in drink&#8212;there would be some similar traits.
+But here, again, the resemblance is of the faintest, while the
+differences are radical. Huntingdon, for instance, is a continual and
+inveterate drinker; Branwell drank but occasionally, and had long
+periods of temperance: Huntingdon drinks for the love of drink;
+Branwell drank in order to drown his sorrows. It is, moreover, made a
+special point by the Bront&#235; biographers that part of Branwell's
+intemperance was in taking opium, but this feature does not exist in
+Huntingdon, though Anne was clearly acquainted with the practice, for
+she mentions in the novel that Lord Lowborough at one time took it.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, for the character of Huntingdon, we must look elsewhere. The
+account Charlotte gave of one whom the Bront&#235;s had known well, will
+show from what sources Anne drew her plot.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'You remember Mr. and Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;? Mrs. &#8212;&#8212; came here the other day,
+with a most melancholy tale of her wretched husband's drunken,
+extravagant, profligate habits. She asked papa's advice; there was
+nothing, she said, but ruin before them. They owed debts which they
+could never pay. She expected Mr. &#8212;&#8212;'s instant dismissal from his
+curacy; she knew, from bitter experience, that his vices were utterly
+hopeless. He treated her and her child savagely; with much more to the
+same effect. Papa advised her to leave him for ever, and go home, if
+she had a home to go to. She said this was what she had long resolved
+to do; and she would leave him directly, as soon as Mr. B&#8212;&#8212;
+dismissed him. She expressed great disgust and contempt towards him,
+and did not affect to have the shadow of regard in any way. I do not
+wonder at this, but I do wonder she should ever marry a man towards
+whom her feelings must always have been pretty much the same as they
+are now. I am morally certain no decent woman could experience
+anything but aversion towards such a man as Mr. &#8212;&#8212;. Before I knew,
+or suspected his character, and when I rather wondered at his
+versatile talents, I felt it in an uncontrollable degree. I hated to
+talk with him&#8212;hated to look at him; though, as I was not certain that
+there was substantial reason for such a dislike, and thought it absurd
+to trust to mere instinct, I both concealed and repressed the feeling
+as much as I could; and, on all occasions, treated him with as much
+civility as I was mistress of. I was struck with Mary's expression of
+a similar feeling at first sight; she said, when we left him, "That is
+a hideous man, Charlotte!" I thought, "He is indeed."'<a href="#note41" name="noteref41">
+<small>[41]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+And here is another case known to the Bront&#235;s. 'Do you remember my
+telling you&#8212;or did I ever tell you&#8212;about that wretched and most
+criminal Mr. &#8212;&#8212;? After running an infamous career of vice, both in
+England and France, abandoning his wife to disease and total
+destitution in Manchester, with two children and without a farthing,
+in a strange lodging-house? Yesterday evening Martha came upstairs to
+say that a woman&#8212;"rather lady-like," as she said&#8212;wished to speak to
+me in the kitchen. I went down. There stood Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;, pale and worn,
+but still interesting-looking and cleanly and neatly dressed, as was
+her little girl who was with her. I kissed her heartily. I could
+almost have cried to see her, for I had pitied her with my whole soul
+when I heard of her undeserved sufferings, agonies, and physical
+degradation. She took tea with us, stayed about two hours, and frankly
+entered into a narrative of her appalling distresses&#8230;. She does not
+know where Mr. &#8212;&#8212; is, and of course can never more endure to see
+him. She is now staying a few days at E&#8212;&#8212; with the &#8212;&#8212;s, who, I
+believe, have been all along very kind to her, and the circumstance is
+greatly to their credit.'<a href="#note42" name="noteref42">
+<small>[42]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was with cases like these before them that the Bront&#235;s wrought the
+infelicity of Heathcliff and Isabella, of Huntingdon and Helen. They
+felt themselves compelled to represent life as it appeared to them,
+they said.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Consumption and intemperance, the curses of our island and our
+climate, are found not the less in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. A
+cold and humid atmosphere, like poverty and want, begets a recourse to
+stimulants, and, with some natures, the bounds of moderation are soon
+passed. The prevalence of the latter evil had entered deeply into
+Anne's thoughts. Her brother's occasional indulgence had made it
+familiar to her; but we should clearly commit an error, as well as a
+great injustice to her, in supposing that, in the character of
+Huntingdon, she wished to present his failings to the public.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A careful study of the question has, indeed, convinced me, not only
+that Huntingdon is no portrait of Branwell Bront&#235;, but that he is
+distinctly and designedly his very antitype. The author of 'Wildfell
+Hall' could scarcely have created a character so completely different
+from Branwell, unless she intended to do so; for, otherwise, writing
+under the influence of circumstances, and the inspiration of the
+moment, something of his strong personality must surely have found its
+way into the book. It is pleasant to be thus able to record, as an act
+of justice to Anne Bront&#235;, that, though she had been compelled to
+witness the results of intemperance both in Branwell and in others,
+she purposely conveyed her lesson of these evils in the acts and
+thoughts of a character utterly distinct from her brother. Indeed, she
+was at considerable pains&#8212;which have unfortunately availed little&#8212;to
+prevent even a suspicion that her brother was the prototype of
+Huntingdon; for, to remove that impression, she has placed the hero of
+the story, Gilbert Markham, to a considerable extent, in Branwell's
+very circumstances. There is no resemblance between Markham's
+character and Branwell's, beyond that of an ardent and generous
+temperament; but it should be observed that&#8212;exactly as with
+Branwell&#8212;Markham is enamoured of a married woman, the death of whose
+husband he anxiously awaits; that this passion is attributed to him as
+a monomania&#8212;'A monomania,' says his brother Fergus, 'but don't
+mention it; all right but that;' and, lastly, that Markham, too,
+thinks, as Branwell did, that the deceased husband of the lady 'might
+have so constructed his will as to place restrictions upon her
+marrying again.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It should likewise be observed that 'Wildfell Hall' is just as much a
+protest against <i>mariages de convenance</i>, as it is against
+intemperance; but what had this to do with the family circumstances of
+the Bront&#235;s? It had far more to do with such instances as that of 'Mr.
+and Mrs. &#8212;&#8212;,' quoted above from Charlotte's letter, where infelicity
+was combined with intemperance, as it is in the case of Arthur and
+Helen Huntingdon.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="XII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XII.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRANWELL'S FAILINGS.&#8212;PUBLICATION OF 'JANE EYRE.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Novel-writing&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Sisters' Method of Work&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Failing Health
+and Irregularities&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;'Jane Eyre'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Its Reception and Character&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;It was
+not Influenced by Branwell&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Letter and Sketches of Branwell, 1848.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+But, at this time, neither 'Wuthering Heights' nor 'The Tenant of
+Wildfell Hall' was before the public. It was not, indeed, till the
+summer of 1847 that the former, with 'Agnes Grey,' was accepted for
+publication. Meanwhile Anne was toiling away at her second book, and
+Charlotte was writing 'Jane Eyre,' under spells of inspiration.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell has told us that the sisters were wont to put away their
+work at nine o'clock, and to walk about the sitting-room, talking over
+the plots of their stories, and discussing the incidents of them. Once
+or twice a week each was accustomed to read to the others what she had
+written, and hear the opinions they passed upon it. Mr. Bront&#235; retired
+early to rest, and was in ignorance of the nature of the work going
+on, for his daughters never spoke to him of it, any more than they did
+to their friends. The writing of the sisters was, in fact, a secret
+shared only by their brother Branwell, who unquestionably gave his
+advice upon it, and instructed them on many points, besides, of
+practical value in their dealings with publishers and literary men,
+which their small knowledge of the world caused them to overlook.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, at the time, Branwell's health was visibly failing, and it became
+evident that, though naturally stronger than his sisters, he was not
+exempt from the consumptive tendency of his family. All his endeavours
+to obtain employment had proved futile. His physical health had long
+been giving way, and this soon rendered him incapable of sustained
+exertion. Much of his strange conduct arose probably from the reaction
+of this weakness on a mind endowed with so much intellectual power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In most winters on these Yorkshire hills there are spells of severe
+frost and cold, and these were always times of suffering to the
+Bront&#235;s. Influenza would become epidemic at Haworth, and seldom
+neglected the inmates of the parsonage, close by the churchyard as the
+house was. Mr. Bront&#235; had struggled hard to have proper drainage
+introduced into the village, but in vain. There was, indeed, 'such a
+series of North-pole days' in the December of 1846, as Charlotte did
+not remember; the sky looked like ice, and the wind was as keen as a
+two-edged blade. The consequence was that all the house was laid up
+with coughs and colds. Anne suffered from asthma; Mr. Bront&#235; and
+Branwell had influenza and cough. Anxiously must they have watched
+every indication of change in the wind, and longed for the southwest
+breezes that, even in winter, sometimes came over the moors with all
+the softness of spring; and, on this occasion, they were not long
+disappointed, and Anne became much better. The novel writing went on
+as before. Branwell's weakness and failings sometimes broke in upon
+this employment, but we do not find that, during the year 1847, he
+gave such trouble as would be likely to influence his sisters' work.
+Of course he had little or no money at hand, and we know that he had
+contracted some small obligations during the period of distraction of
+the previous year. The result of this was that a sheriff's-officer
+arrived at Haworth, and Branwell's debts had to be paid, whereat his
+sister Charlotte seems to have been very angry, for she appears
+afterwards to accuse herself of being 'too demonstrative and
+vehement.' About three months later Charlotte was again in doubt about
+Branwell; she says his behaviour was 'extravagant,' and that he
+dropped 'mysterious hints,' which led her to believe that he had
+contracted further debts. In this, however, she was mistaken.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the May of 1847, Charlotte invited 'E.' to visit her, and said that
+Branwell was quieter, for the good reason that he had got to the end
+of a considerable sum of money he became possessed of in the spring,
+and was obliged to restrict himself in some degree. 'You must,' she
+continues, 'expect to find him weaker in mind, and the complete rake
+in appearance. I have no apprehension of his being uncivil to you; on
+the contrary, he will be as smooth as oil.' It would appear that he
+had had some sum laid out, which he then recovered; but, as we have
+seen, he had got into debt before, and, in his alarm at the prospect
+of imprisonment in York Castle, it is said, told his friends, in the
+neighbourhood where he had been tutor, of his straits; upon which the
+widow of his late employer sent him money in kindness of heart,
+through a third person. At this period he expended much of his time at
+home in reading, and he wrote several poems.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+At the end of July, Charlotte, as we have been told, consulted her
+brother as to the reason why Messrs. Smith and Elder, to whom she had
+sent 'The Professor,' did not reply. He at once set it down to her not
+having enclosed a postage stamp. On the 2nd of August, she wrote
+again, and promptly received the considerate answer which encouraged
+her to send to them, on the twenty-fourth of the same month, her
+three-volume work, 'Jane Eyre.' This was accepted, and given to the
+world in the following October. Meanwhile, in the beginning of August,
+'E.' had paid her visit to the parsonage, and the friends had enjoyed
+the glorious weather in walking on the moors. Charlotte had returned
+the visit almost immediately, and the proofs of 'Jane Eyre' were
+corrected by her during her absence, sitting even at the same table
+with her friend, to whom, curiously enough, she said not a word about
+the work in hand. Upon her return to Haworth, she wrote: 'I reached
+home, and found all well. Thank God for it.' 'Wuthering Heights' and
+'Agnes Grey' still lingered in the hands of the publisher, from whom
+the authors had obtained but impoverishing terms; 'a bargain,' says
+Mrs. Gaskell, in mentioning the circumstance, 'to be alluded to
+further.' Nothing more, however, appears in the 'Life of Charlotte' on
+the subject; and we may hope that the celebrity which the novels of
+the 'Messrs. Bell' soon acquired, made a substantial difference in the
+first terms of the agreement. During the next three months, Charlotte
+was in correspondence with Messrs. Smith and Elder, Mr. G. H. Lewes,
+and Mr. W. S. Williams, in respect of the reviews of 'Jane Eyre,'
+which were then appearing.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Jane Eyre' came upon the reading world of 1847 as a veritable
+revelation. It was a tragic story of the feelings, so different in
+character from the trite affectations of the commonplace novel of the
+day; it was informed with such a passionate energy, and filled with
+such soul-absorbing interests, that it was received at once as a
+monument of great and undoubted genius. Reading the book to-day, we
+can easily understand why Charlotte Bront&#235; gained such a mastery over
+the spirits of her time, and earned for herself an imperishable
+renown. She would do the same now. The strange, lonely, unfriended
+childhood of Jane Eyre, the experiences she undergoes at Gateshead,
+and at the Lowood School, and her confidence and self-reliance through
+them all, mark the story as vitally true; but, when this plain little
+personage manifests the depths of her feelings, and calls forth our
+human sympathies in her hopes and her sorrows; when we read the
+terrific tragedy of her relationship with Rochester, and are shaken
+with the storm and stress of the feelings that move her; when, above
+all, we see her come out from the shadow, with her nobility and purity
+unsullied, though once more she is friendless and alone, we are
+carried beyond ourselves in admiration of the genius who has painted a
+picture at once so truly human and so very strange.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Jane Eyre,' the book, was the natural and unforced outcome of its
+author's personality, and, though Jane Eyre, the character, is not
+Charlotte Bront&#235; in the sense in which Lucy Snowe is, yet in Charlotte
+Bront&#235; were all the powers and capabilities that moved Jane Eyre. This
+book, then, came upon people in 1847 as a revelation; they felt
+themselves in the hands of a very Titan, and were carried on by an
+uncontrollable stream. But there were some amongst them who struggled
+against its influence, when they found that the shallow bounds of
+conventionality had been far overpassed, and when they saw that its
+author was little skilled in the ways of the world. These revolted
+against the power that made them, perforce, interested in a character,
+in Rochester, who had fallen away from the high Christian ideal. Hence
+arose that outcry against what was termed the 'immorality' of the
+book, against its 'coarseness,' its 'laxity of tone,' and the
+'heathenish doctrine of religion' that filled it, which gave such
+pain, in the parsonage at Haworth, to the simple-minded girl, its
+author, against whom the dictum of the 'Quarterly Review' was written:
+'If we ascribe the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but
+to ascribe it to one who has for some sufficient reason long forfeited
+the society of her own sex.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But such critics as these forgot that the people whom we love most in
+life, are not those who are supremely noble, absolutely perfect,
+superhuman, and angelic; but those who are beautiful and true in spite
+of their failings, and though clogged with all the faults with which
+our humanity has laden them; those who, like the child in Wordsworth's
+ode, live 'trailing clouds of glory' with them from divinity, in the
+midst of the shame and sin of the world. These are the lights which
+illumine 'Jane Eyre,' with a loveliness that is truly and perfectly
+human. So the book made its way, after the wild fervour of its first
+reception, to a pinnacle in English literature where it must ever
+remain, as the work of a great and original genius, and, as we now
+know, of a true and noble woman.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Small need was there, then, that Mrs. Gaskell should seek to explain
+those features of Charlotte's genius, which brought down upon 'Jane
+Eyre' and its author such expressions of blame as these, by references
+to her brother's character and history, as she understood them.
+Whatever may have been the case with the novels of Emily and Anne,
+those of Charlotte were clearly the outcome of her own nature and of
+her own experience, and were uninfluenced in one way or other by her
+brother. If she takes a suggestion from his affairs at all, she deals
+with it coldly or sternly. Take for instance that passage I have
+quoted from 'The Professor,' where William Crimsworth speaks of his
+recollection of an instance of domestic treachery.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In December, 1847, appeared the works of Ellis and Acton Bell. The
+Christmas of that year found the three sisters noted in the world of
+authors&#8212;Currer Bell, famous. Not often can so much be recorded of a
+family. Branwell seems to have been considerably elated by their
+success, and the festivities of the season were indulged in by him to
+his injury. His feeble health was soon affected by things that would
+have had little influence upon ordinarily strong men, and he suffered
+the consequences. On the 11th of January, 1848, Charlotte writes:&#8212;'We
+have not been very comfortable here at home lately. Branwell has, by
+some means, continued to get more money from the old quarter, and has
+led us a sad life&#8230;. Papa is harassed day and night; we have little
+peace; he is always sick; has two or three times fallen down in fits;
+what will be the ultimate end, God knows. But who is without their
+drawback, their scourge, their skeleton behind the curtain? It remains
+only to do one's best, and endure with patience what God sends.' In
+this month the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' appeared.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It must have been in reference to this period that Mrs. Gaskell has
+said it might well have happened that Branwell had shot his father.
+But the statement is an exaggeration; and, indeed, I have been told,
+both by Martha Brown and Nancy Wainwright, that Branwell was not
+nearly so bad as Mrs. Gaskell has made him appear. 'If he had wanted
+to shoot his father,' says my informant, 'he could easily have done
+it, for there were loaded guns and pistols hung over the bed-room door
+constantly.' She relates that, on one occasion, she was occupied in
+tidying up the bed-room, and had just taken down the fire-arms to
+dust, when Mr. Bront&#235; entered the room in great consternation,
+forbidding her, at any time thenceforth, on any account whatever, to
+meddle with them, for they were loaded even then, and might have been
+accidentally discharged to her own danger. He again hung up the arms
+himself. Mr. Bront&#235; carried on this singular practice, and could not
+be induced to discontinue it; and, as the reader is aware, Branwell
+and his father occupied this bed-room.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell himself was very conscious of his failings at this time, and
+somewhat ashamed of them. He writes to Leyland during the January of
+1848: 'I was <i>really</i> far enough from well when I saw you last
+week at Halifax; and, if you should happen to see Mrs. &#8212;&#8212; of &#8212;&#8212;,
+you would greatly oblige me by telling her that I consider her conduct
+towards me as most kind and motherly, and that, if I did anything
+during temporary illness, to offend her, I deeply regret it, and beg
+her to take my regret as my apology till I see her again; which I
+trust will be ere long.' He continues, speaking in general terms of
+his literary work, and his poems, mentioning especially the poem of
+'Caroline,' which he had written a long time before, and concludes by
+promising a longer letter later on.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There is prefixed to this letter a drawing, one of the strangest that
+Branwell ever made,&#8212;which he advises his friend to destroy,&#8212;a
+portrait of himself, head and shoulders, vigorously executed with the
+pen, and an admirable likeness too, in profile, grave and thoughtful,
+wearing his spectacles, but a portrait of Branwell in what a plight!
+For, just as the martyrs of old are represented with the knife planted
+in their breast, and the rope placed round their neck, so has Branwell
+pictured himself, with the halter about his throat, in the morbid
+martyrdom of his feverish imagination.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="XIII">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XIII.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRANWELL'S LATER POETICAL WORKS.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Branwell's Poetical Work&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Sketch of the Materials which he intended to
+use in the Poem of 'Morley Hall'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Poem&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Subject left
+Incomplete&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Poem, 'The End of All'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Letter to Leyland
+asking an Opinion on his Poem, 'Percy Hall'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Observations&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Poem.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+Branwell's poetical work in this period, when his health was failing,
+is incomplete, for there remain two pieces from his hand, both of
+which are fragments only. The first of these is 'Morley Hall,' which
+he was writing for his friend Leyland, but which he never lived to
+finish. He designed it to be an epic, in several cantos, dealing with
+a succession of romantic episodes, of which an elopement that actually
+took place, as I have previously had occasion to mention, was the
+chief feature. The part he completed was the introductory canto, or
+rather a portion of it, which is given below; but, since this was a
+work into which he entered with much spirit, and which would have been
+a long and important one, had it been completed, it may not be amiss
+here to sketch briefly the materials with which he proposed to work.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Morley Hall, or all that remains of it, is situated in the parish of
+Leigh, in the county of Lancaster; and was the residence of two
+families in succession, which became allied by marriage, and attained
+some celebrity. The first family was that of Leyland, originally of
+the place of that name in Lancashire, and afterwards, for many
+generations preceding the reign of King Henry VIII., residing at
+Morley Hall.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Henry VIII.'s time the mansion was owned by Sir William Leyland, or
+Leland, whose family consisted of Thomas, his son and heir, and his
+daughters Anne and Elizabeth, by his marriage with Anne, daughter and
+heiress of Allan Syngleton of Whitgill, in Craven, Esq. Living in
+great opulence at Morley, Sir William was visited by the learned
+antiquary, his friend, and probably his relative, John Leland. This
+writer says of his visit: 'Cumming from Manchestre towards Morle, Syr
+William Lelande's howse, I passid by enclosid grounde, &#8230; leving on
+the left hand a mile and more of, a fair place of Mr. Langforde's
+caulled Agecroft&#8230;. Morle, Mr. Lelande's Place, is buildid, saving
+the Fundation, of stone squarid that risith within a great Moote a vi
+foot above the water, al of tymbre, after the commune sort of building
+of Houses of the Gentilmen for most of Lancastreshire. Ther is as much
+Plesur of Orchardes, of great Varite of Frute and fair made Walkes and
+Gardines as ther is in any Place of Lancastreshire.'<a href="#note4" name="noteref43">
+<small>[433]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Sir William was succeeded by Thomas, his son, who had married Anne,
+daughter of Sir John Atherton, and had issue Robert, his son and
+heir,<a href="#note44" name="noteref44">
+<small>[44]</small></a> and two daughters, Anne and Alice. Anne married Edward
+Tyldesley, of Tyldesley, with whom the legend, versified by Mr.
+Peters, and on which Branwell intended to write at greater length,
+alleges that she eloped. The tradition of this event still lingers at
+Morley Hall. It is said that when the attachment sprang up between
+Anne, the eldest daughter of Thomas Leyland, and Edward Tyldesley, the
+connection was forbidden by the lady's father. It is further said
+that, regardless of this prohibition, a night was fixed upon for an
+elopement, and that, when the inmates of the house were buried in
+sleep, it was arranged she should tie a rope round her waist, the
+loose end of which she should throw across the moat to Tyldesley, who
+was to be in waiting, and, with another, should lower herself into the
+water, and be drawn to the land by him. The legend says this was
+successfully accomplished, and that the marriage was celebrated before
+the elopement was known to the family.<a href="#note45" name="noteref45">
+<small>[45]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It is remarkable that, while Thomas Leyland had a legitimate son and
+heir in Robert Leyland, the manor-house of Morley and its demesnes
+passed into the family of Tyldesley by marriage alone, as if there had
+been no such person.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+There are other stories relating to this family, of wild and weird
+interest, with which Branwell was acquainted; but this passing
+allusion is all that the scope of the present work will allow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Of the family of Tyldesley of Morley was the brave Sir Thomas, a
+major-general in the royal army, who was slain at Wigan on the 25th of
+August, 1651. To this circumstance Branwell alludes in his poem. The
+fragment is as follows:&#8212;
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+MORLEY HALL,
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">LEIGH&#8212;LANCASHIRE.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'When Life's youth, overcast by gathering clouds</p>
+<p>Of cares that come like funeral-following crowds,</p>
+<p>Wearying of that which is, and cannot see</p>
+<p>A sunbeam burst upon futurity,</p>
+<p>It tries to cast away the woes that are</p>
+<p>And borrow brighter joys from times afar.</p>
+<p>For what our feet tread may have been a road</p>
+<p>By horses' hoofs pressed 'neath a camel's load;</p>
+<p>But what we ran across in childhood's hours</p>
+<p>Were fields, presenting June with May-tide flowers:</p>
+<p>So what was done and borne, if long ago,</p>
+<p>Will satisfy our heart, though stained by tears of woe.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'When present sorrows every thought employ,</p>
+<p>Our father's woes may take the garb of joy,</p>
+<p>And, knowing what our sires have undergone,</p>
+<p>Ourselves can smile, though weary, wandering on.</p>
+<p>For if our youth a thunder-cloud o'ershadows,</p>
+<p>Changing to barren swamps Life's flowering meadows,</p>
+<p>We know that fiery flash and bursting peal</p>
+<p>Others, like us, were forced to hear and feel;</p>
+<p>And while they moulder in a quiet grave,</p>
+<p>Robbed of all havings&#8212;worthless all they have&#8212;</p>
+<p>We still, with face erect, behold the sun&#8212;</p>
+<p>Have bright examples in what has been done</p>
+<p>By head or hand&#8212;and, in the times to come,</p>
+<p>May tread bright pathways to our gate of doom.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'So, if we gaze from our snug villa's door,</p>
+<p>By vines or honeysuckles covered o'er,</p>
+<p>Though we have saddening thoughts, we still can smile</p>
+<p>In thinking our hut supersedes the pile</p>
+<p>Whose turrets totter 'mid the woods before us,</p>
+<p>And whose proud owners used to trample o'er us;</p>
+<p>All now by weeds and ivy overgrown,</p>
+<p>And touched by Time, that hurls down stone from stone.</p>
+<p>We gaze with scorn on what is worn away,</p>
+<p>And never dream about our own decay.</p>
+<p>Thus, while this May-day cheers each flower and tree,</p>
+<p>Enlivening earth and almost cheering me,</p>
+<p>I half forget the mouldering moats of Leigh.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Wide Lancashire has changed its babyhood,</p>
+<p>As Time makes saplings spring to timber wood;</p>
+<p>But as grown men their childhood still remember,</p>
+<p>And think of Summer in their dark December,</p>
+<p>So Manchester and Liverpool may wonder,</p>
+<p>And bow to old halls over which they ponder,</p>
+<p>Unknowing that man's spirit yearns to all</p>
+<p>Which&#8212;once lost&#8212;prayers can never more recall.</p>
+<p>The storied piles of mortar, brick, and stone,</p>
+<p>Where trade bids noise and gain to struggle on,</p>
+<p>Competing for the prize that Mammon gives&#8212;</p>
+<p>Youth killed by toil and profits bought with lives&#8212;</p>
+<p>Will not prevent the quiet, thinking mind</p>
+<p>From looking back to years when Summer wind</p>
+<p>Sang, not o'er mills, but round ancestral halls,</p>
+<p>And, 'stead of engine's steam, gave dews from waterfalls.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'He who by brick-built houses closely pent,</p>
+<p>That show nought beautiful to sight or scent,</p>
+<p>Pines for green fields, will cherish in his room</p>
+<p>Some pining plant bereft of natural bloom;</p>
+<p>And, like the crowds which yonder factories hold,</p>
+<p>Withering 'mid warmth, and in their spring-tide old,</p>
+<p>So Lancashire may fondly look upon</p>
+<p>Her wrecks fast vanishing of ages gone,</p>
+<p>And while encroaching railroad, street, and mill</p>
+<p>On every side the smoky prospect fill,</p>
+<p>She yet may smile to see some tottering wall</p>
+<p>Bring old times back, like ancient Morley Hall.</p>
+<p>But towers that Leland saw in times of yore</p>
+<p>Are now, like Leland's works, almost no more&#8212;</p>
+<p>The antiquarian's pages, cobweb-bound,</p>
+<p>The antique mansion, levelled with the ground.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'When all is gone that once gave food to pride,</p>
+<p>Man little cares for what Time leaves beside;</p>
+<p>And when an orchard and a moat, half dry,</p>
+<p>Remain, sole relics of a power passed by,</p>
+<p>Should we not think of what ourselves shall be,</p>
+<p>And view our coffins in the stones of Leigh.</p>
+<p>For what within yon space was once the abode</p>
+<p>Of peace or war to man, and fear of God,</p>
+<p>Is now the daily sport of shower or wind,</p>
+<p>And no acquaintance holds with human kind.</p>
+<p>Some who can be loved, and love can give,</p>
+<p>While brain thinks, pulses beat, and bodies live,</p>
+<p>Must, in death's helplessness, lie down with those</p>
+<p>Who find, like us, the grave their last repose,</p>
+<p>When Death draws down the veil and Night bids Evening close.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'King Charles, who, fortune falling, would not fall,</p>
+<p>Might glance with saddened eyes on Morley Hall,</p>
+<p>And, while his throne escaped misfortune's wave,</p>
+<p>Remember Tyldesley died that throne to save.'</p></div></div>
+
+<hr class="short">
+
+<p>
+Branwell's next poem of this period is entitled the 'End of All,'
+which is complete, and is one of the most pathetic he ever wrote. It
+constitutes a true picture of his mood, and illustrates, at this time,
+the sombre and troubled nature of his thoughts. He pourtrays, in
+shades of great depth, his reflections on the death of one dear to
+him, whose loss leaves his soul a blank and desolate void, an evil
+which nothing can alleviate or remove. But he dreams for a moment that
+a life of peril in far-off lands, and in battle, strife, and danger,
+that the 'stony joys' of solitary ambition, may shrine the memory of
+sorrows which cannot be destroyed. Yet, even from this cold dream,
+this cruel opiate of the heart, he is recalled by the groans of her
+who is dying, to the consciousness that, with her departure, all will
+go. The bereaved is Branwell himself, and his 'Mary' is doubtless the
+lady of his misplaced affection, over whose loss he still broods in
+melancholy and afflicted language, each pathetic chord vibrating with
+intense mental anguish, as he contemplates the future years of
+desolation in which he is left to wander tombward unaided and alone.
+Here, as in his other poems, the rhythmic sweetness of Branwell's
+verse flows on in words well chosen to express the idea he intends to
+convey, which itself is worked out with great suggestiveness of power.
+</p>
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE END OF ALL.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'In that unpitying Winter's night,</p>
+<p class="i2">When my own wife&#8212;my Mary&#8212;died,</p>
+<p>I, by my fire's declining light,</p>
+<p class="i2">Sat comfortless, and silent sighed,</p>
+<p class="i2">While burst unchecked grief's bitter tide,</p>
+<p>As I, methought, when she was gone,</p>
+<p class="i2">Not hours, but years, like this must bide,</p>
+<p>And wake, and weep, and watch alone.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'All earthly hope had passed away,</p>
+<p class="i2">And each clock-stroke brought Death more nigh</p>
+<p>To the still-chamber where she lay,</p>
+<p class="i2">With soul and body calmed to die;</p>
+<p class="i2">But <i>mine</i> was not her heavenward eye</p>
+<p>When hot tears scorched me, as her doom</p>
+<p class="i2">Made my sick heart throb heavily</p>
+<p>To give impatient anguish room.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'"Oh now," methought, "a little while,</p>
+<p class="i2">And this great house will hold no more</p>
+<p>Her whose fond love the gloom could while</p>
+<p class="i2">Of many a long night gone before!"</p>
+<p class="i2">Oh! all those happy hours were o'er</p>
+<p>When, seated by our own fireside,</p>
+<p class="i2">I'd smile to hear the wild winds roar,</p>
+<p>And turn to clasp my beauteous bride.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'I could not bear the thoughts which rose</p>
+<p class="i2">Of what <i>had</i> been, and what <i>must</i> be,</p>
+<p>And still the dark night would disclose</p>
+<p class="i2">Its sorrow-pictured prophecy;</p>
+<p class="i2">Still saw I&#8212;miserable me&#8212;</p>
+<p>Long, long nights else, in lonely gloom,</p>
+<p class="i2">With time-bleached locks and trembling knee&#8212;</p>
+<p>Walk aidless, hopeless, to my tomb.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Still, still that tomb's eternal shade</p>
+<p class="i2">Oppressed my heart with sickening fear,</p>
+<p>When I could see its shadow spread</p>
+<p class="i2">Over each dreary future year,</p>
+<p class="i2">Whose vale of tears woke such despair</p>
+<p>That, with the sweat-drops on my brow,</p>
+<p class="i2">I wildly raised my hands in prayer</p>
+<p>That Death would come and take me now;</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Then stopped to hear an answer given&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">So much had madness warped my mind&#8212;</p>
+<p>When, sudden, through the midnight heaven,</p>
+<p class="i2">With long howl woke the Winter's wind;</p>
+<p class="i2">And roused in me, though undefined,</p>
+<p>A rushing thought of tumbling seas</p>
+<p class="i2">Whose wild waves wandered unconfined,</p>
+<p>And, far-off, surging, whispered, "Peace."</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'I cannot speak the feeling strange,</p>
+<p class="i2">Which showed that vast December sea,</p>
+<p>Nor tell whence came that sudden change</p>
+<p class="i2">From aidless, hopeless misery;</p>
+<p class="i2">But somehow it revealed to me</p>
+<p>A life&#8212;when things I loved were gone&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">Whose solitary liberty</p>
+<p>Might suit me wandering tombward on.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>''Twas not that I forgot my love&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">That night departing evermore&#8212;</p>
+<p>'Twas hopeless grief for her that drove</p>
+<p class="i2">My soul from all it prized before;</p>
+<p class="i2">That misery called me to explore</p>
+<p>A new-born life, whose stony joy</p>
+<p class="i2">Might calm the pangs of sorrow o'er,</p>
+<p>Might <i>shrine</i> their memory, not destroy.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'I rose, and drew the curtains back</p>
+<p class="i2">To gaze upon the starless waste,</p>
+<p>And image on that midnight wrack</p>
+<p class="i2">The path on which I longed to haste,</p>
+<p class="i2">From storm to storm continual cast,</p>
+<p>And not one moment given to view;</p>
+<p class="i2">O'er mind's wild winds the memories passed</p>
+<p>Of hearts I loved&#8212;of scenes I knew.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'My mind anticipated all</p>
+<p class="i2">The things my eyes have seen since then;</p>
+<p>I heard the trumpet's battle-call,</p>
+<p class="i2">I rode o'er ranks of bleeding men,</p>
+<p class="i2">I swept the waves of Norway's main,</p>
+<p>I tracked the sands of Syria's shore,</p>
+<p class="i2">I felt that such strange strife and pain</p>
+<p>Might me from living death restore.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Ambition I would make my bride,</p>
+<p class="i2">And joy to see her robed in red,</p>
+<p>For none through blood so wildly ride</p>
+<p class="i2">As those whose hearts before have bled;</p>
+<p class="i2">Yes, even though <i>thou</i> should'st long have laid</p>
+<p>Pressed coldly down by churchyard clay,</p>
+<p class="i2">And though I knew thee thus decayed,</p>
+<p>I <i>might</i> smile grimly when away;</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Might give an opiate to my breast,</p>
+<p class="i2">Might dream:&#8212;but oh! that heart-wrung groan</p>
+<p>Forced from me with the thought confessed</p>
+<p class="i2">That all would go if <i>she</i> were gone;</p>
+<p class="i2">I turned, and wept, and wandered on</p>
+<p>All restlessly&#8212;from room to room&#8212;</p>
+<p class="i2">To that still chamber, where alone</p>
+<p>A sick-light glimmered through the gloom.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'The all-unnoticed time flew o'er me,</p>
+<p class="i2">While my breast bent above her bed,</p>
+<p>And that drear life which loomed before me</p>
+<p class="i2">Choked up my voice&#8212;bowed down my head.</p>
+<p class="i2">Sweet holy words to me she said,</p>
+<p>Of that bright heaven which shone so near,</p>
+<p class="i2">And oft and fervently she prayed</p>
+<p>That I might some time meet her there;</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'But, soon enough, all words were over,</p>
+<p class="i2">When this world passed, and Paradise,</p>
+<p>Through deadly darkness, seemed to hover</p>
+<p class="i2">O'er her half-dull, half-brightening eyes;</p>
+<p class="i2">One last dear glance she gives her lover,</p>
+<p>One last embrace before she dies;</p>
+<p class="i2">And then, while he seems bowed above her,</p>
+<p>His <i>Mary</i> sees him from the skies.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Another poem of Branwell's of this date, the last he ever wrote, is
+entitled 'Percy Hall,' which he did not live to complete. The first
+draft was sent for Leyland's opinion, with the following letter:
+</p>
+<div class="blockquote">
+<p class="ralign">
+'Haworth, Bradford,
+<br>'Yorks.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'<span class="sc">My dear Sir</span>,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I enclose the accompanying fragment, which is so soiled that I
+would have transcribed it, if I had had the heart to exert myself,
+only in order to get from you an opinion as to whether, when
+finished, it would be worth sending to some respectable
+periodical, like "Blackwood's Magazine."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'I trust you got safely home from rough Haworth, and am,
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Dear Sir,
+</p>
+
+<p class="close">
+'Your most sincerely,
+</p>
+
+<p class="sig">
+'<span class="sc">P. B. Bront&#235;</span>.'
+</p>
+</div>
+<p>
+At the foot of the page on which the letter is written, is drawn, in
+pen-and-ink, a low, massive, stone cross, inscribed with the word,
+'POBRE!' standing on the top of a bleak hill, with a wild sky behind;
+and Branwell says of it below: 'The best epitaph ever written. It is
+carved on a rude cross in Spain, over a murdered traveller, and simply
+means "Poor fellow!"' It will be remembered, in connection with this
+idea of Branwell's, that Lord Byron, in one of his letters, describes
+the impression produced upon him by seeing the inscription, 'Implora
+pace!' upon a tomb at Bologna. The poet says: 'When I die, I should
+wish that some friend would see these words, and no other, placed
+above my grave&#8212;"Implora pace!"' The perusal of this remark induced
+Mrs. Hemans to write her pathetic little poem which has the Italian
+epitaph for its title.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This letter of Branwell's is particularly interesting, because it
+shows us that, even in the last year of his life, and when dealing
+with the last uncompleted poem he ever wrote, he preserved the
+ambition of appearing in the literary world as a poet; and because he
+again speaks of 'Blackwood's Magazine,' whose value, it will be
+remembered, had impressed itself upon the youthful minds of himself
+and his sisters.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The fragment, 'Percy Hall,' which was enclosed with the letter to
+Leyland, though still morbid, is one of the most exquisite its author
+wrote. Here, by a strange and beautiful coincidence&#8212;if coincidence it
+be&#8212;we find Branwell, in his latest work, as in his youthful ones,
+given in the earlier part of this work, occupied with the dread study
+of a consumptive decline; we find him, in short, tinctured with the
+shadows of his later career, telling again of the death of that
+sister, whose memory he cherished with a life-long affection; and
+perhaps, too, with a deeper insight than the other members of his
+family possessed, he foretells the end that awaited his sisters Emily
+and Anne, from that disease, whose poison was working in his own
+slender frame. The treatment of the subject, indeed, is truly
+characteristic of Branwell's feelings at the time, and of his
+impressions engendered by the mournful malady with which his family
+was afflicted. This poem, like some of those already noticed in the
+former pages of the present work, is distinguished by images, scenes,
+and conceptions, almost invariably animated by the instinctive power
+and originality of genius. His descriptions of the condition of the
+lady, of the way in which weakness has schooled her to regard the
+future&#8212;the natural expression doubtless of Branwell at the time&#8212;of
+the influences that 'forbade her heart to throb, her spirit to
+despond,' and of the agonized feelings of the survivor, are all
+instinct with the living breath of reality; they have the sublime
+dignity of truth, springing, as they do, from a knowledge far too
+intimate with the sorrows which inspired the poem. Perhaps, in the
+gaiety of the affectionate Percy, Branwell depicts, in some sort, his
+own disposition, though it has never been charged against him that he
+was beguiled by 'syren smiles,' or seduced by the delights of 'play.'
+It seems to me that Branwell's poetical genius is as much higher than
+that of his sister Emily as hers was superior to the talents of
+Charlotte and Anne, in their versified productions. Beautiful, wild,
+and touching, like strains from the harp of &#198;olus, as are the
+emanations of Emily's poetical inspiration, they lack the force,
+depth, and breadth of Branwell's more expansive power of imagination,
+as displayed in his best productions; though even Branwell's poetical
+remains contain rather the evidence of power than the full expression
+of it.
+</p>
+
+<p class="space">&nbsp;</p>
+<p class="ctr">
+PERCY HALL.
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'The westering sunbeams smiled on Percy Hall,</p>
+<p>And green leaves glittered o'er the ancient wall</p>
+<p>Where Mary sat, to feel the summer breeze,</p>
+<p>And hear its music mingling 'mid the trees.</p>
+<p>There she had rested in her quiet bower</p>
+<p>Through June's long afternoon, while hour on hour</p>
+<p>Stole, sweetly shining past her, till the shades,</p>
+<p>Scarce noticed, lengthened o'er the grassy glades;</p>
+<p>But yet she sat, as if she knew not how</p>
+<p>Her time wore on, with Heaven-directed brow,</p>
+<p>And eyes that only seemed awake, whene'er</p>
+<p>Her face was fanned by summer evening's air.</p>
+<p>All day her limbs a weariness would feel,</p>
+<p>As if a slumber o'er her frame would steal;</p>
+<p>Nor could she wake her drowsy thoughts to care</p>
+<p>For day, or hour, or what she was, or where:</p>
+<p>Thus&#8212;lost in dreams, although debarred from sleep,</p>
+<p>While through her limbs a feverish heat would creep,</p>
+<p>A weariness, a listlessness, that hung</p>
+<p>About her vigour, and Life's powers unstrung&#8212;</p>
+<p>She did not feel the iron gripe of pain,</p>
+<p>But <i>thought</i> felt irksome to her heated brain;</p>
+<p>Sometimes the stately woods would float before her,</p>
+<p>Commingled with the cloud-piles brightening o'er her,</p>
+<p>Then change to scenes for ever lost to view,</p>
+<p>Or mock with phantoms which she never knew:</p>
+<p>Sometimes her soul seemed brooding on to-day,</p>
+<p>And then it wildly wandered far away,</p>
+<p>Snatching short glimpses of her infancy,</p>
+<p>Or lost in day-dreams of what yet might be.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Yes&#8212;through the labyrinth-like course of thought&#8212;</p>
+<p>Whate'er might be remembered or forgot,</p>
+<p>Howe'er diseased the dream might be, or dim,</p>
+<p>Still seemed the <i>Future</i> through each change to swim,</p>
+<p>All indefinable, but pointing on</p>
+<p>To what should welcome her when Life was gone;</p>
+<p>She felt as if&#8212;to all she knew so well&#8212;</p>
+<p>Its voice was whispering her to say "farewell;"</p>
+<p>Was bidding her forget her happy home;</p>
+<p>Was farther fleeting still&#8212;still beckoning her to come.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'She felt as one might feel who, laid at rest,</p>
+<p>With cold hands folded on a panting breast,</p>
+<p>Has just received a husband's last embrace,</p>
+<p>Has kissed a child, and turned a pallid face</p>
+<p>From this world&#8212;with its feelings all laid by&#8212;</p>
+<p>To one unknown, yet hovering&#8212;oh! how nigh!</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'And yet&#8212;unlike that image of decay&#8212;</p>
+<p>There hovered round her, as she silent lay,</p>
+<p>A holy sunlight, an angelic bloom,</p>
+<p>That brightened up the terrors of the tomb,</p>
+<p>And, as it showed Heaven's glorious world beyond,</p>
+<p>Forbade her heart to throb, her spirit to despond.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'But, who steps forward, o'er the glowing green,</p>
+<p>With silent tread, these stately groves between?</p>
+<p>To watch his fragile flower, who sees him not,</p>
+<p>Yet keeps his image blended with each thought,</p>
+<p>Since but for <i>him</i> stole down that single tear</p>
+<p>From her blue eyes, to think how very near</p>
+<p>Their farewell hour might be!</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p class="i18">'With silent tread</p>
+<p>Percy bent o'er his wife his golden head;</p>
+<p>And, while he smiled to see how calm she slept,</p>
+<p>A gentle feeling o'er his spirit crept,</p>
+<p>Which made him turn toward the shining sky</p>
+<p>With heart expanding to its majesty,</p>
+<p>While he bethought him how more blest <i>its</i> glow</p>
+<p>Than <i>that</i> he left one single hour ago,</p>
+<p>Where proud rooms, heated by a feverish light,</p>
+<p>Forced vice and villainy upon his sight;</p>
+<p>Where snared himself, or snaring into crime,</p>
+<p>His soul had drowned its hour, and lost its count of time.</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'The syren-sighs and smiles were banished now,</p>
+<p>The cares of "play" had vanished from his brow;</p>
+<p>He took his Mary's hot hand in his own,</p>
+<p>She raised her eyes, and&#8212;oh, how soft they shone!</p>
+<p>Kindling to fondness through their mist of tears,</p>
+<p>Wakening afresh the light of fading years!&#8212;</p>
+<p>He knew not why she turned those shining eyes</p>
+<p>With such a mute submission to the skies;</p>
+<p>He knew not why her arm embraced him so,</p>
+<p>As if she <i>must</i> depart, yet <i>could not</i> let him go!</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'With death-like voice, but angel-smile, she said,</p>
+<p>"My love, they need not care, when I am dead,</p>
+<p>To deck with flowers my capped and coffined head;</p>
+<p>For all the flowers which I should love to see</p>
+<p>Are blooming now, and will have died with me:</p>
+<p>The same sun bids us all revive to-day,</p>
+<p>And the same winds will bid us to decay;</p>
+<p>When Winter comes we all shall be no more&#8212;</p>
+<p>Departed into dust&#8212;next, covered o'er</p>
+<p>By Spring's reviving green. See, Percy, now</p>
+<p>How red my cheek&#8212;how red my roses blow!</p>
+<p>But come again when blasts of Autumn come;</p>
+<p><i>Then</i> mark their changing leaves, their blighted bloom;</p>
+<p>Then come to my bedside, then look at <i>me</i>,</p>
+<p>How changed in all&#8212;<i>except my love for thee</i>!"</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'She spoke, and laid her hot hand on his own;</p>
+<p>But he nought answered, save a heart-wrung groan;</p>
+<p>For oh! too sure, her voice prophetic sounded</p>
+<p>Too clear the proofs that in her face abounded</p>
+<p>Of swift Consumption's power! Although each day</p>
+<p>He'd seen her airy lightness fail away,</p>
+<p>And gleams unnatural glisten in her eye;</p>
+<p>He had not dared to dream that she could die,</p>
+<p>But only fancied his a causeless fear</p>
+<p>Of losing something which he held so dear;</p>
+<p>Yet&#8212;now&#8212;when, startled at her prophet-cries,</p>
+<p>To hers he turned his stricken, stone-like eyes,</p>
+<p>And o'er her cheek declined his blighted head.</p>
+<p>He saw Death write on it the <i>fatal red</i>&#8212;</p>
+<p>He saw, and straightway sank his spirit's light</p>
+<p>Into the sunless twilight of the starless night!</p></div>
+
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'While he sat, shaken by his sudden shock,</p>
+<p>Again&#8212;and with an earnestness&#8212;she spoke,</p>
+<p>As if the world of her Creator shone</p>
+<p>Through all the cloudy shadows of her own:</p>
+<p>"Come grieve not&#8212;darling&#8212;o'er my early doom;</p>
+<p>'Tis well that Death no drearier shape assume</p>
+<p>Than this he comes in&#8212;well that widowed age</p>
+<p>Will not extend my friendless pilgrimage</p>
+<p>Through Life's dim vale of tears&#8212;'tis well that Pain</p>
+<p>Wields not its lash nor binds its burning chain,</p>
+<p>But leaves my death-bed to a mild decline,</p>
+<p>Soothed and supported by a love like thine!"'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+My copy of the poem is illustrated with a portrait, by J. B. Leyland,
+in pen-and-ink, of the ideal Percy. The drawing is bold and effective;
+and, though not intended for an exact portrait of Branwell, bears some
+resemblance to him in general character. The sketch is signed,
+'Northangerland,' at the top; and, at the bottom, 'Alexander Percy,
+Esq.;' while the artist's name is discerned among the shadows which
+fall from the figure of Percy.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="XIV">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XIV.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+FAME AT HAWORTH.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Charlotte Corresponds on Literary Subjects&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Novels&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Confession of
+Authorship&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Failing Health&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He Writes to Leyland&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell
+and Mr. George Searle Phillips&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Intellect Retains its
+Power&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His Description of 'Professor Leonidas Lyon'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The latter
+Gentleman's Account of his Reading of 'Jane Eyre'&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Remarks
+on Charlotte and the Work.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+The early months of the year 1848 proved a severe trial for the Bront&#235;
+family, as they did to the whole of the Haworth villagers. Influenza
+and other ailments were prevalent, and the sisters did not escape the
+former: Anne, indeed, suffered from a severe cough, with some fever,
+and her friends became alarmed. The position of the parsonage in
+relation to the churchyard rendered it unhealthy; but, at the instance
+of Mr. Bront&#235;, a new grave-yard was opened in another place. He did
+not, however, succeed in his attempt to get a good supply of water
+laid on to each house.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte, at the time, was still in correspondence with Mr. Lewes and
+Mr. Williams, about the review of 'Jane Eyre' in 'Fraser's Magazine,'
+and about other literary subjects. She was still keeping the secret of
+the authorship of her book from her friends, putting off 'E.' with
+evasive letters, and wishing her to 'laugh or scold A&#8212;&#8212; out of the
+publishing notion.' 'Wuthering Heights' had not been received by the
+public with much favour, and we do not hear of any further literary
+work by Emily. But Charlotte was writing 'Shirley,' and Anne was going
+on with 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' despite a consumptive
+listlessness that was upon her, such as Branwell describes in the wife
+of 'Percy;' and, in her letter written in January, Anne told 'E.' that
+they had done nothing 'to speak of' since she was at Haworth; yet they
+contrived to be busy from morning till night. In the spring, however,
+when this friend visited the Bront&#235;s again, full confession of
+authorship was made, and the poems and novels were shown to her. The
+identity of Mr. Bront&#235;'s daughters with the 'Messrs. Bell,' had,
+however, been known to some, in connection with the poems, at an
+earlier date, and was occasionally spoken of, though the fact was not
+made public. Branwell himself was at home, quieter, but still failing
+in health and strength, for the constitutional taint, aided by his low
+spirits, and a bronchitis which had become chronic, was telling upon
+him.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' was submitted to the publisher of
+'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey,' and accepted by him in the June
+of this year. If the first works of Ellis and Acton Bell were
+undervalued because they were believed to be the earlier productions
+of the author of 'Jane Eyre,' Acton's new volume derived enhanced
+importance from being thought to be a production of the same hand.
+'Jane Eyre' had had a great run in America, and a publisher there had
+offered Messrs. Smith and Elder a high price for early sheets of the
+next work of its author, which they accepted. But the publishers of
+'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' believing that Acton Bell was but a
+second name assumed by Currer Bell, made a similar offer to another
+American house. This circumstance led to questions and explanations;
+and Charlotte and Anne determined to visit London, in order to assure
+Messrs. Smith and Elder that they were indeed distinct persons. The
+publishers were very much astonished to see the two delicate ladies,
+and they made them very welcome. Charlotte and Anne went to the Opera,
+they went to the Royal Academy and the National Gallery, and they
+visited Mr. Smith and Mr. Williams before returning to Haworth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+They found Branwell at home, physically the same as when they left
+him, gradually failing from the chronic bronchitis which had lasted
+through the summer, and with the perceptible wasting away of decline.
+Writing to his friend Leyland on July 22nd, he speaks of 'five months
+of utter sleeplessness, violent cough, and frightful agony of mind.'
+'Long have I resolved,' he continues, 'to write to you a letter of
+five or six pages, but intolerable mental wretchedness and corporeal
+weakness have utterly prevented me.' The letter is signed, 'Yours
+sincerely, but nearly worn out, P. B. Bront&#235;.' Charlotte attributed
+his illness to indulgence solely, and she had no suspicion that the
+end was but two months away. She writes on July 28th: 'Branwell is the
+same in conduct as ever. His constitution seems much shattered. Papa,
+and sometimes all of us, have sad nights with him. He sleeps most of
+the day, and consequently will lie awake at night. But has not every
+house its trial?'<a href="#note46" name="noteref46">
+<small>[46]</small></a> But Branwell's condition of health was not such
+as to keep him within doors, and there were revivals, as in Anne's
+case also, which permitted him to visit his friends. I spoke to him
+once in Halifax at the time, and he was often seen in the village of
+Haworth.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+An interesting episode occurred in August or September, for an account
+of which we are indebted to Mr. George Searle Phillips.<a href="#note47" name="noteref47">
+<small>[47]</small></a> We learn
+from it that, in the midst of physical decay and mental distress,
+Branwell's intellect retained its power to the last; and we learn also
+what pride he took in the works of his sisters, and in the reputation
+they had made. I can myself, from personal knowledge, endorse all that
+Mr. Phillips says as to Branwell's brilliancy of intellect at this
+time. When Charlotte and Anne went to London, they had assumed the
+name of Brown; but their real name and the place of their residence
+were communicated to some people, and it was not long before it became
+quietly known. Then began the stream of pilgrims to the shrine of
+genius at Haworth, which has continued from that day to this, and will
+for many more. One gentleman, indeed, at the time, stayed three days
+at Haworth, maintaining a close intimacy with Branwell, and we know,
+from Mr. Phillips' narrative, in what light Branwell looked upon the
+first-comers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Branwell,' says his friend, 'during the latter part of my
+acquaintance with him, was much altered for the worse, in his personal
+appearance; but if he had altered in the same direction mentally, as
+his biographer says he had, then he must have been a man of immense
+and brilliant intellect. For I have rarely heard more eloquent and
+thoughtful discourse, flashing so brightly with random jewels of wit,
+and made more sunny and musical with poetry, than that which flowed
+from his lips during the evenings I passed with him at the "Black
+Bull," in the village of Haworth. His figure was very slight, and he
+had, like his sister Charlotte, a superb forehead. But, even when
+pretty deep in his cups, he had not the slightest appearance of the
+sot that Mrs. Gaskell says he was. "His great tawny mane"&#8212;meaning
+thereby the hair of his head&#8212;was, it is true, somewhat dishevelled;
+but, apart from this, he gave no sign of intoxication. His eye was as
+bright, and his features were as animated, as they very well could be;
+and, moreover, his whole manner gave indications of intense
+enjoyment.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell described some of the characters in the novels, and talked
+much about his sisters, and especially about Charlotte, whose
+celebrity, he said, had already attracted more strangers to the
+village than had been known before; and Mr. Phillips gives the
+following account of the visit of one gentleman, an enthusiastic
+admirer of 'Jane Eyre,' whose somewhat eccentric personality he has
+veiled under the style and title of 'Leonidas Lyon, Professor of Greek
+in the London University':&#8212;
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'One evening, as we sat together in the little parlour of the Inn, the
+landlord entered, and asked Branwell if he would see a gentleman who
+wanted to make his acquaintance.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'"He's a funny fellow," said the landlord; "and is somebody, I dare
+swear, with lots of money."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'As the landlord spoke, a squat little dapper fellow, with a white fur
+hat on his head, an umbrella under his arm, and a pair of blue
+spectacles on his nose, strutted into the room <i>sans c&#233;r&#233;monie</i>.
+He approached the table in a very fussy and excited manner,
+exclaiming:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'"Landlord, bring us some brandy. I must have the pleasure of drinking
+a glass with the brother of that distinguished lady, who wrote the
+great book that made London blaze. Three glasses,&#8212;landlord&#8212;do you
+hear? And you, sir, are the great lady's brother, I presume? Professor
+Leonidas Lyon, sir, has the honour of introducing himself to your
+distinguished notice."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Branwell responded, gravely:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'"Patrick Branwell Bront&#235;, sir, has the honour of welcoming you to
+Haworth, and begging you to be seated."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Whereupon the little man bowed and scraped, and laughed a
+good-humoured laugh all over his good, round face, and said it was an
+honour he could not have hoped for, to sit as a guest at the same
+board, as he might say, "with the brother, the very flesh and blood,
+of the great lady who wrote the book."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Here the brandy and water came in, and the little man grew merrier
+still, and more communicative. He was a Professor of Greek at the
+London University, and, chancing to be at Smith's, the London
+publisher's, whose friend Williams was a "wonderful man of letters&#8212;a
+very wonderful man indeed!"&#8212;Williams asked the Professor if he had
+seen the book of the season&#8212;"the immense book," he called it&#8212;which
+was going to make one good reputation, and half a dozen fortunes. Mr.
+Williams praised it so highly that he (the Professor) grew wild about
+it, and asked where it could be got. Upon this, he threw a sovereign
+to pay for it, and ran home without his change, to read it. "It was
+prodigious, sir," he exclaimed.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The Professor went on in high praise of 'Jane Eyre,' and told Branwell
+and Mr. Phillips that his bed-time was ten o'clock, but that, when
+reading the book, he had sat on, completely absorbed, until six
+o'clock in the morning, when the housemaid came. Then he had retired
+to his own room, but, instead of going to bed, had sat on the edge of
+it, until he finished the story at ten <span class="sclc">A.M.</span> Branwell said
+this history of a Professor's reading of 'Jane Eyre' made him laugh
+'as if he would split his sides.' And when he told Charlotte about it
+the next day, she laughed heartily, too, as did the other sisters,
+when she went up stairs to tell them, and their laughter moved
+Branwell to renewed merriment.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'When the Professor's story was ended,' continues Mr. Phillips, 'he
+tried to cajole Branwell into introducing him to the "great lady" who
+wrote the book. He was dying to see her, he said, and had come all the
+way down into Yorkshire, from London, in the fond hope of getting a
+glimpse of her, and perhaps of touching the hem of her garment. When
+he found that Branwell fought shy of the proposition he actually
+offered him a large sum of money, and then, taking from his fob a
+valuable gold watch, laid it on the table, and said he would throw
+that in to boot, if he would only let him see her and shake hands with
+her&#8230;.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'Poor Branwell spoke of his sister in most affectionate terms, such as
+none but a man of deep feeling could utter. He knew her power, and
+what tremendous depths of passion and pathos lay hid in her great
+surging heart, long before she gave expression to them in "Jane Eyre."
+When she wrote the first chapters of her Richardsonian novel, he
+condemned the work as in opposition to her genius&#8212;which is good proof
+of his discrimination and critical judgment. But when "The Professor"
+was written, he said that was better, but that she could do better
+still; and, although it is not equal to "Jane Eyre," yet it is a work
+of great originality and dramatic interest.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'"I know," said Branwell, after speaking of Charlotte's talents, "that
+I also had stuff enough in me to make popular stories; but the failure
+of the Academy plan ruined me. I was felled, like a tree in the
+forest, by a sudden and strong wind, to rise no more. Fancy me, with
+my education, and those early dreams, which had almost ripened into
+realities, turning counter-jumper, or a clerk in a railway-office,
+which last was, you know, my occupation for some time. It simply
+degraded me in my own eyes, and broke my heart."
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'It was useless,' says Mr. Phillips, 'to remonstrate with him, and yet
+I could not help it, and did my best to rouse the sleeping energies
+within him to noble action once more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+'"It is too late," he said; "and you would say so, too, if you knew
+all." He used to be the oracle of the secluded household in earlier
+days&#8212;before the love of drink mastered him. His opinion was
+invariably sought for upon the literary performances of his sisters;
+but at the time I am now speaking of, he was a cipher in the house.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Such is the account given by Mr. Phillips of his friend; so different
+in its character from that which Mr. Grundy, and, following him, Miss
+Robinson, offer, in the incredible episode of the carving-knife and
+the slaying of the devil, unless we believe the incident&#8212;which that
+gentleman states to have taken place at this period, how erroneously
+we have seen&#8212;to have been acted, as is most probable, in grotesque
+humour.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+During the last two months of his life, Branwell became the object of
+much interest and received some homage; for, his sisters living
+secluded lives, he was generally the only member of the family
+accessible to the public. When he met with strangers, he invariably
+comported himself with becoming dignity, and did not lay himself open
+to the effects of their curiosity. Those who made his acquaintance
+were impressed, as Mr. Phillips was, with his great mental calibre,
+and with the grace and wit of his conversation. One gentleman&#8212;himself
+at the present time in the first place in one of the professions&#8212;who
+knew Branwell intimately, declares to me that he always believed the
+abilities of Charlotte's brother were such as might have placed him in
+the very front rank of literature.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="XV">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XV.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+DEATH OF BRANWELL.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Branwell's failing Health&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Chronic Bronchitis and Marasmus&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;His
+Death&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Charlotte's allusions to it&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Correction of some Statements
+relating to it&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Summary of the subsequent History of the Bront&#235;
+Family.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+The spring and summer of the year 1848 were wild, wet, and
+unfavourable, and the fine weather in August was of little benefit to
+Branwell. His appetite was diminished, and he was weaker. He was
+suffering, in addition to his chronic bronchitis, from marasmus, a
+consumptive wasting away, arising from hereditary tendency, as well as
+from mental agony and the effects of irregular life. However, neither
+himself nor his family, nor his medical attendants had any
+anticipation of immediate danger.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was not, indeed, altogether confined to the house, and he was in
+the village only two days before his death; but, on that occasion, his
+strength failed before he reached his home. William Brown, the
+sexton's brother, found him in the lane which leads up to the
+parsonage, quite exhausted, panting for breath, and unable to proceed.
+He was helped to the house, which he never again left alive.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In the last few days of his life, Branwell was more reconciled, more
+subdued, and better feelings filled his mind. The affection of his
+family returned undiminished, and they watched with intense anxiety
+the end of their cherished brother. The strange madness that had
+clouded his mind for so many months, left him now, and the simple
+thoughts and feelings of his early years came back to him again. He
+died on the morning of Sunday, September the 24th. He had talked
+through the night of his mis-spent life, his wasted youth, and his
+shame, with compunction. He was also filled with the
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Sense of past youth and manhood come in vain,</p>
+<p>Of genius given, and knowledge won in vain.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+His natural love likewise came out in beautiful and touching words,
+that consoled and satisfied those he was about to leave for ever.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Some time before the end, John Brown entered Branwell's room, and they
+were alone. The young man, though faint and dying, spoke of the life
+they had led together. He took a short retrospect of his past excesses,
+in which the grave-digger had often partaken; but in it he made no
+mention of the lady whose image had distracted his brain. He appeared,
+in the calmness of approaching death, and the self-possession that
+preceded it, to be unconscious that he had ever loved any but the
+members of his family, for the depth and tenderness of which affection
+he could find no language to express. But, presently, seizing Brown's
+hand, he uttered the words: 'Oh, John, I am dying!' then, turning, as
+if within himself, he murmured: 'In all my past life I have done
+nothing either great or good.' Conscious that the last moment was near,
+the sexton summoned the household; and retreated to the belfry. It was
+about nine in the morning when the agony began. Branwell's struggles
+and convulsions were great, and continued for some time: in the last
+gasp, he started convulsively, almost to his feet, and fell dead into
+his father's arms.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Mrs. Gaskell says, of this event: 'I have heard, from one who attended
+Branwell in his last illness, that he resolved on standing up to die.
+He had repeatedly said, that as long as there was life, there was
+strength of will to do what it chose; and, when the last agony began,
+he insisted on assuming the position just mentioned.' This account
+does not accord with that given to me by the Browns, and, perhaps, it
+arose from some exaggeration of what actually took place.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+On October the 9th, Charlotte writes thus of her brother's end: 'The
+past three weeks have been a dark interval in our humble home.
+Branwell's constitution has been failing fast all the summer; but
+still neither the doctors nor himself thought him so near his end as
+he was. He was entirely confined to his bed but for one single day,
+and was in the village two days before his death. He died, after
+twenty minutes' struggle, on Sunday morning, September 24th. He was
+perfectly conscious till the last agony came on. His mind had
+undergone the peculiar change which frequently precedes death, two
+days previously; the calm of better feelings filled it; a return of
+natural affection marked his last moments. He is in God's hands now;
+and the All-Powerful is likewise the All-Merciful. A deep conviction
+that he rests at last&#8212;rests well after his brief, erring, suffering,
+feverish life&#8212;fills and quiets my mind now. The final separation, the
+spectacle of his pale corpse, gave me more acute, bitter pain than I
+could have imagined. Till the last hour comes, we never know how much
+we can forgive, pity, regret a near relative. All his vices were and
+are nothing now. We remember only his woes. Papa was acutely
+distressed at first, but, on the whole, has borne the event well.<a href="#note48" name="noteref48">
+<small>[48]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+A few days later she wrote to another friend, speaking of her
+brother's death. 'The event to which you allude came upon us indeed
+with startling suddenness, and was a severe shock to us all&#8230;. I
+thank you for your kind sympathy. Many, under the circumstances, would
+think our loss rather a relief than otherwise; in truth, we must
+acknowledge, in all humility and gratitude, that God has greatly
+tempered judgment with mercy; but, yet, as you doubtless know from
+experience, the last earthly separation cannot take place between near
+relations without the keenest pangs on the part of the survivors.
+Every wrong and sin is forgotten then; pity and grief share the hearts
+and the memory between them. Yet we are not without comfort in our
+affliction. A most propitious change marked the last few days of poor
+Branwell's life &#8230; and this change could not be owing to the fear of
+death, for within half-an-hour of his decease he seemed unconscious of
+danger.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Charlotte concludes by referring to her own health, which had given
+way under the strain.<a href="#note49" name="noteref49">
+<small>[49]</small></a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Branwell was buried in the grave in which the remains of his sisters
+Maria and Elizabeth lay, and his name is placed next after theirs on
+the tablet. Thus, after twenty-three years, he joined in the dust
+those from whom in life he had never been separated in affection.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It would have been well if, when the grave closed over his mortal
+remains, it had buried in oblivion the memory of his failings and his
+sorrows. Charlotte, as we have seen, when her brother was gone,
+remembered nothing but his woes; and, if the biographers of herself
+and her sister Emily had consulted the feelings of those on whom they
+wrote&#8212;which have been so touchingly and tearfully expressed by
+Charlotte&#8212;they would have drawn the veil over whatever offences
+Branwell, as mortal, might have committed. But, amongst Mrs. Gaskell's
+other statements regarding him, there is one, relating even to his
+death, which cannot be passed over in silence here, since, though she
+had been compelled to omit it, with her other charges, from the second
+edition of her work, Miss Robinson has reproduced it recently in her
+'Emily Bront&#235;.' The statement was to the effect that, when Branwell
+died, his pockets were filled with the letters of the lady whom he had
+admired.<a href="#note50" name="noteref50">
+<small>[50]</small></a> To this bold statement Martha Brown gave to me a flat
+contradiction, declaring that she was employed in the sick-room at the
+time, and had personal knowledge that not one letter, nor a vestige of
+one, from the lady in question was so found. The letters were mostly
+from a gentleman of Branwell's acquaintance, then living near the
+place of his former employment. Martha was indignant at the
+misrepresentation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It may not be amiss here, in the briefest possible way, to give an
+outline of the subsequent history of the Bront&#235; family. Emily's health
+began rapidly to fail after Branwell's death, which was a great shock
+to her, and she never left the house alive after the Sunday succeeding
+it. Her cough was very obstinate, and she was troubled with shortness
+of breath. Charlotte saw the danger, but could do nothing to ward it
+off, for Emily was silent and reserved, gave no answers to questions,
+and took no remedies that were prescribed. She grew weaker daily, and
+the end came on Tuesday, December the 19th. At the same time Anne was
+slowly failing, but she lingered longer. 'Anne's decline,' said
+Charlotte, 'is gradual and fluctuating; but its nature is not
+doubtful.' Unlike Emily, she looked for sympathy, took medicines, and
+did her best to get well. It was arranged at last that Charlotte and
+she should go to Scarborough, hoping the change of air might
+invigorate her, and they left the parsonage on May the 24th, 1849. But
+the change had no beneficial effect, and Anne died on May the 28th, at
+Scarborough, where she was buried.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+After this the more purely literary portion of Charlotte's life
+commenced. She completed 'Shirley' early in September, 1849, and
+it was published on October the 26th. Her real name, and the
+neighbourhood in which she resided, became now generally known. The
+reviews showered rapidly; but Charlotte thought that one the best by
+Eug&#232;ne For&#231;ade, in the 'Revue des deux Mondes.' The cloud now passed
+away from her, and she visited London, made the acquaintance of
+Thackeray, Miss Martineau, and others, and entered eagerly into the
+occupations of literary life. 'Villette' was completed in November,
+1852. Charlotte married the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had long
+been her father's curate, on June the 29th, 1854, and she died on
+Saturday, March the 31st, 1855. The Rev. Patrick Bront&#235;, whom I knew,
+a fine, tall, grey-haired, and venerable old man, survived all his
+children, and died at Haworth on January 7th, 1861.
+</p>
+
+
+
+<a name="XVI">&nbsp;</a>
+<p class="chapter">
+CHAPTER XVI.
+</p>
+
+<p class="head">
+BRANWELL'S CHARACTER.
+</p>
+
+<p class="hang">
+Branwell's Character in his Poetry&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Pious and Tender Tone of
+ Mind which it Displays&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Branwell's Tendency to Dwell on the Past
+rather than on the Future&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Illustrated&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Sad Tone of his Mind
+&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;He is Inclined to be Morbid&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;The Way in which Branwell regarded
+Nature&#8204;&#8212;&#8204;Observations on the Character Displayed in his Works.
+</p>
+
+
+<p>
+It has often been observed that the life of a poet may best be learned
+from the works he has left behind him. We may fall into error in
+dealing with the circumstances of his external life, and may make
+mistakes as to chronology or facts, and, in this way, may be led often
+to form a false estimate of his character; but, if we discover the
+personality concealed in his writings, if we can grasp the hidden
+spirit by which they are informed, we shall be enabled to follow his
+heart in its cherished affections, to understand the characteristic
+tendency of his thoughts, and to comprehend even the very psychology
+of his soul. This enquiry, it is true, is often difficult in the
+extreme; one cannot always unravel the tangled mysteries in which
+natural expression is wrapped up, nor fully pierce the cloudy medium
+of conventionality or affectation through which it may be dimly
+revealed; it is especially difficult, also, to follow it in the works
+of a writer of a school like that of the Euphuists, or of Pope, where
+the medium is one of exaggerated refinement, or of classical and
+formal preciseness.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+But, with the writings of Branwell Bront&#235;, the case is entirely
+different; and for a very simple reason, viz., that everything he
+wrote proceeded from a personal inspiration, and was the direct
+expression of the fulness of emotion, and of vivid thoughts or
+feelings which could scarcely be hidden; because, in short, he wrote
+in the true artistic spirit of having something to say.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+If Branwell's affectionate nature led him to dwell upon the memories
+of his earlier years, and upon the thoughts of those dead sisters whom
+he had loved so much, he spoke in the voice of Harriet weeping for the
+departed Caroline; it needed but his remembrance of the fell disease
+that had deprived him of his sisters, and the fearful havoc which it
+was yet to work in his family, to inspire him with the sad fancy of
+his 'Percy Hall.' If he sank into the depths of morbid melancholy, and
+was filled with a consciousness of the worthlessness of ambition, the
+folly of pride, and the universality of sorrow, his sonnets were a
+natural expression, in which he found both relief and consolation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In his case it requires no Pheidian hand to bring out the statue from
+the marble, but only a sympathetic spirit, a heart filled with the
+affections of humanity, and a mind attuned to thoughts somewhat sad,
+to enable one to enter into every mood in which Branwell wrote, and to
+understand the moral and tender pathos that fills his works. It is
+because Branwell's poems are so fully expressive of his feelings at
+the time when they were written that they are so separately placed in
+this work. But, before we conclude it, it will be well to sum up, in a
+slight sketch, a few of the most characteristic features of his
+writings, and, in so doing, we shall arrive at a correct estimate of
+his disposition and of his poetry together.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The first thing, then, that strikes one in Branwell's verse, beginning
+at its youthful period, is the tone of piety that distinguishes it.
+The simple stanzas which he sent to Wordsworth, even, however
+worthless as poetry, are valuable, because they show us the early bent
+of his mind; and the beautiful lines which he wrote a year later, in
+1838, where he first manifests that consciousness of the vanity of
+earthly things, which his sister Anne also versified, tell us of the
+hope of a heavenly future, which is contrasted, in its serenity, with
+the evils of mortal life. The poem entitled 'Caroline's Prayer,' and
+the one 'On Caroline' also, simple though they are, are evidence of a
+devotional turn of mind; and mark again, in the longer poem of
+'Caroline,' how Harriet finds divine consolation in the calm of Nature:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Quiet airs of sacred gladness</p>
+<p class="i2">Breathing through these woodlands wild,</p>
+<p>O'er the whirl of mortal madness</p>
+<p class="i2">Spread the slumbers of a child;'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+and how tenderly she remembers the pious lessons which her dead sister
+had drawn from the sufferings of the Saviour of man, a recollection,
+let it be remembered, which Branwell himself preserved. A little later,
+we find Branwell occupied upon a long poem, of which we possess only
+a fragment, wholly sacred in its character, and moral in its
+purpose,&#8212;'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's Grave.' Here Noah, before
+the universal Deluge, in the presence even of the cloudy wall 'piled
+boding round the firmament,' harangues the people, bidding them
+withdraw from sin, ere it be too late. It is true, however, that in the
+later poems, when Branwell's mind is cast into its deepest gloom, this
+disposition is not so prominent, and, perhaps, can be gathered only
+from an abundance of tender touches, which could proceed from nothing
+but a devotional spirit; and thus we may infer that, though he might
+have lost some of his early piety, he never lost the effect of it.
+There is, besides, throughout Branwell's work, the evidence of a justly
+balanced morality, in that he nowhere exalts depraved passions, or
+manifests impiety, or, more than all, corrupts his readers with the
+painting of sensuous ideas, or the description of sensuous incidents.
+And I would ask the reader, in connection with this admirable
+characteristic of his poetry, to remember that he has never been
+charged with indulgence of the kind that has lured away too many men of
+genius and mental power.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The next thing that strikes me in Branwell's poetry is the strong love
+that he manifests for the past, which he seems to value more than the
+present, and whose pleasures he deems sweeter and purer than any the
+future can have in store. This tone of thought could be very well
+understood if we had regard to circumstances of the later period of his
+life, when despair had cut off hope; but it is just as prominent in the
+earliest poems he wrote. It would seem that, to the pensive mind of
+Branwell, all the thoughts of childhood, all the joys of youth and its
+affections, became, as years passed on, hallowed and exalted in the
+golden halo of recollection. There were places in the sanctity of the
+past where the roses of Bendemeer grew, unchanging ever; places to
+which he turned for the joys of memory, when solitude inclined him to
+reflection. These pleasures of memory were often of a pensive order,
+for they were connected with sorrowful events, or they were joys turned
+sorrowful, as joys will turn, when they have been long enough departed.
+In Branwell's letter to Wordsworth, and in his other letters, he
+expresses plenty of honest ambition, and talks bravely of work in the
+future; and he spoke in the same way also. But I have received from his
+poems the impression that this ambition grew from the requirements of
+circumstances, and from literary emulation; that, in fact, the
+constitution of Branwell's mind was of the gentle reflective nature to
+which the pleasures of ambition appear hollow and insufficient in
+themselves. At least it is clear that he dwelt with more satisfaction
+on the past than on the future. So far, indeed, as his poetry is
+concerned, we saw, in 'The End of All,' that it was only when loss made
+the past too painful for thought, that he turned to the stony joys of
+solitary ambition and personal fame. This seems to me to be a very
+tender trait in his character, however little it might fit him to fight
+the battle of life with those who looked for the joys of the future,
+rather than turned to pleasures they could actually taste no more.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+In Branwell's thoughtful moods, it required but the woodland sunshine,
+perhaps, or the sound of the distant bells, to bring back memories to
+him, as they brought back to Harriet, in the poem of 'Caroline,' many a
+scene of bygone days, opening the fount of tears, and waking memory to
+the thought
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Of visions sleeping&#8212;not forgot.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Thus, under the pensive influence, there passed over her
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'That swell of thought, which seems to fill</p>
+<p class="i2">The bursting heart, the gushing eye,</p>
+<p>While fades all <i>present</i> good or ill</p>
+<p class="i2">Before the shades of things gone by.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+It called up in her, also, the hours when Caroline, too, listening to
+the wild storms of winter, had filled the nights with pictures and
+feelings
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'From far-off memories brought.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+These treasures of memory, to which Branwell refers in many of his
+poems, were to him of a sacred nature, and might not be profaned. He
+tells us, indeed, in one of his sonnets, that the tears of affection
+are dried up by the growth of honours, and by the interests and
+pursuits of life, which
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Dim or destroy those holy thoughts which cling</p>
+<p>Round where the forms we loved lie slumbering.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+For the past was thus hallowed by Branwell, because in it lay his
+earliest affections, and his most poignant sorrows. I have had
+occasion, in speaking of several of the poems in this volume, to point
+out the love which he shows for his dead sisters, Maria and Elizabeth,
+and how he mourned them up to the last year of his life. For his
+disposition was of a deeply affectionate order. He has, indeed, painted
+for us too vividly, in both the poems of 'Caroline' and 'Percy Hall,'
+the pangs of separation, and the cheerless void that remains when the
+loved one has departed, to leave us any doubt as to the sensitiveness
+of his nature.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It will not have escaped the reader's attention that Branwell's muse
+sings often morbidly enough, and that,&#8212;like some spirit that cannot
+forsake the scene of its mortal sorrows, and haunts the place of its
+affliction&#8212;he dwells frequently upon details of a painful kind, that
+others would gladly have relegated to oblivion. In the poem of
+'Caroline,' the picture of his mother, clad in black, is still before
+his eyes; he remembers even the grave-clothes of his sister in her
+coffin, and
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Her <i>too</i> bright cheek all faded now;'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+the closing of the coffin lid, and the lowering of it into its narrow
+bed are yet before his eyes; and painfully he remembers his feeling at
+the grave-side:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'And wild my sob, when hollow rung</p>
+<p>The first cold clod above her flung.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+Later, though he was occupied with different subjects, Branwell could
+not entirely free himself from a morbid and painful analysis of the
+physical effects of the disease he dreaded so much; and very
+beautifully does he suggest the picture of consumptive decline and
+early decay.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This tone of thought, and the many misfortunes and gloomy forebodings
+that attended Branwell's later years, had a natural effect in giving a
+mournful cast to almost every emanation of his muse; and we find, in
+effect, throughout the poems here collected, that, save in one
+instance&#8212;'The Epicurean's Song'&#8212;which we feel to be the production of
+a moment of elation, there is scarcely a line that does not breathe a
+consciousness of sad regret, or of cruel and bitter sorrow.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+He was filled with the sense of the futility of human joy, and the
+abiding presence of woe:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'No! joy <i>itself</i> is but a shade,</p>
+<p class="i2">So well may its remembrance die,</p>
+<p>But cares, Life's conquerors, never fade,</p>
+<p class="i2">So strong is their reality.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+These sorrows, as years went by, grew so terrible in their crushing
+weight, that the mind could barely withstand them, and Branwell felt,
+in that period when his cry was for peace in death, that, when the
+light of life is gone,
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'There come no sorrows crowding on,</p>
+<p class="i2">And powerless lies Despair.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+With Branwell, indeed, as with Mary in his poem of 'Percy Hall,'
+'thought felt irksome to the heated brain.'
+</p>
+
+<p>
+It was then that oblivion became to him a coveted relief from immediate
+woe, and that he envied the dreamless head of the wandering,
+water-borne corpse, whose rolling bed seemed calmer than the turmoil of
+the world.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+This figure of the body rocked by the waves of ocean, brings me to a
+consideration of the way in which Branwell regarded Nature, which had
+something very noteworthy in it. It was always remarked by his friends
+that the young poet was a great observer, and took an especial pleasure
+in the works of Nature. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising, at first
+sight, that, in his poems, he does not dwell upon them descriptively or
+in a marked manner, and that we have to infer, from certain suggestive
+touches and pictures&#8212;which do, indeed, speak more plainly than words
+could&#8212;that he observed them at all. But we learn that the works of
+Nature had for Branwell a deeper significance than for most people,
+that he conceived they had some mysterious sympathy or unspeakable
+connection with human affections, and were, in a manner, the expression
+or immediate reflection of the Deity. Wordsworth, Southey, and
+Coleridge had already looked upon Nature somewhat in this wise; but it
+would be a mistake to suppose that Branwell imitated them: his thoughts
+flow too swiftly and impetuously to admit of such a conclusion. It is
+possible that, if his life had passed calmly, he might have dwelt upon
+the simple beauties of Nature, and found in them a homely harmony with
+familiar ideas; Charlotte and Anne in their poetry scarcely get beyond
+this; but it was different with Emily and Branwell. Emily, with her
+reserved, passionate nature, had a sympathetic spell in the solitary
+moorland; and Branwell, labouring with his sorrows, found, in the
+wildest storms, a being with whom he must battle, or saw, in the mighty
+mountains, an image of unbroken strength and everlasting fortitude,
+such a power as he must strive after and make his own. But, in
+Branwell's earlier poems, this influence is not so marked, and his muse
+is simply attuned to the saddened thoughts in which Nature
+participates. Thus Wordsworth had sung:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Fancy, who leads the pastimes of the glad,</p>
+<p>Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw;</p>
+<p>Sending sad shadows after things not sad,</p>
+<p>Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe:</p>
+<p>Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry</p>
+<p>Becomes an echo of man's misery.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+And thus we see, in Branwell's 'Caroline,' how, even in its calmness,
+the beautifully suggested picture of eve&#8212;when the sunlight slants, and
+the waters cease their motion, and the calm and hush tell of rest from
+labour&#8212;is made to harmonize with the plaintive thoughts of Harriet.
+But then comes the more significant question:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Why is such a silence given</p>
+<p class="i2">To this summer day's decay,</p>
+<p>Does our earth feel aught of Heaven,</p>
+<p class="i2">Can the voice of Nature pray?'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+What, in short, is the harmonious and sympathetic spell that breathes
+through Nature?
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The wild places of the earth, mountains and moorlands, where the storms
+raged, and the great winds blew, were nearest akin to the Titanic
+genius of Branwell and Emily. Thus, in the sonnet, the everlasting
+majesty of Black Comb was held up by Branwell as an example to man, and
+as a contrast to human feebleness; and later, when his woe was most
+acute, he was drawn into a 'communion of vague unity' with Penmaenmawr,
+comparing the living, beating heart of man with the stony hill, and
+begging,
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'Let me, like it, arise o'er mortal care,</p>
+<p>All woes sustain, yet never know despair,</p>
+<p>Unshrinking face the griefs I now deplore,</p>
+<p>And stand through storm and shine like moveless Penmaenmawr.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+And, lastly, in the 'Epistle from a Father to a Child in her Grave,' we
+find him comparing himself with one in the midst of wild mountains:
+</p>
+
+<div class="poem">
+<div class="stanza">
+<p>'I, thy life's source, was like a wanderer breasting</p>
+<p>Keen mountain winds, and on a summit resting,</p>
+<p>Whose rough rocks rise above the grassy mead,</p>
+<p>With sleet and north winds howling overhead.'</p></div></div>
+
+<p>
+It will be seen from this short inquiry that the poetry of Branwell
+Bront&#235; was entirely introspective, having, almost to the last line,
+some direct reference to his own thoughts or feelings; and that it
+may thus be read as an actual part of the story of his life. The
+disposition it reveals, though often hidden, as the readers of this
+book know, through the effects of folly and indulgence, was one of a
+singularly gentle, affectionate, and sympathetic character; passionate
+and unstable, it is true, but a disposition, nevertheless, that has
+been frequently misunderstood, and not seldom wronged. One of the aims
+of this book has been to set Patrick Branwell Bront&#235; right with the
+public; an attempt, not to clear him from follies and weaknesses that
+really were his&#8212;which the public, but for the mistakes of biographers,
+would never have known&#8212;but to show that, at any rate, his nature was
+one rather to be admired than condemned. It has aimed also, by the
+publication of his poetical writings, to demonstrate that his genius is
+not unworthy to be ranked with that which made his sisters famous. Yet
+it may, perhaps, be held that the poems here published contain more of
+rich promise than of real fulfilment, rather the earnest of literary
+success than the actual accomplishment of it. But, in reading the
+poetry of Branwell Bront&#235;, which is so uniformly sad, it may be well to
+remember what Mr. Swinburne has said, in speaking of Mr. Browning, that
+'to do justice to any book which deserves any other sort of justice
+than that of the fire or waste-paper basket, it is necessary to read it
+in a fit frame of mind.'
+</p>
+
+
+<br>
+<p class="ctr">
+THE END.
+</p>
+
+<p class="ctr">
+<small>LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE
+</small></p>
+
+
+<hr class="med">
+
+<p class="ctr">
+Footnotes
+</p>
+<br>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note1" href="#noteref1">&nbsp;&nbsp;[1]</a>  'Pictures of the Past,' p. 83.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note2" href="#noteref2">&nbsp;&nbsp;[2]</a>  'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note3" href="#noteref3">&nbsp;&nbsp;[3]</a>  'Emily Bront&#235;,' p. 102.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note4" href="#noteref4">&nbsp;&nbsp;[4]</a>  'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' <i>Hours at
+Home</i>, chap. xi., p. 204.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note5" href="#noteref5">&nbsp;&nbsp;[5]</a>  'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note6" href="#noteref6">&nbsp;&nbsp;[6]</a>  'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' <i>Hours at
+Home</i>, xi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note7" href="#noteref7">&nbsp;&nbsp;[7]</a>  'Charlotte Bront&#235;,' by T. Wemyss Reid, chap. vi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note8" href="#noteref8">&nbsp;&nbsp;[8]</a>  'Charlotte Bront&#235;, a Monograph.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note9" href="#noteref9">&nbsp;&nbsp;[9]</a>  'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xiii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note10" href="#noteref10">[10]</a> The condition into which Branwell fell at this period is
+one very well-known to mental physiologists. Thus Carpenter speaks of
+it: 'In most forms of monomania, there is more or less of disorder
+in the <i>ideational</i> process, leading to the formation of positive
+<i>delusions</i> or <i>hallucinations</i>, that is to say, of fixed beliefs or
+dominant ideas which are palpably inconsistent with reality. These
+delusions, however, are not attributable to original perversions of
+the reasoning process, but arise out of the perverted <i>emotional
+state</i>. They give rise, in the first place, to <i>misinterpretation of
+actual facts</i> or <i>occurrences</i>, in accordance with the prevalent state
+of the feelings.'&#8212;'Principles of Mental Physiology,' (1874), p. 667.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note11" href="#noteref11">[11]</a> 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note12" href="#noteref12">[12]</a> 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note13" href="#noteref13">[13]</a> 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note14" href="#noteref14">[14]</a> 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xiii., 1st edition.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note15" href="#noteref15">[15]</a> 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. v., 1860 edition.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note16" href="#noteref16">[16]</a> 'Charlotte Bront&#235;, a Monograph,' chap. vii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note17" href="#noteref17">[17]</a> A gentleman with whom I have recently conversed, who knew
+this lady personally, on seeing the first edition of Mrs. Gaskell's
+'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' expressed his astonishment at the 'gross
+form of the libel,' of which he had had no conception. He had good
+reason for entirely disbelieving the stories, for which Mrs. Gaskell
+was responsible, relating to the lady in question.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note18" href="#noteref18">[18]</a> Branwell here speaks of an accident which had happened
+to one part of the monument referred to above.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note19" href="#noteref19">[19]</a> Charlotte Bront&#235; told her friend 'Mary,' that Branwell had
+appropriated Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway.'
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note20" href="#noteref20">[20]</a> Mr. Grundy has assigned the date of this letter to within
+a few months of January, 1818; but, from internal evidence, it is clear
+that it belongs really to the period I have named.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note21" href="#noteref21">[21]</a> 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' <i>Hours at
+Home</i>, xi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note22" href="#noteref22">[22]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xiii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note23" href="#noteref23">[23]</a> 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note24" href="#noteref24">[24]</a> 'George Eliot's Life, as related in her Letters and
+Journals,' arranged and edited by her husband, J. W. Cross, 1885, vol.
+i., p. 441.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note25" href="#noteref25">[25]</a> 'The Mirror,' 1872.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note26" href="#noteref26">[26]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap, xiii., 1st.
+edit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note27" href="#noteref27">[27]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap, xiii., 1st.
+edit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note28" href="#noteref28">[28]</a> Robinson's 'Emily Bront&#235;,' p. 145.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note29" href="#noteref29">[29]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap, xiii., 1st
+edit.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note30" href="#noteref30">[30]</a> 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 89.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note31" href="#noteref31">[31]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xiv.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note32" href="#noteref32">[32]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. ix.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note33" href="#noteref33">[33]</a> 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 89.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note34" href="#noteref34">[34]</a> 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 90.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note35" href="#noteref35">[35]</a> 'Pictures of the Past,' pp. 90-92.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note36" href="#noteref36">[36]</a> Vol. xxviii, p. 54. 1873.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note37" href="#noteref37">[37]</a> It should be stated, perhaps, that one recent newspaper
+writer, possibly with the intention of discrediting any claim that
+might be set up for Branwell's authorship of 'Wuthering Heights,' has
+drawn from the depths of his memory, or, possibly, of his imagination,
+a story that Branwell had read to him, as his own, the plot of
+'Shirley.' But, since 'Shirley' was not commenced very many months
+before Branwell's death, and since he had been in his grave a year
+when it was published, it is obviously impossible that he can ever
+have desired to draw to himself the praise which was bestowed upon it.
+And this ingenious writer has adopted, curiously enough, almost the
+phraseology of Mr. Dearden's account, published eighteen years ago,
+saying, 'he took from his hat, the usual receptacle, &#38;c.,' which
+suggests an impression of unconscious plagiarism.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note38" href="#noteref38">[38]</a> 'Pictures of the Past,' by Francis H. Grundy, C.E. 1879,
+p. 80.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note39" href="#noteref39">[39]</a> Lecture by Mr. T. Wemyss Reid.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note40" href="#noteref40">[40]</a> 'Wuthering Heights,' chap. xxxiii.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note41" href="#noteref41">[41]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. ix.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note42" href="#noteref42">[42]</a> T. Wemyss Reid's 'Charlotte Bront&#235;, a Monograph,' chap.
+vii., p. 83.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note43" href="#noteref43">[43]</a> Itinerary, vol. 5, p. 83.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note44" href="#noteref44">[44]</a> Inquisition <i>post mortem</i> of Thomas Leyland of the
+Morleys, co. Lanc., Esq. (Yorkshire lands) taken at Bradford, co.
+York, 11th Sept., 6 Eliz.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note45" href="#noteref45">[45]</a> 'The White Rose of York,' 1834, pp. 226-229.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note46" href="#noteref46">[46]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xvi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note47" href="#noteref47">[47]</a> 'Branwell Bront&#235;,' <i>The Mirror, a reflex of the World's
+Literature</i>, 1872.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note48" href="#noteref48">[48]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xvi.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note49" href="#noteref49">[49]</a> 'Charlotte Bront&#235;: a Monograph,' by T. Wemyss Reid, p.
+90.
+</p>
+
+<p class="fn">
+<a name="note50" href="#noteref50">[50]</a> Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bront&#235;,' chap. xvi. 1st Ed.
+</p>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Brontë Family, Vol. 2 of 2, by 
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+
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+Project Gutenberg's The Bronte Family, Vol. 2 of 2, by Francis A. Leyland
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Bronte Family, Vol. 2 of 2
+       with special reference to Patrick Branwell Bronte
+
+Author: Francis A. Leyland
+
+Release Date: October 25, 2011 [EBook #37844]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BRONTE FAMILY, VOL. 2 OF 2 ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by StevenGibbs and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
+
+
+
+
+
+
+THE BRONTE FAMILY
+
+WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
+
+PATRICK BRANWELL BRONTE
+
+
+VOL. II.
+
+
+BY
+
+FRANCIS A. LEYLAND.
+
+
+IN TWO VOLUMES.
+
+VOL. II.
+
+
+LONDON:
+HURST AND BLACKETT, PUBLISHERS,
+13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
+1886.
+
+_All rights reserved._
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+OF
+
+THE SECOND VOLUME.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+The Sojourn in Brussels Resolved upon--Why Charlotte fixed on
+Brussels for Higher Education--Charlotte and Emily take up
+their Residence with Madame Heger--A Picture of the Prospect
+in 'Villette'--At the Pensionnat--Madame Heger--Monsieur
+Heger--Charlotte likes Brussels--Her Contrast between the
+Belgians and the English--Death of Miss Branwell--Return to
+Haworth                                                             1
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+Branwell at the Parsonage: his Loneliness--'The Epicurean's
+Song'--'Song'--Northangerland--'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's
+Grave'--Letter to Mr. Grundy--Miss Branwell's Death--Her Will--Her
+Nephew Remembered--Injustice done to Him in this Matter by the
+Biographers of his Sisters                                         20
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+Christmas, 1842--Branwell is Cheerful--Charlotte goes to Brussels
+for another Year--Branwell receives Appointment as Tutor--Branwell
+visits Halifax, and meets Mr. Grundy there--Charlotte's Mental
+Depression in Brussels--Mrs. Gaskell attributes it to Branwell's
+Conduct--Proofs that it was Not so--Charlotte's 'Disappointment'
+at Brussels--She returns to Haworth--Branwell's Misplaced
+Attachment--He is sent away to New Scenes                          33
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+Branwell after his Disappointment--Parallel for his State of Mind
+in that of Lady Byron--Mrs. Gaskell's Misconceptions--True State of
+the Case--Charlotte Illustrates it in her Poem of 'Preference'--
+She alludes to Branwell's Condition in 'The Professor'--Mrs.
+Gaskell Compelled to Omit her Account in the Later Editions of
+her Work--Branwell's Prostration and Ill-health at the Time        53
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+Review of Branwell's past Experiences of Life--He seeks Relief
+in Literary Occupation--He Proposes to Write a Three-volume
+Novel--His Letter on the Subject--One Volume Completed--His
+Capability of Writing a Novel--His Letter to Mr. Grundy on his
+Disappointment                                                     78
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+'Real Rest'--Comments--Spirit of Branwell and Emily Identical--
+Letter to Leyland--Branwell Broods on his Sorrows--'Penmaenmawr'
+--Comments--He still Searches and Hopes for Employment--Charlotte's
+somewhat Overdrawn Expressions--The Alleged Elopement Proposal--
+Probable Origin of the Story                                       94
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+The Sisters as Writers of Poetry--They Decide to Publish--Each
+begins a Novel--The Spirit under which the Work was Undertaken--
+'The Professor'--'Agnes Grey'--'Wuthering Heights'--Branwell's
+Condition--A Touching Incident--'Epistle from a Father to a Child
+in her Grave'--Letter with Sonnet--Publication of the Sisters'
+Poems                                                             113
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+Death of Branwell's late Employer--Branwell's Disappointment--His
+Letters--His Delusion--Leyland's Medallion of Him--Mr. Bronte's
+Blindness--Branwell's Statement to Mr. Grundy in Reference to
+'Wuthering Heights'--The Sisters Relinquish the Intention of
+Opening a School                                                  138
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Branwell's Sardonic Humour--Mr. Grundy's Visit to him at
+Haworth--Errors regarding the Period of it--Tragic Description
+--Probable Ruse of Branwell--Correspondence between him and
+Mr. Grundy ceases--Writes to Leyland--A Plaintive Verse--
+Another Letter                                                    160
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+'Wuthering Heights'--Reception of the Book by the Public--It
+is Misunderstood--Its Authorship--Mr. Dearden's Account--
+Statements of Mr. Edward Sloane and Mr. Grundy--Remarks by Mr.
+T. Wemyss Reid--Correspondences between 'Wuthering Heights'
+and Branwell's Letters--The 'Carving-knife Episode'--Further
+Correspondences--Resemblances of Thought in Branwell and
+Emily                                                             178
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in
+consequence of her Brother's Conduct--Supposition of Some that
+Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon--The Characters are
+Entirely Distinct--Real Sources of the Story--Anne Bronte at
+Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of
+Branwell                                                           216
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+Novel-writing--The Sisters' Method of Work--Branwell's Failing
+Health and Irregularities--'Jane Eyre'--Its Reception and
+Character--It was not Influenced by Branwell--Letter and Sketches
+of Branwell, 1848                                                 229
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+Branwell's Poetical Work--Sketch of the Materials which he
+intended to use in the Poem of 'Morley Hall'--The Poem--The
+Subject left Incomplete--Branwell's Poem, 'The End of All'--His
+Letter to Leyland asking an Opinion on his Poem, 'Percy Hall'
+--Observations--The Poem                                          242
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+Charlotte Corresponds on Literary Subjects--Novels--Confession
+of Authorship--Branwell's Failing Health--He Writes to Leyland
+--Branwell and Mr. George Searle Phillips--Branwell's Intellect
+Retains its Power--His Description of 'Professor Leonidas
+Lyon'--The latter Gentleman's Account of his Reading of 'Jane
+Eyre'--Branwell's Remarks on Charlotte and the Work               264
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+Branwell's failing Health--Chronic Bronchitis and Marasmus--His
+Death--Charlotte's allusions to it--Correction of some Statements
+relating to it--Summary of the subsequent History of the Bronte
+Family                                                            277
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+Branwell's Character in his Poetry--The Pious and Tender Tone
+of Mind which it Displays--Branwell's Tendency to Dwell on the
+Past rather than on the Future--Illustrated--The Sad Tone of his
+Mind--He is Inclined to be Morbid--The Way in which Branwell
+regarded Nature--Observations on the Character Displayed in
+his Works                                                         287
+
+
+
+
+THE BRONTE FAMILY.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+CHARLOTTE AND EMILY IN BRUSSELS.
+
+The Sojourn in Brussels Resolved upon--Why Charlotte fixed on
+Brussels for Higher Education--Charlotte and Emily take up their
+Residence with Madame Heger--A Picture of the Prospect in 'Villette'
+--At the Pensionnat--Madame Heger--Monsieur Heger--Charlotte likes
+Brussels--Her Contrast between the Belgians and the English--Death
+of Miss Branwell--Return to Haworth.
+
+
+It was more than a month before Charlotte received the reply from her
+Aunt Branwell. Meanwhile she had waited patiently, pending the anxious
+discussions at the parsonage, and she breathed not a single word of
+the great project to her friend. It was her way to work in obscurity,
+and to let her efforts 'be known by their results.' But at last, as I
+have said, consent was given to her plan; the necessary money was
+forthcoming; and it only remained for her to make the arrangements for
+her journey, and Emily had arrangements to make also. There was much
+of letter-writing to do, letters to Brussels--whither Charlotte would
+of all cities prefer to go,--and to many other places; and there were
+clothes to make, and farewells to be said.
+
+It was a great disappointment to Charlotte,--when, having left her
+situation at Christmas, 1841, she came to Haworth to join the family
+circle,--that Branwell could not be there, and it troubled him very
+much too. But the plans were talked over, the letters were written,
+and Charlotte did not repent her boldness,--nay, she looked forward
+confidently to the venture. It seems a strange ambitious plan to us,
+and one showing little knowledge of the world, this of spending six
+months in Brussels, in that short time to become thoroughly acquainted
+with French, to be improved in Italian, and get a dash of German; and,
+so provided with accomplishments, to set up a successful school at
+Burlington,--for the Dewsbury Moor project had already been
+relinquished.
+
+Brussels was fixed upon by Charlotte for several reasons: because it
+was a cheap journey, because education could be had there at any rate
+as good as at any other place in Europe, and perhaps better; and then,
+Mary and Martha T----, her friends, were staying at Brussels at the
+Chateau de Kokleberg, and Mary, with Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the
+English chaplain, would find the desired _pensionnat_. But there
+was a temporary disappointment: it was reported that the schools in
+Brussels were not good; and Charlotte immediately set to work to
+discover another establishment, which was found at Lille--one that
+Baptist Noel recommended, where the terms were L50 for each pupil. It
+had been at last arranged that Charlotte and Emily should journey to
+this place, about the middle of February, 1842, under the escort of
+Madame Marzials, a lady then in London, when again the plans were
+changed. Mrs. Jenkins, the chaplain's wife, had discovered, to
+Charlotte's great delight, the establishment of Madame Heger in the
+Rue d'Isabelle, at Brussels, which was greatly eulogized, and thither
+it was finally decided that the two sisters could go.
+
+Charlotte went to Brussels with a stout heart and in perfect
+confidence, and she left no regrets behind her; but it was not so
+with Emily. The elder sister was cast in a different mould from the
+younger; there was a spice of adventure in her composition, and the
+pleasure, too, of seeing new places was keen. It had been said to her
+by some inward voice, as to Lucy Snowe, who is the truest portrait
+of Charlotte, 'Leave this wilderness, and go out hence;' and she
+answered the query, 'Where?' with a sharp determination; and went out
+to enter into the spirit of the things she met, wherever her mental
+constitution would enable her to do so. 'For background,' she says
+of her journey in 'Villette,' 'spread a sky, solemn and dark blue,
+and--grand with imperial promise, with tints of enchantment--strode
+from north to south a God-bent bow, an arch of hope:' but that was to
+be struck out. 'Cancel that, reader--or rather let it stand, and draw
+thence a moral--an alliterative, text-hand copy:
+
+    '"Day-dreams are delusions of the demon."'
+
+So was Charlotte to be disillusioned. But what a fairyland had she
+fashioned to herself of that gay Belgian capital, and what painful
+memories she brought thence! For, according to Mr. Wemyss Reid,--and
+doubtless he is right--her stay in Brussels with Emily, and afterwards
+alone, was the turning-point in Charlotte's career, and the record of
+it in 'Villette' was wrung from her as her heart's blood, amid
+paroxysms of positive anguish. But of these things she knew nothing in
+the January of 1842; then the future slept in sunny calm, so sunny,
+indeed, that to part from Haworth, and those she knew there, her
+father and her brother and sister, gave her scarcely a pang; and
+afterwards, so far as one can trace, from her letters, and from
+'Villette,' which expresses even more, the troubles of the parsonage
+were never acute troubles to her. Her joys and troubles abroad were in
+fact her own, and they were borne and suffered alone.
+
+But, with Emily, Haworth was no wilderness, a paradise rather, and
+with bitter pain she left the moors that the coming summer should
+cover with purple billows. For Emily Bronte was inspired far more than
+her sister with the influences of locality and of her home. Amidst the
+distant Yorkshire hills dwelt, too, her father, with Branwell and
+Anne, whom she loved more than all else in the world; and many an
+hour, sitting in the bare rooms of the _pensionnat_, she pondered
+on their hopes and their sorrows. We cannot say that Emily's sojourn
+in Brussels changed her in any way whatever, nor that she was made by
+it of any nearer kinship with the outside world.
+
+Mr. Bronte accompanied his daughters, and Mary and her brother, who
+travelled with them to Brussels. They stayed a day or two in London,
+at the Chapter coffee-house in Paternoster Row, and a good deal of
+sight-seeing was done before they left for the Belgian capital. In
+'Villette' Charlotte has told us of her first visit to London, and of
+the travelling to Labassecour, but the actual details refer more
+probably to her second journey thither. Yet we may feel sure that it
+was with the same spirit that she saw the metropolis, that she
+revelled in its busy life and in the earnestness that moved it. We may
+imagine her on the dome of St. Paul's looking over the river with its
+bridges, and, alongside it, the Temple Gardens, and Westminster
+beyond; and we may see her in the classic ground of Paternoster Row.
+Emily has left no record of her feelings on this journey, but we may
+be sure they differed very much from Charlotte's. We have an account
+in 'The Professor' of William Crimsworth's feelings when he entered
+Belgium, and they were doubtless Charlotte's also. 'This is Belgium,
+reader. Look! don't call the picture flat or a dull one--it was
+neither flat nor dull to me when I first beheld it. When I left Ostend
+on a fine February morning, and found myself on the road to Brussels,
+nothing could look vapid to me. My sense of enjoyment possessed an
+edge whetted to the finest; untouched, keen, exquisite.... Liberty I
+clasped in my arms for the first time, and the influence of her smile
+and embrace revived my life like the sun and the west wind.'
+
+It was proposed at the time that the two sisters should remain in the
+_pensionnat_ until the _grandes vacances_ in September, when they were
+to return home. They were in Brussels then to work, and the boisterous
+schoolgirls found no companions in them, for they remained together
+for a long time, and read and studied apart. These two sisters did not
+easily make friends; they were shy, and their companions thought them
+peculiar--Charlotte, clad in her plain, home-made dress, and Emily,
+with her gigot sleeves and long, straight skirts, walking in the
+garden together. Mrs. Jenkins told Mrs. Gaskell that she asked them to
+spend Sundays and holidays with her, but at last she found that even
+these visits gave them more pain than pleasure, and thenceforth they
+remained away. This reserve never passed from Emily entirely, but
+Charlotte afterwards gained confidence and made friends.
+
+There were memories, as Mrs. Gaskell records, connected with Madame
+Heger's house in the Rue d'Isabelle, of mediaeval chivalry and romance,
+which are doubtless reflected in the visits of the nun to the
+_grenier_ and the old garden where Lucy Snowe is. From the gay, bright
+Rue Royale four flights of steps lead down to the Rue d'Isabelle, and
+the chimneys of its houses are level with one's feet as one stands at
+the top of them. The quiet street was called the Fosse aux Chiens in
+the thirteenth century, because the ducal kennels were there, on the
+site of Madame Heger's house; but these gave place later to a hospital
+for the homeless and the poor. Afterwards the Arbaletriers du Grand
+Serment had their place there, and noble company visited them, and
+great ceremonials and feasts they gave. Later again the street was
+called the Rue d'Isabelle, because the Infanta Isabella induced the
+Arbaletriers to allow a road to be made through their grounds, and
+built them in return a noble mansion close by, which was afterwards
+Madame Heger's.
+
+William Crimsworth saw the establishment. 'I remember, before entering
+the park, I stood awhile to contemplate the statue of General
+Belliard, and then I advanced to the top of the great staircase just
+beyond, and I looked down into a narrow back street, which I
+afterwards learnt was called the Rue d'Isabelle. I well recollect that
+my eye rested on the green door of a rather large house opposite,
+where, on a brass plate, was inscribed, "Pensionnat de Demoiselles."'
+
+Madame Heger, the mistress of this _pensionnat_, was a woman of
+capacity, and understood the duties of her position, but apparently
+Charlotte did not get on very well with her, and in the second year of
+the residence in Brussels they were estranged. It was said that the
+_directrice_ had 'quelque chose de froid et de compasse dans son
+maintien,' which did not prepossess people in her favour; and
+Charlotte, it appears, had little tolerance of her beliefs or her
+prejudices. Monsieur Heger, unlike his wife, was of a quick and
+energetic nature, choleric and irritable in temperament, but withal
+gentle and benevolent also. It was said that there were few characters
+so noble and admirable as his, that he was a zealous member of the
+Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and that, after days occupied in
+arduous educational work, he was wont to gather the poor together in
+order that he might amuse and instruct them at the same time. He gave
+up his lucrative position, too, as prefect of the studies at the
+Athenee because he could not succeed in introducing religious
+instruction into the curriculum there. Very many traits of Monsieur
+Heger's character are reproduced in that of Paul Emanuel.
+
+The school was a large and prosperous one, conducted as continental
+schools usually are, and Charlotte, in a short time, was happy in the
+busy life she led there. She has left an admirable picture, a
+veritable photograph, of the establishment in the pages of 'Villette,'
+which indeed contains her mental history during her sojourn there. The
+training through which she and Emily were put was different from that
+of the other pupils. Monsieur Heger was quick to perceive that they
+were capable of greater things than most people, so he took the bold
+step of putting them to the higher walks of French literature,
+omitting the general work of grammar and vocabulary; and his
+experiment was justified by its success.
+
+Charlotte and Emily, with one other girl and the _governante_ of
+Madame Heger's children, were the only exceptions to the Catholicism
+of the house, and the Brontes found that this difference cut them off
+in sympathy from the rest of the inhabitants. 'We are completely
+isolated in the midst of numbers,' says Charlotte; but she adds, 'I
+think I am never unhappy; my present life is so delightful, so
+congenial to my own nature, compared with that of a governess. My
+time, constantly occupied, passes too rapidly.' We do not find that
+news from home gave her trouble, nor that she was particularly uneasy
+in her absence. 'I don't deny,' she says later, 'that I have brief
+attacks of home-sickness; but, on the whole, I have borne a very
+valiant heart so far; and I have been happy in Brussels, because I
+have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like.'
+
+Charlotte's happiness at this time was in herself. She lived in bright
+anticipation of the time when it should be possible to the sisters to
+open a school, which was to be the reward of their arduous studies,
+and of that love for work and that perseverance of which Monsieur
+Heger spoke in his letter to Mr. Bronte, written when Charlotte and
+Emily were called to Haworth. Lucy Snowe in 'Villette' tells of such
+hopes; of the tenement which she shall take, with its one large room
+and two or three smaller ones; of the few benches and desks, the black
+tableau, and the _estrade_, with its chair, tables, chalks, and
+sponge, where she shall teach the day-scholars. 'Madame Beck's
+commencement was--as I have often heard her say--from no higher
+starting-point, and where is she now?' This was the hope which Lucy
+Snowe repeated to Monsieur Paul, and it pleased him, though he called
+it 'an Alnaschar dream.' But it was the salt of Charlotte's life
+during the first months of her residence in Brussels.
+
+Brussels was liked by Charlotte, and she calls it a beautiful city;
+and she liked the country about it, though it differed so much from
+her own hilly Haworth. But she did not like its inhabitants; the
+Belgians were to her people of a lower order; she could not enter into
+their pleasures, and she did not understand them. Charlotte, with her
+restricted views of life, came into the midst of strangers; she found
+them different from her ideal, and she was repulsed by them. The two
+books in which she has recorded her impressions of the Belgians are
+occupied with a frequent contrast of 'the daughter of Albion and
+nursling of Protestantism' with 'the foster-child of Rome, the
+protegee of Jesuitry,' always to the disadvantage of the latter.
+Mesdemoiselles Eulalie, Hortense, and Caroline in 'The Professor,'
+and Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Virginie, and Angelique in 'Villette,'
+are Charlotte's types of the Belgian female--heavy, stolid,
+unimpressionable to good, sensual, gross, and unintellectual. The
+Labasse-couriennes were 'a swinish multitude,' not to be driven by
+force; 'whenever a lie was necessary for their occasions, they brought
+it out with a careless ease and breadth, altogether untroubled by
+any rebuke of conscience;' and they were cold, animal, and selfish.
+Nevertheless, occupied in her duties, Charlotte was happy, even with
+these companions. We have no actual means of knowing what Emily
+thought of them, for her life amongst them was never reproduced in
+her writings, and it made but little permanent impression upon her.
+Charlotte said that her sister worked 'like a horse,' and that she
+did not get on well with Monsieur Heger.
+
+The two sisters had now friends in Brussels, for they sometimes saw
+Mary and Martha T---- who were staying there at the Chateau de
+Kokleberg, and these young ladies had cousins in the city, whose house
+was often a pleasant meeting-place. But Emily made little progress
+with these friendships.
+
+The _grandes vacances_ began in September, but Charlotte and Emily did
+not return home then as had been intended; all was well at Haworth,
+and there was no reason why they should. Madame Heger made a proposal
+that they should remain six months more, Charlotte as English teacher,
+and Emily to instruct some pupils in music; and they were to continue
+their studies and have board without payment, but they were offered no
+salary. These terms were at last accepted, and the sisters remained
+through the long _vacances_ with a few boarders who were also there,
+and Charlotte, at least, was happy.
+
+But a year later, when the rooms of the _pensionnat_ were once
+more deserted, and Emily far away in the parsonage at Haworth, there
+can be no doubt that she became again subject to that melancholia
+which had previously been remarked in her when she was at Miss
+Wooler's. The excitement of her first sojourn at Brussels wore off,
+she found no novelty in the things she saw, and she was left to
+solitary reflection a great deal. But her melancholy began with
+herself. 'My youth is leaving me,' she said to Mary; 'I can never do
+better than I have done, and I have done nothing yet,' and she seemed
+at such times, according to this friend, 'to think that most human
+beings were destined by the pressure of worldly interests to lose one
+faculty and feeling after another, till they went dead altogether. I
+hope I shall be put in my grave as soon as I'm dead; I don't want to
+walk about so,' she added. Mary advised her to go home or elsewhere,
+when she was in this state, for the sake of change, and Charlotte
+thanked her for the advice, but did not take it.
+
+'That vacation! Shall I ever forget it? I think not,' says Lucy
+Snowe.... 'My heart almost died within me; miserable longings strained
+its cords. How long were the September days! How silent, how lifeless!
+How vast and void seemed the desolate premises! How gloomy the
+forsaken garden,--grey now with the dust of a town summer departed!'
+To Lucy Snowe the future gave no promise of comfort; and a sorrowful
+indifference to existence often pressed upon her,--a 'despairing
+resignation to reach betimes the end of all things earthly.' She found
+the future but a hopeless desert: 'tawny sands, with no green fields,
+no palm-tree, no well in view.' And these were the thoughts, too, that
+oppressed Charlotte Bronte in Brussels and sorely weighed her down. It
+was in one of these fits of depression, overcome with melancholy, that
+she found consolation in the confessional, when she poured her tale of
+solitary sorrow into the ear of a priest--a Pere Silas, like him in
+'Villette,' who spoke of peace and hope to Lucy Snowe.
+
+Troubles of another kind had, however, broken in sadly enough on the
+close of Charlotte's first _vacances_ in Brussels in 1842, when
+she and Emily were greatly shocked by the death of Martha T---- at the
+Chateau de Kokleberg, after a very short illness. This was a great
+grief to the little circle in Brussels, for the dead girl had been a
+bright and affectionate companion,--bewailed under the name of Jessie
+in 'Shirley,'--and she was deeply lamented. But another grief awaited
+the Bronte sisters; they heard that their aunt Branwell was ill,--was
+dead; they were wanted at home; and at once, after very hasty
+preparation, they left Brussels, Emily not to return. They came back
+to the parsonage at Haworth, to find the funeral over, and the house
+deprived of one who had been its support and guardian for years.
+
+Thus their stay in Brussels was suddenly cut short, and their studies
+were interrupted; but they had learned a good deal during their stay
+there. Monsieur Heger wrote to console Mr. Bronte on his loss; and
+said that in another year the two girls would have been secured
+against the eventualities of the future. They were being instructed,
+and, at the same time, were acquiring the art of instruction: Emily
+was learning the piano, and receiving lessons from the best Belgian
+professors; and she had little pupils herself. 'Elle perdait donc a la
+fois un reste d'ignorance et un reste plus genant encore de timidite.'
+Charlotte was beginning to give French lessons, and to gain 'cette
+assurance, cet aplomb si necessaire dans l'enseignement.' It was this
+kind letter from Monsieur Heger that afterwards induced Mr. Bronte to
+allow Charlotte to return to Brussels.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+OTHER POEMS.
+
+Branwell at the Parsonage: his Loneliness--'The Epicurean's
+Song'--'Song'--Northangerland--'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's
+Grave'--Letter to Mr. Grundy--Miss Branwell's Death--Her Will--Her
+Nephew Remembered--Injustice done to Him in this Matter by the
+Biographers of his Sisters.
+
+
+During the absence of his sisters Charlotte and Emily in Brussels, and
+while Anne was away as a governess, Branwell no doubt felt lonely at
+the parsonage at Haworth; but he appears to have sought consolation
+from his troubles in the soothing influences of music and poetry. He
+knew that these employments softened many of the difficulties that
+beset the road of human life, and that they introduced men into a
+purer and nobler sphere than that which is called reality. He felt
+that they led 'the spirit on, in an ecstasy of admiration, of sweet
+sorrow, or of unearthly joy, to the music of harmonious, and not
+wholly intelligible words, raising in the mind beauteous and
+transcendent images.' Whatever may have been said as to Branwell's
+proneness to self-indulgence, and his enjoyment of society, even that
+of 'The Bull,' and of the corrupt of Haworth, none of his alleged
+depravity and coarseness of disposition disfigured his verses, however
+deficient his early effusions may have been in the higher excellencies
+of the Muse. From the general tenor of his writings, which is
+religious and sometimes philosophical, he seems, under his
+misfortunes, which were ever with him in one shape or another, to have
+sought consolation in the shadowed paths of poetry and reflection.
+
+Some lights now and then diversify the general gloom of his stanzas;
+but, even then, an air of sadness still pervades them. More I shall
+find to say on the special features of Branwell's poems in the later
+pages of the present work.
+
+He wrote the following verses in 1842:
+
+    THE EPICUREAN'S SONG.
+
+    'The visits of Sorrow
+      Say, why should we mourn?
+    Since the sun of to-morrow
+      May shine on its urn;
+        And all that we think such pain
+        Will have departed,--then
+    Bear for a moment what cannot return;
+
+    'For past time has taken
+      Each hour that it gave,
+    And they never awaken
+      From yesterday's grave;
+        So surely we may defy
+        Shadows, like memory,
+    Feeble and fleeting as midsummer wave.
+
+    'From the depths where they're falling
+      Nor pleasure, nor pain,
+    Despite our recalling,
+      Can reach us again;
+        Though we brood over them,
+        Nought can recover them,
+    Where they are laid, they must ever remain.
+
+    'So seize we the present,
+      And gather its flowers,
+    For,--mournful or pleasant,--
+      'Tis all that is ours;
+        While daylight we're wasting,
+        The evening is hasting,
+    And night follows fast on vanishing hours.
+
+    'Yes,--and we, when night comes,
+      Whatever betide,
+    Must die as our fate dooms,
+      And sleep by their side;
+        For _change_ is the only thing
+        Always continuing;
+    And it sweeps creation away with its tide.'
+
+Here Branwell, writing, contrary to his custom, in a gay mood, forgets
+the failures of the past, diverting his mind from them by seeking
+serenity in the diversions which now and then lighten his path. He is
+perfectly conscious of the fleeting nature of earthly things; and,
+with that natural and felicitous faculty of versification with which
+his images and figures are invariably described, he invests the
+Epicurean with the hopes of the Optimist, or with the indifference of
+the Stoic to the shadows which ever and anon dim the pleasures of
+human existence. There is nothing assuredly in this lyric of the
+'pulpit twang,' to which Miss Robinson refers, nor is it a 'weak and
+characterless effusion.'
+
+To the year 1842 belongs the following song which in feeling reminds
+one of Burns' 'Auld Lang Syne.' The subject, however, is distinct, and
+is pervaded by a profound sentiment of enduring affection, and is
+expressive of the deepest feeling in reference to it.
+
+    SONG.
+
+    'Should life's first feelings be forgot,
+      As Time leaves years behind?
+    Should man's for ever changing lot
+      Work changes in the mind?
+
+    'Should space, that severs heart from heart,
+      The heart's best thoughts destroy?
+    Should years, that bid our youth depart,
+      Bid youthful memories die?
+
+    'Oh! say not that these coming years
+      Will warmer friendships bring;
+    For friendship's joys, and hopes, and fears,
+      From deeper fountains spring.
+
+    'Its feelings to the _heart_ belong;
+      Its sign--the glistening eye,
+    While new affections on the _tongue_,
+      Arise and live and die.
+
+    'So, passing crowds may _smiles_ awake
+      The passing hour to cheer;
+    But only old acquaintance' sake
+      Can ever form a tear.'
+
+Leyland was himself a poet, as I have said, and a literary critic of
+ability and judgment. Branwell submitted some poems to him for
+opinion, and he advised his friend to publish them with his name
+appended, rather than under the pseudonym of 'Northangerland,' for he
+considered them creditable to his genius. But Branwell, on July 12th,
+1842, writing to Leyland, asking some technical questions, says, in a
+postscript, 'Northangerland has so long wrought on in secret and
+silence that he dare not take your kind encouragement in the light
+which _vanity_ would prompt him to do.'
+
+On August 10th, 1842, he wrote to Leyland in reference to a monument,
+which that sculptor had recently put up at Haworth, and he concluded
+by saying:
+
+'When you see Mr. Constable--to whom I shall write directly,--be
+kind enough to tell him that--owing to my absence from home when it
+arrived, and to the carelessness of those who neglected to give it me
+on my return,--I have only _now_ received his note. Its injunctions
+shall be gladly attended to; but he would better please me by
+refraining from any slurs on the fair fame of Charles Freeman or
+Benjamin Caunt, Esquires.'
+
+Branwell did not lose his early interest in the 'noble science,' but
+continued it with a half-serious constancy. Constable and Leyland
+regarded the pugilistic encounters of the 'Ring' as brutal and
+degrading, but Branwell always professed to defend its champions with
+energy and zeal; and in this letter he playfully alludes to two of
+them. Among his literary labours of the year 1842 is the following
+poem. It is entitled:
+
+    NOAH'S WARNING OVER METHUSALEH'S GRAVE.
+
+    'Brothers and men! one moment stay
+      Beside your latest patriarch's grave,
+    While God's just vengeance yet delay,
+      While God's blest mercy yet can save.
+
+    'Will you compel my tongue to say,
+      That underneath this nameless sod
+    Your hands, with mine, have laid to-day
+      The _last_ on earth who walked with God?
+
+    'Shall the pale corpse, whose hoary hairs
+      Are just surrendered to decay,
+    Dissolve the chain which bound our years
+      To hundred ages passed away?
+
+    'Shall six-score years of warnings dread
+      Die like a whisper on the wind?
+    Shall the dark doom above your head,
+      Its blinded victims darker find?
+
+    'Shall storms from heaven _without_ the world,
+      Find wilder storms from hell _within_?
+    Shall long-stored, late-come wrath be hurled;
+      Or,--will you, can you turn from sin?
+
+    'Have patience, if too plain I speak,
+      For time, my sons, is hastening by;
+    Forgive me if my accents break:
+      Shall _I_ be saved and _Nature_ die?
+
+    'Forgive that pause:--one look to Heaven
+      Too plainly tells me, he is gone,
+    Who long with me in vain had striven
+      For earth and for its peace alone.
+
+    'He's gone!--my Father--full of days,--
+      From life which left no joy for him;
+    Born in creation's earliest blaze;
+      Dying--himself, its latest beam.
+
+    'But he is gone! and, oh, behold,
+      Shown in his death, God's latest sign!
+    Than which more plainly never told
+      An Angel's presence His design.
+
+    'By it, the evening beams withdrawn
+      Before a starless night descend;
+    By it, the last blest spirit born
+      From this beginning of an end;
+
+    'By all the strife of civil war
+      That beams within yon fated town;
+    By all the heart's worst passions there,
+      That call so loud for vengeance down;
+
+    'By that vast wall of cloudy gloom,
+      Piled boding round the firmament;
+    By all its presages of doom,
+      Children of men--Repent! Repent!'
+
+This poem has also the impress of sadness, but the onward sweep and
+dignity of its verse are not ruffled by the turbulent undercurrents of
+Branwell's mood. The idea of the piece is well borne out in majestic
+and suitable language, though some instances of that incoherence and
+indefiniteness which, at intervals, distinguish the earlier poems of
+his sisters, may be noticed in it.
+
+In the latter part of the year 1842 the state of Miss Branwell's
+health became a cause of anxiety to the Bronte family. Acquainted as
+they had been, in years gone by, with sickness and death, they
+sorrowed, in anticipation of the inevitable loss of the lady, who had
+been for long years as a mother to them. Under the shadow which spread
+over their home, Branwell wrote to his friend--Mr. Grundy--referring
+to it, saying that he was attending the death-bed of his aunt who had
+been for twenty years as his mother. In another letter to Mr. Grundy,
+of the 29th of October, Branwell thus alludes in affectionate terms to
+her death:
+
+'I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two nights witnessing
+such agonizing suffering as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure;
+and I have now lost the pride and director of all the happy days
+connected with my childhood. I have suffered such sorrow since I last
+saw you at Haworth, that I should not now care if I were fighting in
+India or ----, since, when the mind is depressed, danger is the most
+effectual cure. But you don't like croaking, I know well, only I
+request you to understand from my two notes that I have not forgotten
+_you_, but _myself_.'[1]
+
+        [1] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 83.
+
+Charlotte and Emily hurried home from Brussels on the death of their
+aunt, as is stated in the last chapter, to find her already interred.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell, alluding to the death of Miss Branwell, has given the
+following version of that lady's will. She says:
+
+'The small property which she (Miss Branwell) had accumulated, by dint
+of personal frugality and self-denial, was bequeathed to her nieces.
+Branwell, her darling, was to have had his share; but his reckless
+expenditure had distressed the good old lady, and his name was omitted
+in her will.'[2]
+
+        [2] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xi.
+
+Miss Robinson, implicitly, and without reflection, following this
+author, says:
+
+'Miss Branwell's will had to be made known. The little property that
+she had saved out of her frugal income was all left to her three
+nieces. Branwell had been her darling, the only son, called by her
+name; but his disgrace had wounded her too deeply. He was not even
+mentioned in her will.'[3]
+
+        [3] 'Emily Bronte,' p. 102.
+
+Miss Elizabeth Branwell had made her will in the year 1833 (when her
+nephew was about fifteen years of age), by which she left the
+following items to the children of Mr. Bronte:--
+
+    To Charlotte, an Indian Workbox.
+
+    To Emily Jane, a Workbox with China top, and an Ivory Fan.
+
+    To Branwell, a Japanese Dressing-case.
+
+    To Anne, her Watch, Eye Glass, and Chain.
+
+Amongst these three nieces, her rings, silver spoons, books, clothes,
+&c., were to be divided as their father should think proper. Her
+money, arising from various sources, she left in trust for the benefit
+of her nieces, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Bronte, and Elizabeth Jane,
+the daughter of her sister, Jane Kingston, to be equally divided among
+them, when the youngest should have attained the age of twenty-one
+years. But, if these died, all was to go to her niece, Anne Kingston,
+and if she died, the accumulated money was to be divided between the
+children of her 'dear brother and sisters.' Had Branwell, who was one
+of these 'children,' survived his own sisters, and the cousin referred
+to in the will, he would have been one, if not the sole, recipient of
+the accumulated money in question. This contingency was present to
+Miss Branwell's mind when she made the bequest, and it was never
+either altered or revoked.
+
+It is amazing that so much ignorance should have been displayed on a
+subject so easily capable of being correctly stated; but it is
+lamentable that this ignorance should have led the biographers of the
+Brontes, by erroneous statements, to inflict additional and unmerited
+injury on Branwell.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+A MISPLACED ATTACHMENT.
+
+Christmas, 1842--Branwell is Cheerful--Charlotte goes to Brussels for
+another Year--Branwell receives Appointment as Tutor--Branwell visits
+Halifax, and meets Mr. Grundy there--Charlotte's Mental Depression in
+Brussels--Mrs. Gaskell attributes it to Branwell's Conduct--Proofs
+that it was Not so--Charlotte's 'Disappointment' at Brussels--She
+returns to Haworth--Branwell's Misplaced Attachment--He is sent away
+to New Scenes.
+
+
+The death of Miss Branwell had brought Charlotte and Emily home from
+Brussels; and Anne, from her situation, was present on the sad
+occasion. When the Christmas holidays came round, the sisters were all
+at home again. Branwell was with them; which was always a pleasure at
+that time, and Charlotte's friend, 'E,' came to see her. Having
+overcome the first pang of grief on the death of their aunt, they
+enjoyed their Christmas very much together. Branwell was cheerful and
+even merry; and in Charlotte's next letter, written in a happy mood
+to her friend, who had just left them, he sent a playful message.
+'Branwell wants to know,' says Charlotte, 'why you carefully excluded
+all mention of him, when you particularly send your regards to every
+other member of the family. He desires to know in what he has offended
+you? Or whether it is considered improper for a young lady to mention
+the gentlemen of a house?'[4] While they were together, plans for
+the future were talked over with eagerness and hope. Charlotte had
+accepted the proposal of Monsieur Heger that she should return to
+Brussels for another year, when she would have completed her knowledge
+of French and be fully qualified to commence a school on a footing
+which was yet impossible. Emily was to remain at home now to attend to
+her father's house, and Anne was to return to her situation as
+governess.
+
+        [4] 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Bronte,' _Hours at
+        Home_, chap. xi., p. 204.
+
+Branwell also found occupation as tutor in the same family where Anne
+had been for some time employed. He commenced his duties, in his new
+position, after the Christmas holidays of the year 1842. On his
+arrival at the house of his employer, he was introduced to the members
+of the family; and it is not too much to say that his new friends were
+more than satisfied with his graceful manners, his wit, and the extent
+of his information. Here Branwell felt himself happy; for, contrary to
+his expectation, he had found, to his mind, a pleasant pasture, with
+comparative ease, where he had only looked for the usual drudgery of a
+tutor's work. His family were contented that he was thus respectably
+and hopefully employed. The gentleman, who had engaged Branwell as
+tutor to his son, was a man of some literary attainments; he was fond
+of rural sports, and had an urbane disposition, and quick perceptions.
+His wife was a lady of lofty bearing, of graceful manners, and kindly
+condescension; and, although approaching middle age at the time, was
+possessed of great personal attractions.
+
+If the Brontes were glad at Branwell's appointment, the family he had
+entered were equally gratified that they had obtained a teacher whose
+talents they considered to be equalled only by his virtues. The time
+of his master, who was a clergyman, was often taken up with the duties
+and engagements of his position, and his lady was generally occupied
+with the cares of home and the enjoyments of fashionable country life.
+Branwell was not, therefore, too much harassed in the discharge of his
+duties; and he found, in the family in which he was placed, none of
+the rigid formality which might have rendered his position irksome.
+His occupation was varied by many rambles in the neighbourhood with
+his pupil; and, in the evening, after the duties of the day were
+discharged, when he retired to the farmstead where he lived, his time
+was entirely at his own disposal.
+
+Unlike Anne, Branwell was not troubled with an excess of diffidence.
+Being naturally of an amiable and sociable disposition, he soon formed
+acquaintances in the neighbourhood of his sojourn, and among them was
+Dr. ----, physician to the family in which he was a tutor. Besides,
+being possessed of a fund of anecdote, combined with an entertaining
+manner of relating stories, that alone made him excellent company,
+Branwell was found to be a thorough musician, for he had further
+cultivated this taste and acquired considerable skill in performance.
+
+Six months soon passed away, and Branwell and Anne once more made the
+parsonage at Haworth happy with their presence. One of Branwell's
+first impulses, after his welcome at home, was to visit his friends at
+Halifax; where, on this occasion, he had the pleasure of meeting with
+Mr. Grundy. On the return of himself and his sister to their duties,
+there is no doubt that he continued the exertions he had made to
+conduct himself with such prudent diligence and self-possession as to
+ingratiate himself into the good favour of the family with whom he
+resided.
+
+Charlotte was in the Rue d'Isabelle as English teacher; where, having
+gained a familiarity with the French language, though growing
+home-sick and not well, she resolved to remain till the end of the
+year; and, if possible, to acquire a knowledge of German.
+
+It was at the beginning of August, as the _vacances_ approached,
+that Charlotte became dispirited. The prospect of five weeks of
+loneliness in a deserted house, in a foreign city, was more than she
+could bear: the last English friend was leaving Brussels: she would
+have no one to whom she could turn her thoughts. 'I forewarn you, I am
+in low spirits,' she writes,--'that earth and heaven are dreary and
+empty to me at this moment.' For the first time in her life she really
+dreaded the vacation; 'Alas,' she says, 'I can hardly write, I have
+such a dreary weight at my heart; and I do so wish to go home. Is not
+this childish?' Yet she was bravely resolved, despite her weakness, to
+bear up, to stay; but for Charlotte Bronte, as for Lucy Snowe, those
+September days were days of suffering. Once, a little later, her
+resolution failed her. She was alone, on some holiday; the other
+inmates had gone to visit their friends in the city; Charlotte had
+none there now. She was solitary, and felt herself neglected by Madame
+Heger; she could bear it no longer, so she went to madame herself and
+told her she could not stay; but Monsieur Heger, hearing of it, with
+characteristic vehemence, pronounced his decision that she should not
+leave, and she remained.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell describes her suffering from depression of mind, arising
+from ill-health, in her second year at Brussels, in gloomy terms, and
+this seems, indeed, to be the main point she is aiming to illustrate.
+She says: 'There were causes for distress and anxiety in the news from
+home, particularly as regarded Branwell. In the dead of the night,
+lying awake at the end of the long deserted dormitory, in the vast and
+silent house, every fear respecting those whom she loved, and who were
+so far off in another country, became a terrible reality, oppressing
+her and choking up the very life-blood in her heart. Those nights were
+times of sick, dreary, wakeful misery, precursors of many such in
+after years.'[5] Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, in his monograph on Charlotte,
+has very properly taken exception to the manner in which Mrs. Gaskell
+has laid stress upon and exaggerated the occasional depression from
+which Charlotte suffered; and, certainly, there is nothing to show, in
+any of her letters from Brussels, that there was cause for anxiety on
+Branwell's account. On the contrary, there is very good evidence that
+nothing of the kind interfered with his sister's peace. Charlotte left
+Brussels at the end of the year 1843, and arrived at Haworth on the
+2nd of January, 1844. Branwell and Anne were also at home for the
+Christmas holidays, and Charlotte wrote to her friend 'E' in these
+words: 'Anne and Branwell have just left us to return to ----; they
+are both wonderfully valued in their situations.'[6]
+
+        [5] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xii.
+
+        [6] 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Bronte,' _Hours at
+        Home_, xi.
+
+It was known, then, that Branwell had given satisfaction to his
+employers, and the happiness at this reunion of the family would have
+been complete had it not been for one circumstance. Charlotte's
+friends were now expecting that she would commence a school. She
+desired it, she says, above all things. She had sufficient money for
+the undertaking, and hoped she had some qualifications for success.
+Yet she could not then enter upon it. 'You will ask me, why?' she
+writes. 'It is on papa's account; he is now, as you know, getting old,
+and it grieves me to tell you that he is losing his sight. I have felt
+for some months that I ought not to be away from him; and I feel now
+it would be too selfish to leave him (at least so long as Branwell and
+Anne are absent) in order to pursue selfish interests of my own.' She
+appears, from an observation in one of her letters, written some time
+after the date at which we have arrived, to have regretted having gone
+to Brussels a second time. She says, 'I returned to Brussels after
+aunt's death against my conscience, prompted by what then seemed an
+irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish folly by a total
+withdrawal for more than two years of happiness and peace of mind.'[7]
+While Charlotte was still at Brussels she heard that some of her
+friends thought that the '_epoux_ of Mademoiselle Bronte' must be
+on the Continent, since she had declined a situation of L50 a year in
+England, and accepted one at L16, and returned to Belgium. This she
+appears, in a letter to one of them, to deny; though, whether with the
+intention of piquing her friend, or avoiding the question, is not
+distinct. Mr. Reid believes that, in this second sojourn at Brussels,
+Charlotte Bronte passed through an experience of the heart which
+proved the turning-point of her life, and made her what she was; and
+that it was not the subsequent misfortunes of her brother, as Mrs.
+Gaskell asks us to believe, that destroyed the happiness of her
+existence.[8]
+
+        [7] 'Charlotte Bronte,' by T. Wemyss Reid, chap. vi.
+
+        [8] 'Charlotte Bronte, a Monograph.'
+
+In the middle of March, when the sisters had finished 'shirt-making
+for the absent Branwell,' Charlotte took a holiday to visit her
+friend, by which her health was improved. On her return she found Mr.
+Bronte and Emily well, and a letter from Branwell, intimating that he
+and Anne were pretty well, too.
+
+Branwell visited Halifax on the 4th of July of this year. His health
+at that time was not so good as formerly, and his sisters noticed that
+he was excitable. Till within two or three months of his leaving
+Luddenden Foot, when he had attained his twenty-fifth year, though not
+strong, he had enjoyed good health, his spirits having almost always
+been good. In his youth, unlike Charlotte, he had had no experience of
+severe mental depression, no deep suffering from religious melancholy.
+It was only when he turned to reflection that he became serious, and
+that his thoughts were shaded with the sadness evinced in some of his
+early poems. Now, however, his nerve-force was less certain; and,
+being more easily excited, that exuberance of spirit and that
+elasticity of mind which had distinguished him showed symptoms of
+decay. It was not to be expected that he should retain his more
+youthful characteristics through life: and Charlotte has told us,
+about this time, that something within herself, which used to be
+enthusiasm, was tamed down and broken; she longed for an active stake
+in life. As she was unable to leave home, she endeavoured to open a
+School at Haworth Parsonage. Could she have obtained the promise of
+pupils, she proposed to build a wing to the house; but, after meeting
+with more or less encouragement, she found that it was quite
+impossible to induce anyone by preference to send children to a place
+so much exposed to wind and weather. The sisters were not sorry they
+had tried; and, it has been unjustifiably suggested, did not regret
+too much, that they had failed, because they had fears and
+apprehensions respecting Branwell, and thought that the place that
+might be his abode could scarcely be fitted for the home of the
+children of strangers. Branwell and Anne were at home again for the
+Christmas of 1844, and they returned to their duties early in the
+following January. In the course of that month Charlotte writes,
+
+'Branwell has been quieter and less irritable, on the whole, than he
+was in the summer.'[9]
+
+        [9] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xiii.
+
+At this time there was no fear of his leaving his employment, and no
+fear that he would be dismissed from it; but a certain excitability
+and fitfulness of manner, a disposition to pass suddenly from gaiety
+to moody disquietude, which Anne had observed in her brother, had
+attracted, also, as has been seen, the serious attention of the other
+sisters, who were alarmed by it, and wondered greatly what the cause
+might be. And, indeed, a change had been coming over Branwell, for six
+months or more, a change which in the beginning had scarcely been
+understood by himself. A new feeling had impressed itself upon his
+heart that he had never experienced before, and against which he
+strove in vain. Branwell, in fact, who had never yet loved beyond the
+confines of his own home, had conceived an infatuated admiration for
+the wife of his employer, which afterwards, with his warm feelings,
+became a deep affection, and finally developed into a fierce and
+over-mastering passion. The lady who had dazzled and confused his
+understanding, as will presently appear, was unaware of the effect she
+had thus produced on the heart of the tutor, and he began to mistake
+her kindly, condescending manners for a return of his affection, an
+illusion which, as the sequel will show, he nursed to the very end of
+his life. Under this peculiar aberration of his mind, he cherished the
+hope that, as his employer was in feeble health, he might ere long be
+in a position to marry the widow, whom he believed to have already
+bestowed her affections upon him; when, being in easy circumstances,
+and possessed, as he termed it, of 'the priceless affluence of
+enduring peace,' he should be abler as he often declared, undisturbed
+by the usual perturbations of literary life, to make sure progress,
+and win for himself a name among the best authors of the day.
+
+But at this period of his life Branwell is not known to have written
+much verse, his mind being otherwise occupied. The two following
+beautiful sonnets, however, are from his pen, dated May, 1845, and
+are, together, entitled:
+
+    THE EMIGRANT.
+
+    'When sink from sight the landmarks of our home,
+      And,--all the bitterness of farewells o'er,--
+    We yield our spirit unto ocean's foam,
+      And in the new-born life which lies before,
+      On far Columbian or Australian shore,
+    Strive to exchange time past for time to come:
+      How melancholy, then, if morn restore--
+    (Less welcome than the night's forgetful gloom)
+      Old England's blue hills to our sight again,
+    When we, our thoughts seemed weaning from her sky,--
+      That _pang_ which wakes the almost silenced pain!
+    Thus, when the sick man lies, resigned to die,
+      A well-loved voice, a well-remembered strain,
+    Lets Time break harshly in upon Eternity.
+
+    When, after his long day, consumed in toil,
+      'Neath the scarce welcome shade of unknown trees,
+    Upturning thanklessly a foreign soil,
+      The lonely exile seeks his evening ease,--
+      'Tis not those tropic woods his spirit sees;
+    Nor calms, to him, that heaven, this world's turmoil;
+      Nor cools his burning brow that spicy breeze.
+    Ah no! the gusty clouds of England's isle
+      Bring music wafted on their stormy wind,
+    And on its verdant meads, night's shadows lower,
+      While "Auld Lang Syne" the darkness calls to mind.
+    Thus, when the demon Thirst, beneath his power
+      The wanderer bows,--to feverish sleep consigned,
+    He hears the rushing rill, and feels the cooling shower.'
+
+While Branwell's mind was rendered bright by the sunny hopes of a happy
+future, he was enabled to write with pathos, coherency, and beauty, as
+is shown in the foregoing sonnets. But it was his misfortune that his
+mind was hung too finely upon the balance, and that, as the phantasy of
+his affections grew upon him, he became, as will hereafter be
+demonstrated, the victim of an 'overheated and discursive imagination,'
+and at last 'betrayed that monomaniac tendency' which Lucy Snowe says
+she 'has ever thought the most unfortunate with which man or woman can
+be cursed.' He became, in fact, almost as soon as the new passion had
+taken full possession of his heart, a miserable victim to that morbid
+tendency of the mind which, in far lesser degree, characterized his
+sister Charlotte, and of which she seems to have lived in occasional
+dread. It may be noted that when Lucy Snowe is seeking wildly the
+letter, which has been stolen away from her, she accuses herself of
+monomania. These mental perturbations grew upon Branwell day by day.
+
+Time passed on; and, when he had been with his employer some two years
+and a half, during the concluding portion of which the control he had
+exercised over himself was giving way, he began to exhibit the strange
+irregularities of his disposition, and the irresistible fervour of his
+long-suppressed and feverish passion. Great patience and forbearance
+were exercised towards him by the lady of the house; and her sincere
+regard for the feelings of his family forbade her, on the first blush
+of the affair, to be the means of his dismissal from his employment. He
+was not, indeed, dismissed until the step became an absolute necessity.
+The banishment from his post was not, however, long delayed, for
+Branwell had lost his former self-control; and his imprudence overcame
+the reluctance of the lady, who at length made known to her husband,
+while Branwell was absent at home, on his holiday, in the July of 1845,
+what his conduct had been. A letter was at once sent to him by his
+employer, conveying the intimation of his dismissal.
+
+We have been told much in Charlotte Bronte's letters to her friend 'E,'
+and in the works of Mrs. Gaskell and other writers, concerning this
+event, which laid prostrate the hopes of Branwell, that requires both
+comment and correction. We have already seen to what a low state of
+mind and body Branwell was for a time reduced by his dismissal from
+Luddenden Foot; but his condition in both was as that of sound health,
+compared with his utter prostration on his expulsion from his last
+employment,--a condition which renders any adequate description
+impossible. He had, indeed, been supremely happy. For him, the sun of
+prosperity had shone with unsullied splendour, and the rivers of hope
+had flowed with music richer and deeper than any of earth. The roses
+that bloomed in the paradise of his fervid imagination, were
+brighter--and, as he thought, far more lasting--than those, far-famed,
+of Suristan, and the green pastures of his hopeful aspirations were
+more fertile and fragrant than he had ever thought possible to him in
+the years gone by. But, suddenly, the paradise which his poetic and
+imaginative spirit had created, was changed, without a moment's
+warning, to a region of sleepless nights and wretched days,--'eleven
+continuous nights of sleepless horror' he afterwards speaks of,--where
+his mind, dismayed and incoherent, reeled and shook in agony intense
+and ungovernable.
+
+The distress of the Bronte family on this reverse of Branwell's
+prospects can scarcely be conceived in its entirety. So deeply
+agonizing was the then state of his affairs, that they could think of
+nothing else; and, in their sorrow, had no heart to contemplate the
+future. It was under the immediate influence of this misery that Anne
+Bronte wrote her pathetic poem, 'Domestic Peace,' in which she deplores
+the changed conditions of the family. Charlotte had just returned home
+from a visit to her friend, and found her brother in the condition I
+have described. Thus she speaks of it, under the date of July the 31st,
+1845: 'It was ten o'clock at night when I got home. I found Branwell
+ill. He is so very often, owing to his own fault. I was not therefore
+shocked at first. But when Anne informed me of the immediate cause of
+his present illness I was very greatly shocked. He had last Thursday
+received a note from Mr. ----, sternly dismissing him.... We have had
+sad work with him since. He thought of nothing but stunning or drowning
+his distressed mind. No one in the house could have rest, and at last
+we have been obliged to send him from home for a week with some one to
+look after him. He has written to me this morning, and expresses some
+sense of contrition for his frantic folly. He promises amendment on his
+return, but so long as he remains at home I scarce dare hope for peace
+in the house. We must all, I fear, prepare for a season of distress and
+disquietude. I cannot now ask Miss ---- or anyone else.'
+
+Branwell's distress had proved so really acute at the disgrace which
+had befallen him that Mr. Bronte, becoming alarmed for the
+consequences, decided to send his son away to new scenes in the hope of
+diverting his mind from the subject. That this was, to some extent,
+successful is evident from Branwell's letter to his sister, in which
+his natural feelings and repentant disposition found expression.
+Branwell had remembered his former visit to Liverpool, and selected
+that place on this occasion, and sailed thence to the coast of Wales.
+The sad feelings that impressed him on the voyage were afterwards
+expressed in verse.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+'BRANWELL'S FALL,' AS SET FORTH IN THE BIOGRAPHIES OF HIS SISTERS.
+
+Branwell after his Disappointment--Parallel for his State of Mind
+in that of Lady Byron--Mrs. Gaskell's Misconceptions--True State
+of the Case--Charlotte Illustrates it in her Poem of 'Preference'
+--She alludes to Branwell's Condition in 'The Professor'--Mrs.
+Gaskell Compelled to Omit her Account in the Later Editions of her
+Work--Branwell's Prostration and Ill-health at the Time.
+
+
+After the first shock to his feelings had been sustained, and, by its
+own intensity, toned down to less oppressive anguish and pain, a
+strange calm succeeded in Branwell, more agonizing and appalling to his
+friends than the stormy ebullitions which had preceded it. There is
+evidence that his family at this time misunderstood the actual state of
+his mind, and that their very anxiety about him caused them--but more
+especially Charlotte--to regard his acts, irresponsible though they
+might be, as inveterate offences and habitual sins. It has indeed been
+said by some that Charlotte did not afterwards speak to him for the
+space of two years.
+
+The reproaches of his sister were probably as unwise as they were
+passionate, unmeasured, and, in outward semblance, unfeeling; yet they
+were censures pronounced in momentary anger, utterances of the deep
+affection she had for her brother, and of sincere sorrow for his
+unhappy, hopeless, and insane passion. But Branwell's friends and
+acquaintances saw clearly that on one subject, and one only, his mind
+had given way; and that was in his conception of the undoubted love
+which the lady of his heart bore him. They also saw, notwithstanding
+this morbid perversion of the ordinary powers of his mind in one
+particular illusion, that he was not affected in his faculty of
+reasoning correctly and consistently on all other subjects. They knew,
+if the Bronte family did not, that Branwell's mind, naturally morbid
+and depressed, had been unhinged by the sudden and unexpected ruin of
+his hopes; and that his heart and his intellect had been so far bruised
+and wounded, that for many of the acts done, and the things said, under
+the abiding grief which followed it, he was irresponsible. This will
+shortly appear.
+
+The sisters did not, however, long remain in ignorance of the true
+state of Branwell's mind. They became aware that he suffered from
+monomania touching the object of his sorrow, and the circumstance
+impressed them exceedingly. In several of their novels they have,
+indeed, dwelt upon this condition, and have lamented the misery and
+mental prostration which it entails. Lucy Snowe suffers from it
+severely, as I have mentioned. But, in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,'
+one of the characters charges Gilbert Markham--whose circumstances are
+precisely those of Branwell in regard to his love for a married
+lady--with monomania in this very matter; and, in 'Wuthering Heights,'
+speaking of the events that preceded Heathcliff's death, Nelly Dean
+alleges that he suffers from monomania in his love for the wife of
+Edgar Linton. Branwell's sisters, however, never took the tragic view
+of his conduct that impressed Mrs. Gaskell.
+
+For a time Branwell could talk of nothing but of the lady to whom he
+was attached, and he made statements of circumstances regarding her
+which had no foundation but in his own heated imagination. The lady, he
+said, loved him to distraction. She was in a state of inconceivable
+agony at his loss. Her husband, cruel, brutal, and unfeeling,
+threatened her with his dire indignation, and deprivation of every
+comfort. Branwell, indeed, told his friend W----, by letter, that, in
+consequence of this persecution, the suffering lady 'had placed herself
+under his protection!' and many other stories, equally unfounded,
+extravagant, and impossible, were circulated. In a word, he went about
+among his friends, telling to each, in strict confidence, the woes
+under which he suffered, and painting in gloomy colours the miseries
+which the lady of his love had been compelled to undergo. If all other
+proof were wanting of the unsound state of Branwell's mind on this one
+point, it would be enough, in all conscience, that he proclaimed
+abroad, of the lady he undertook to protect, circumstances that must
+infallibly redound to her infamy; and which, indeed, in the hands of
+injudicious persons, gave rise to the public scandal of his life, and
+ultimately made his name, and that of the lady whom he had loved and
+traduced in the same breath, of reproach among men.[10]
+
+        [10] The condition into which Branwell fell at this period is
+        one very well-known to mental physiologists. Thus Carpenter
+        speaks of it: 'In most forms of monomania, there is more or
+        less of disorder in the _ideational_ process, leading to the
+        formation of positive _delusions_ or _hallucinations_, that is
+        to say, of fixed beliefs or dominant ideas which are palpably
+        inconsistent with reality. These delusions, however, are not
+        attributable to original perversions of the reasoning process,
+        but arise out of the perverted _emotional state_. They give
+        rise, in the first place, to _misinterpretation of actual
+        facts_ or _occurrences_, in accordance with the prevalent
+        state of the feelings.'--'Principles of Mental Physiology,'
+        (1874), p. 667.
+
+For Branwell's state of mind at this time, and for the circumstances
+that followed upon it, we have an exact parallel in the case of Lady
+Byron, after her separation from her husband. This unhappy lady, living
+in retirement with her friends, had maintained, for more than five
+years after the poet's death, relations of the most friendly nature
+with his sister, the Honourable Mrs. Leigh. But, at the end of that
+period, weakened by misfortunes and by brooding upon particular evils,
+her mind gave way on one point; and she made, in the full belief of
+their truth, the most horrible of charges against her dead husband and
+his sister. These charges were, by some people, believed for a time;
+but a very little reflection showed that Lady Byron's mind must have
+been unhinged, for all the acts of her life went to disprove the
+statements she made. It was not in the nature of things possible that
+she could remain on affectionate terms with her sister-in-law, had she
+known--as in her monomania she asserted she did--the utter depth of
+that sister-in-law's imagined infamy. But it is not to be supposed that
+the unhappy lady was visibly insane; she was, on the contrary, as all
+remarked, gifted with a clear and accurate observation, with a lucid
+and logical method of thought, and with an expression more than
+ordinarily calm and natural.
+
+It was precisely the same with Branwell Bronte; for, when the paroxysm
+of his grief was over, though he was ordinarily calm and his thoughts
+always clear and logical, strange impressions and misinterpretations of
+facts grew upon him, and he made, with all the certainty of belief,
+statements of circumstances relating to the lady of his dearest
+affections, redounding to her shame--which, had he been of sound mind,
+he must not only have known to be false, but would have carried, had
+they been true, in secrecy to the grave.
+
+Just, too, as Lady Byron whispered the story of her woes in strict
+faith to many people, so did Branwell Bronte make confidants of
+several friends, revealing to each the extent of his misfortunes.
+And, further, just as the story circulated by Lady Byron was confided
+among others to good, honest, well-meaning Mrs. Beecher Stowe, who,
+conceiving herself to be the chosen champion of oppressed virtue,
+rushed into print, in 'Macmillan' of September, 1869, with the
+literary _bonne-bouche_ she had received; so did Mrs. Gaskell, clad in
+like panoply, with anger far over-riding discretion, publish to the
+world the scandal she had collected from the busy _gobe-mouches_ of
+Haworth, to the utter undoing of the fair fame of Patrick Branwell
+Bronte, and of the lady on whom he had fixed his hopeless affection.
+The scandal which was spread about Lord Byron, through the delusions
+of his wife, was very soon overthrown; but that with which Branwell
+was concerned, though thirty-seven years have passed over his grave,
+has been republished and is still believed--all the biographers of his
+sisters having, with one accord, consigned his name to obloquy and
+contempt.
+
+The stories originated by Branwell lost nothing in their circulation,
+but they gained immensely; and years had made the tales of disappointed
+love into scandals unfit to be detailed, when Mrs. Gaskell, eager for
+information, visited Haworth, and collected materials for her work from
+too-willing hands, who added their own embellishments to the original
+statements of Branwell.
+
+In order to show how far Mrs. Gaskell deviated from the right direction
+in her account of these circumstances, it will be better to place
+before the reader much of what she has said in direct reference to it,
+so that the whole matter may be made plain; and, before he closes this
+book, he will probably be convinced that she was wholly misled in her
+version of the story.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell writes: 'All the disgraceful details came out. Branwell
+was in no state to conceal his agony of remorse, or, strange to say,
+his agony of guilty love, from any dread of shame. He gave passionate
+way to his feelings; he shocked and distressed those loving sisters
+inexpressibly; the blind father sat stunned, sorely tempted to curse
+the profligate woman who had tempted his boy--his only son--into the
+deep disgrace of deadly crime.
+
+'All the variations of spirits and of temper--the reckless gaiety, the
+moping gloom of many months were now explained. There was a reason
+deeper than any mere indulgence of appetite, to account for his
+intemperance; he began his career as an habitual drunkard to drown
+remorse.
+
+'The pitiable part, as far as he was concerned, was the yearning love
+he still bore to the woman who had got so strong a hold upon him. It is
+true, that she professed equal love; we shall see how her professions
+held good. There was a strange lingering of conscience, when, meeting
+her clandestinely by appointment at Harrogate some months after, he
+refused to consent to the elopement which she proposed; there was some
+good left in this corrupted, weak young man, even to the very last of
+his miserable days. The case presents the reverse of the usual
+features: the man became the victim; the man's life was blighted, and
+crushed out of him by suffering, and guilt entailed by guilt; the man's
+family were stung by keenest shame. The woman--to think of her father's
+pious name--the blood of honourable families mixed in her veins--her
+early home, underneath whose roof-tree sat those whose names are held
+saint-like for their good deeds,--she goes flaunting about to this day
+in respectable society; a showy woman for her age; kept afloat by her
+reputed wealth. I see her name in county papers, as one of those who
+patronize the Christmas balls; and I hear of her in London
+drawing-rooms. Now let us read, not merely of the suffering of her
+guilty accomplice, but of the misery she caused to innocent victims,
+whose premature deaths may, in part, be laid at her door.'[11]
+
+        [11] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell further states: 'A few months later the invalid husband of
+the woman with whom he had intrigued, died. Branwell had been looking
+forward to this event with guilty hope. After her husband's death, his
+paramour would be free; strange as it seems, the young man still loved
+her passionately, and now he imagined the time was come when they might
+look forward to being married, and live together without reproach or
+blame. She had offered to elope with him; she had written to him
+perpetually; she had sent him money--twenty pounds at a time; he
+remembered the criminal advances she had made; she had braved shame,
+and her children's menaced disclosures, for his sake; he thought she
+must love him; he little knew how bad a depraved woman can be.'[12]
+
+        [12] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+As Mrs. Gaskell had formed no conception of the possible state of
+Branwell's mind, she seems to have known no reason for doubting the
+absolute truth of what she had heard; and, with an overweening
+confidence, and with no deficient expression of righteous indignation,
+she deals with the episode in this startling manner.
+
+In support of the charges thus made, Mrs. Gaskell refers to the
+contents of the will of the lady's husband, by which, she says, what
+property he left to his wife was so left on the condition that she
+never saw Branwell again; and she adds that, on the death of her
+husband, the lady sent her coachman to Haworth; for, at the very time
+when the will was being read, she did not know but that Branwell might
+be on his way to her. Mrs. Gaskell furthers says that, after the
+interview with the coachman, Branwell was found utterly prostrated by
+the intimation that he must never again even see the lady whom he
+thought he might then marry.[13]
+
+        [13] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+The biographer of Charlotte, having obtained her information from the
+floating rumours of Haworth, formed an inconsiderate, erroneous, and
+hasty opinion on this affair and its supposed consequences. But she
+found many circumstances in the proceedings of Branwell and his sisters
+which failed to corroborate her views, and that were, in fact, at
+variance with what would naturally have been expected had Branwell's
+misconduct really been of so deep a dye as she states. In order to
+bring out fully the force of what she here says, Mrs. Gaskell had,
+previously, as we have seen, in speaking of Charlotte's stay in
+Brussels eighteen months before, alluded to intelligence from home
+calculated to distress Charlotte exceedingly with fears respecting
+Branwell. Yet, in the January of 1844, shortly after her return from
+Brussels, Charlotte told her friend 'E' that Anne and Branwell were
+'both wonderfully valued in their situations.' And again, writing of
+the year 1845, Mrs. Gaskell says: 'He was so beguiled by this mature
+and wicked woman, that he went home for his holidays reluctantly,
+stayed there as short a time as possible, perplexing and distressing
+them all by his extraordinary conduct--at one time in the highest
+spirits; at another, in the deepest depression--accusing himself of
+blackest guilt and treachery, without specifying what they were; and
+altogether evincing an irritability of disposition bordering on
+insanity. Charlotte and her sister suffered acutely from his mysterious
+behaviour ... an indistinct dread was creeping over their minds that he
+might turn out their deep disgrace.'[14] And it must be added that, when
+in the expurgated edition the opening of this passage was omitted, Mrs.
+Gaskell inserted--following where she ascribes to the sisters an
+'indistinct dread,'--these words: 'caused partly by his own conduct,
+partly by expressions of agonizing suspicion in Anne's letters
+home.'[15] But we know, from Charlotte's letter to her friend, that,
+when she had returned home and found Branwell ill, which she says he
+was often, she was not therefore shocked at first, but, when Anne
+informed her of the immediate cause of his present illness, she was
+very greatly shocked, showing clearly enough that Branwell's dismissal
+and its cause were a complete surprise to her when she heard of them.
+How, then, could Anne's letters home have contained expressions of
+'agonizing suspicion'?
+
+        [14] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xiii., 1st edition.
+
+        [15] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. v., 1860 edition.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell found it necessary to summarize the portion of
+Charlotte's letter which contained these expressions of surprise, and,
+in her version, significantly enough, the obvious inconsistency is
+lost. The succeeding part also has suffered mutilation in Mrs.
+Gaskell's work, Charlotte's allusion to Branwell's 'frantic folly,'
+and the sentence, 'He promises amendment on his return,' being
+entirely omitted. Mr. Wemyss Reid, in publishing this letter, points
+out the circumstance, and says that 'Mrs. Gaskell could not bring
+herself to speak of such flagrant sins as those of which young Bronte
+had been guilty under the name of folly, nor could she conceive that
+there was any possibility of amendment on the part of one who had
+fallen so low in vice.'[16] And, if we disregard Mrs. Gaskell's view of
+'what _should have been_' Charlotte's feelings, and read the letter
+with the real state of the case before us, we shall at once see that,
+as Branwell had not fallen low in vice, the term 'frantic folly,'
+which his sister employed in speaking of his conduct, was precisely
+that which justly described it.
+
+        [16] 'Charlotte Bronte, a Monograph,' chap. vii.
+
+The simple truth respecting Branwell's conduct is this: he had been too
+fond of company and had not escaped its penalty. Doubtless Anne
+occasionally saw influences upon her brother which she would have
+wished entirely absent. Moreover he had, as we have seen, become wildly
+in love. Reluctantly at first, and, from what we know of him, he may,
+probably, in his latest vacation have accused himself of 'blackest
+guilt.' But there is reason to believe that on this episode, as on
+others connected with Branwell Bronte, we have been told not a little
+of what _must have ensued_ from a standpoint of initial error.
+
+Of the principal accusations which Mrs. Gaskell brings against Mrs.
+---- I shall have to speak when I come to consider the consequences to
+Branwell of the final defeat of his hopes; but it may be said here that
+it is clear the lady never wrote letters to Branwell at all. She
+carefully avoided doing anything that might implicate her in the matter
+of Branwell's strange passion, and, so far as any provision of the
+husband's will, which was dated near the end of the year, is concerned,
+Branwell Bronte might never have existed. Mrs. Gaskell cannot have seen
+the document.
+
+If any further evidence of the view Charlotte Bronte took of Branwell's
+conduct, and of that of the lady whose character has been so much
+calumniated be needed, her poem entitled 'Preference' is sufficient. We
+may indeed infer from it that Charlotte herself never believed the
+stories concerning Mrs. ---- which were in circulation at the time, and
+that she has left, in this production of her pen, her version of how
+the circumstances truly stood. The lady is represented in the poem as
+censuring the person who is making advances to her, and who is
+addressed as a soldier for whom she has a sisterly regard, while she is
+devotedly attached to one of whom she speaks in the warmest terms.
+
+    'Not in scorn do I reprove thee,
+      Not in pride thy vows I waive,
+    But, believe, I could not love thee,
+      Wert thou prince, and I a slave.'
+
+She then tells him that he is deceiving himself in thinking she has
+secret affection for him, and that her coldness towards him is assumed.
+She appeals forcibly to her own personal bearing as proof that she has
+no love for him.
+
+    'Touch my hand, thou self-deceiver;
+      Nay--be calm, for I am so;
+    Does it burn? Does my lip quiver?
+      Has mine eye a troubled glow?
+    Canst thou call a moment's colour
+      To my forehead--to my cheek?
+    Canst thou tinge their tranquil pallor
+      With one flattering, feverish streak?'
+
+Declaring that her goodwill for him is sisterly, she thus continues:
+
+    'Rave not, rage not, wrath is fruitless,
+      Fury cannot change my mind;
+    I but deem the feeling rootless
+      Which so whirls in passion's wind.
+    Can I love? Oh, deeply--truly--
+      Warmly--fondly--but not thee;
+    And my love is answered duly,
+      With an equal energy.'
+
+Then she tells him, if he would see his rival, to draw a curtain aside,
+when he will observe him, seated in a place shaded by trees, surrounded
+with books, and employing his 'unresting pen.' Here Charlotte places
+the 'rival' in an alcove, in the grounds of his mansion, privately
+employing his leisure in the retirement of his home; and makes the lady
+show her husband to the soldier who addresses her. She says:
+
+    'There he sits--the first of men!
+      Man of conscience--man of reason;
+    Stern, perchance, but ever just;
+      Foe to falsehood, wrong, and treason,
+    Honour's shield and virtue's trust!
+      Worker, thinker, firm defender
+    Of Heaven's truth--man's liberty;
+      Soul of iron--proof to slander,
+    Rock where founders tyranny.'
+
+She declares that her faith is given, and therefore the person she
+addresses need not sue; for, while God reigns in earth and heaven, she
+will be faithful to the man of her heart, to whom she is immovably
+devoted; and who is a 'defender of Heaven's truth'--her husband.
+
+No one, perhaps, would be better acquainted than Charlotte with the
+false and foul calumnies on this head, then circulating through the
+village; and it is well that she has left, in her poem of 'Preference,'
+an expression of her feeling as to the affairs which caused so much
+injurious gossip at the time. Yet, however desirous Charlotte might,
+be, in this poem, to clear the character of the lady who has been so
+cruelly aspersed, she appears to have had no mercy on her brother, who
+had been the principal actor in the drama. The following is the picture
+of him, in reference to this sad episode, which she puts into the mouth
+of William Crimsworth in 'The Professor':
+
+'Limited as had yet been my experience of life,' he says, 'I had once
+had the opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an example of the
+results produced by a course of interesting and romantic domestic
+treachery. No golden halo of fiction was about this example; I saw it
+bare and real; and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded by the
+practice of mean subterfuge, by the habit of perfidious deception, and
+a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul.
+I had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this
+spectacle; those sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple
+recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote to temptation. They had
+inscribed on my reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching
+on another's rights, is delusive and envenomed pleasure--its hollowness
+disappoints at the time, its poison cruelly tortures afterwards, its
+effects deprave for ever.' It is probable that Charlotte would not have
+wished this passage to be applied literally to her brother; but,
+unfortunately, this, and similar unguarded declarations, have largely
+biassed almost all who have written on the lives and literature of the
+sisters.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell, under threat of ulterior proceedings, on the advice of
+her friends, published the edition of 1860, omitting the charges
+referred to, as well as those against Mr. Bronte. She did not, however,
+allow the effect of her first assumption of guilt, or the moral of the
+tale, to be lost. She inserted a few sentences intended to convey to
+the reader that something of the kind had gone wrong with Branwell in
+the place where his sister Anne was governess. Under the circumstances,
+therefore, I have felt it necessary to deal with the subject at large.
+
+It may be remarked here that the indignation of the injured lady knew
+no bounds, and that she was only dissuaded from carrying the matter to
+a trial by the earnest desire of her friends, who represented that Mrs.
+Gaskell could not substantiate her statements, and that, as the book
+could not therefore be reprinted as it stood, and its circulation was
+consequently limited, it were better to let the matter rest, rather
+than incur the wide-spread reports of the newspaper press when the
+trial should be before the public; and, moreover, that those who knew
+her did not believe a word of Mrs. Gaskell's unfounded allegations.
+This had its effect, and the lady fretfully acquiesced.[17]
+
+        [17] A gentleman with whom I have recently conversed, who
+        knew this lady personally, on seeing the first edition of
+        Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' expressed his
+        astonishment at the 'gross form of the libel,' of which he
+        had had no conception. He had good reason for entirely
+        disbelieving the stories, for which Mrs. Gaskell was
+        responsible, relating to the lady in question.
+
+In Miss Robinson's 'Emily Bronte,' the stories which Charlotte's
+biographer was compelled to omit, have been substantially reproduced;
+and this writer, in supporting similar views to those of Mrs. Gaskell,
+has found it necessary to quote her version of the letter containing
+Charlotte's account of Branwell's disgrace, and has also considerably
+enlarged upon the supposed contents of the letters of Anne. Much
+diffidence has been felt in dealing with this subject so closely; but,
+after the discussion of it in the public prints, consequent on the
+issue of Miss Robinson's book, it is thought the time has come for
+exposing the groundlessness of the stories. The reader will therefore
+observe that I have borne this matter in mind throughout the present
+work.
+
+The distraction that overwhelmed Branwell on his dismissal from his
+late employment having caused him eleven nights of 'sleepless horror,'
+his wild attempt to drown his sorrow brought on an attack of delirium
+tremens. On one of these nights, in all likelihood, suddenly falling
+asleep, he overturned the candle and set the bedclothes on fire. The
+smell of burning attracted attention, and the sisters rushed into the
+room to extinguish the smouldering material. This accident would,
+doubtless, have been lost sight of, had it not been for the researches
+of Miss Robinson, to whom the public is indebted for an account of the
+circumstance, which closely reminds us of the rescue of Mr. Rochester
+in 'Jane Eyre,' and of the removal of 'Keeper,' by Emily, from the best
+bed in which he had settled himself. It will be remembered also that,
+on the night when Mr. Lockwood stayed at Wuthering Heights, a similar
+accident befel him, through the candle falling against the books he was
+trying to read.
+
+On his return from Wales Branwell wrote to his friend Leyland, who had
+to visit Haworth professionally, pressing him to come to the parsonage.
+Thus he writes in the midst of his distress. The vision of his hopes
+had become a haunting picture of misery, the prospect of the lady
+becoming free to marry him had not arisen to his mind in his confusion;
+he would never see her again, he would be forgotten; he must
+communicate with her.
+
+    'Haworth, August 4, 1845.
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I need hardly say that I shall be most delighted to see you, as
+    God knows I have a tolerably heavy load on my mind just now, and
+    would look to an hour spent with one like yourself, as a means of
+    at least, temporarily, lightening it.
+
+    'I returned yesterday from a week's journey to Liverpool and North
+    Wales, but I found during my absence that, wherever I went, a
+    certain woman robed in black, and calling herself "MISERY," walked
+    by my side, and leant on my arm, as affectionately as if she were
+    my legal wife.
+
+    'Like some other husbands, I could have spared her presence.
+
+    'Yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+There are in one or two of Charlotte Bronte's letters, written during
+this month, allusions to her brother. She tells us that things are not
+very bright as regards him, though his health, and consequently his
+temper, have been somewhat better this last day or two, because he is
+now '_forced_ to abstain.' And again, on the 18th, 'My hopes ebb
+low indeed about Branwell. I sometimes fear he will never be fit for
+much. The late blow to his prospects and feelings has quite made him
+reckless.'
+
+On the 19th, Branwell sends a short note to Leyland, in which he says,
+'As to my own affairs, I only wish I could see one gleam of light amid
+their gloom. You, I hope, are well and cheerful.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+BRANWELL'S PROJECTED NOVEL.
+
+Review of Branwell's past Experiences of Life--He seeks Relief in
+Literary Occupation--He Proposes to Write a Three-volume Novel--His
+Letter on the Subject--One Volume Completed--His Capability of
+Writing a Novel--His Letter to Mr. Grundy on his Disappointment.
+
+
+Branwell had now attained his twenty-eighth year. The reader has seen
+in the early part of this work the intellectual promise of his opening
+career, the evidences of his genius, his versatility, and his mental
+power, and has marked the paths by which he, who was expected to be the
+crowning light of that remarkable family, had been brought, step by
+step, to the very depths of misery.
+
+During the few short years of his life, Branwell Bronte, having tasted
+the sweets of a noble ambition, and surrendered himself to the
+influences of love, had suffered the agonies of his disappointment and
+disgrace, and was now feeling the very bitterness of despair. Such
+influences as these, shaking the soul with their tempestuous breath,
+cast their sad glamour on the imagination; and he who has felt the
+spell is impressed thenceforth more deeply with the wondrous story of
+life, with the struggle of being, and with the fulness of emotion, and
+has a far deeper insight into the mysteries of human nature. It was in
+this way that Byron, when he had passed through his greatest
+misfortunes, and had abandoned for ever the shores of England, was
+fired with the gloomy glory of 'Manfred' and of 'Cain.' This storm and
+stress of the feelings, when the imagination receives a higher
+consciousness, is as the Eddaic struggle of Sigurd with Fafnir, the
+drinking of the monster's blood, that taught to the dragon-slayer the
+mystic language of the birds. The reader will see how these influences
+told on Branwell Bronte, and how sad the voices of the birds were for
+him; how his muse was inspired with the note of misery, and his longing
+was for peace alone. There seemed, indeed, to be no hope in those days.
+
+However, there came at times to Branwell Bronte, as there must come to
+all men in his circumstances, a reaction from the consuming sorrow of
+despair, a longing for action, for mental stimulus, to divert his mind
+from the woe he should never be able to forget. And, with this change
+in his methods of thought, there grew upon him another feeling,
+engendered of his broken sympathy with the actions of his kind: he
+learned to look upon human affairs as a spectator, rather than as one
+who felt any personal interest in them. It was in this way that his
+experience seemed to him to have unveiled the hidden springs of the
+actions of men; and, in recognizing the selfishness of them, he became
+himself something of a cynic.
+
+Branwell was in this frame of mind when he resolved, soon after a visit
+to his friend Leyland,--whom he found engaged upon a tomb and recumbent
+statue of the late Doctor Stephen Beckwith, a benefactor to several
+public institutions in York, to be erected in the Minster there,--to
+make an effort to arouse himself. With the desire, then, of finding an
+absorbing occupation for his mind, by which he might be able to lay the
+tempest of the heart, the whirlwind of wounded vanity, of injured
+self-esteem, and of blighted hope, which swept through his mind in
+hours of reflection, and drove him to distraction or desperation, he
+turned, with the resolution of a new-born energy, engendered of
+despair, to literary composition. He proposed to himself to depict, as
+best he could, in a fictitious form, and as an ordinary novel, which
+should extend to three volumes, the different feelings that work in the
+human soul. The necessary labour which this undertaking involved, gave
+a stimulus to his ambition, which for a time was sustained; and he
+evidently hoped that he might yet be able to make a place for himself
+in the busy world of letters. At this time the novels of his sisters
+were not in existence, and probably had scarcely been dreamed of.
+Charlotte had not yet lighted on the volume of verse in the handwriting
+of Emily, and the literary future of the sisters had still to dawn upon
+them. Yet Branwell, whose behaviour had given them cause enough for
+disquietude, and whose sorrows were embittering his mind, had now
+braced himself up for an object which they had not attempted, and to
+the accomplishment of which he looked forward with something like
+confidence. In the following letter to his friend Leyland, he discloses
+his design; and it is probable that in this we have almost all the
+direct light upon it which can be found:--
+
+    'Haworth, Sept. 10th, 1845.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I was certainly sadly disappointed at not having seen you on the
+    Friday you named for your visit, but the cause you allege for not
+    arriving was justifiable with a vengeance. I should have been as
+    cracked as my cast had I entered a room and seen the labour of
+    weeks or months destroyed (apparently--not, I trust, really) in a
+    moment.[18]
+
+        [18] Branwell here speaks of an accident which had happened
+        to one part of the monument referred to above.
+
+    'That vexation is, I hope, over; and I build upon your renewed
+    promise of a visit; for nothing cheers me so much as the company
+    of one whom I believe to be a _man_, and who has known care well
+    enough to be able to appreciate the discomfort of another who
+    knows it _too_ well.
+
+    'Never mind the lines I put into your hands, but come hither with
+    them, and, if they should have been lost out of your pocket on the
+    way, I won't grumble, provided you are present to apologize for the
+    accident.
+
+    'I have, since I saw you at Halifax, devoted my hours of time,
+    snatched from downright illness, to the composition of a
+    three-volume _novel_, one volume of which is completed, and,
+    along with the two forthcoming ones, has been really the result of
+    half-a-dozen by-past years of thoughts about, and experience in,
+    this crooked path of life.
+
+    'I felt that I must rouse myself to attempt something while
+    roasting daily and nightly over a slow fire, to while away my
+    torments; and I knew that, in the present state of the publishing
+    and reading world, a novel is the most saleable article, so
+    that--where ten pounds would be offered for a work, the production
+    of which would require the utmost stretch of a man's intellect--two
+    hundred pounds would be a refused offer for three volumes, whose
+    composition would require the smoking of a cigar and the humming of
+    a tune.
+
+    'My novel is the result of years of thought; and, if it gives a
+    vivid picture of human feelings for good and evil, veiled by the
+    cloak of deceit which must enwrap man and woman; if it records, as
+    faithfully as the pages that unveil man's heart in "Hamlet" or
+    "Lear," the conflicting feelings and clashing pursuits in our
+    uncertain path through life, I shall be as much gratified (and as
+    much astonished) as I should be if, in betting that I could jump
+    over the Mersey, I jumped over the Irish Sea. It would not be more
+    pleasant to light on Dublin instead of Birkenhead, than to leap
+    from the present bathos of fictitious literature to the
+    firmly-fixed rock honoured by the foot of a Smollett or a Fielding.
+
+    'That jump I expect to take when I can model a rival to your noble
+    Theseus, who haunted my dreams when I slept after seeing him. But,
+    meanwhile, I can try my utmost to rouse myself from almost killing
+    cares, and that alone will be its own reward.
+
+    'Tell me when I may hope to see you, and believe me, dear sir,
+
+    'Yours,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+A spirited sketch in pen-and-ink concludes this letter; it represents a
+bust of himself thrown down, and the lady of his admiration holding
+forth her hands towards it with an air of pity, while underneath it is
+the sentence: 'A cast, cast down, but not cast away!'[19]
+
+        [19] Charlotte Bronte told her friend 'Mary,' that Branwell
+        had appropriated Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway.'
+
+We have in this letter an instance of Branwell's general coherency
+under his disappointment, in which the elegance and freedom of his
+style of composition are combined with a consequent and logical
+arrangement of the various parts of his subject; but he cannot help
+concluding his letter with a direct allusion to the lady, whom he
+believes,--all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding,--to love him
+with undiminished devotion. Under this fascination he still hopes for
+the prosperity and happiness of which he had before spoken to his
+friends.
+
+Moreover it will be seen, from Branwell's letter, that he had seriously
+undertaken, in the midst of sorrow, suffering, and ill-health,--though,
+I have reason to believe, that he had sketched some part of it during
+his tutorship--the production of a novel, one volume of which he had
+completed. He does not seem to have looked upon it as a great mental
+effort, but rather as the natural outcome of a painful experience, and
+the proper alleviation of a present misery. Yet he designed to give a
+vivid picture of human nature; and, with the strength of experience and
+the consciousness of power, he evidently hoped that it would be a
+better work than those productions of the day, of whose composition he
+speaks so lightly. His experience had, indeed, been such as would well
+enable one of his quick perception to grasp the character, feelings,
+and motives of those around him. His knowledge of the country people of
+the West-Riding was very great; for, sitting, the admired of all
+observers, in the 'Black Bull,' at Haworth, he had met representatives
+of all classes of them. By the parlour fire, in the long winter
+evenings, he had had opportunities enough of entering into the spirit
+of the people; indeed, his letter to John Brown has shown us how he
+reviewed some of them. It was not merely for the enjoyment of an hour
+that he came to their company: he had longed for a glimpse of other
+life than that lived at the parsonage. And the Yorkshire peasants--whom
+he nevertheless held at their true value--to those who know their
+dialect, and can enter into their pursuits, as Branwell did and could,
+disclose a fund of shrewd observation, a sharp understanding, and a
+free and natural wit; and they delight in telling the stories of all
+the country side. But they must be understood before they can be
+appreciated. Branwell, too, had been a guest at the homesteads of the
+farmers, in the neighbourhood where he had latterly resided, who were
+always pleased to see him, when he visited them. But he had had
+experience of more fiery emotions than those of peasants; he had longed
+to know something of the deeper life of London, and had found it, at
+last, in the company of pugilists and their patrons.
+
+When the mood was upon him, all these varied experiences flowed with
+voluble eloquence from his lips; and the brightness of his wit and the
+brilliance of his imagination made him, at such times, a most enjoyable
+companion. But he delighted above all things, as has been seen, to
+spend his evenings, when possible, with the little band of literati
+which, in those times, characterized that district; and, in the society
+of Storey the poet of Wharfe, James the historian of Bradford, George
+Searle Phillips, Leyland the sculptor, and others, he found emulation
+and stimulus to better things. But the uses to which, under such
+influences, he put his experiences of life, and the colour that was
+given to them through his maddening misfortunes--so far as his novel is
+concerned--can probably never be told. His experience in 'this crooked
+path of life,' during his last half-dozen years, had been sufficiently
+varied; and an instructive story he could doubtless have based upon it.
+But, what became of the volume he wrote, possibly no one can tell; and
+his intention of writing two more was probably not carried out.
+
+From the following letter which Branwell wrote to Mr. Grundy in the
+October of 1845, we learn something of the condition of mind under
+which he must have written; and, from an allusion which it contains, we
+may, probably, infer that he had abandoned his intention of writing the
+two other volumes of his novel.[20] He says:
+
+        [20] Mr. Grundy has assigned the date of this letter to within
+        a few months of January, 1818; but, from internal evidence, it
+        is clear that it belongs really to the period I have named.
+
+    'I fear you will burn my present letter on recognising the
+    handwriting; but if you will read it through, you will perhaps
+    rather pity than spurn the distress of mind which could prompt my
+    communication, after a silence of nearly three (to me) eventful
+    years. While very ill and confined to my room, I wrote to you two
+    months ago, hearing you were resident engineer of the Skipton
+    Railway, to the inn at Skipton. I never received any reply, and
+    as my letter asked only for one day of your society, to ease a
+    very weary mind in the company of a friend who _always_ had what
+    I always wanted, but most want now, _cheerfulness_, I am sure you
+    never received my letter, or your heart would have prompted an
+    answer.
+
+    'Since I last shook hands with you in Halifax, two summers ago,
+    my life, till lately, has been one of apparent happiness and
+    indulgence. You will ask, "Why does he complain, then?" I can
+    only reply by showing the under-current of distress which bore my
+    bark to a whirlpool, despite the surface waves of life that
+    seemed floating me to peace. In a letter begun in the spring of
+    1845 and never finished, owing to incessant attacks of illness, I
+    tried to tell you that I was tutor to the son of ----, a wealthy
+    gentleman whose wife is sister to the wife of ----, M.P. for the
+    county of ----, and the cousin of Lord ----. This lady (though
+    her husband detested me) showed me a degree of kindness which,
+    when I was deeply grieved one day at her husband's conduct,
+    ripened into declarations of more than ordinary feeling. My
+    admiration of her mental and personal attractions, my knowledge
+    of her unselfish sincerity, her sweet temper, and unwearied care
+    for others, with but unrequited return where most should have
+    been given ... although she is seventeen years my senior, all
+    combined to an attachment on my part, and led to reciprocations
+    which I had little looked for. During nearly three years I had
+    daily "troubled pleasure, soon chastised by fear." Three months
+    since I received a furious letter from my employer, threatening
+    to shoot me if I returned from my vacation, which I was passing
+    at home; and letters from her lady's-maid and physician informed
+    me of the outbreak, only checked by her firm courage and
+    resolution that whatever harm came to her, none should come to
+    me.... I have lain during nine long weeks, utterly shattered in
+    body and broken down in mind. The probability of her becoming
+    free to give me herself and estate never rose to drive away the
+    prospect of her decline under her present grief. I dreaded, too,
+    the wreck of my mind and body, which, God knows! during a short
+    life have been severely tried. Eleven continuous nights of
+    sleepless horror reduced me to almost blindness; and, being taken
+    into Wales to recover, the sweet scenery, the sea, the sound of
+    music caused me fits of unspeakable distress. You will say, "What
+    a fool!" but if you knew the many causes I have for sorrow, which
+    I cannot even hint at here, you would perhaps pity as well as
+    blame. At the kind request of Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Baines, I have
+    striven to arouse my mind by writing something worthy of being
+    read, but I really cannot do so. Of course you will despise the
+    writer of all this. I can only answer that the writer does the
+    same, and would not wish to live if he did not hope that work and
+    change may yet restore him.
+
+    'Apologizing sincerely for what seems like whining egotism, and
+    hardly daring to hint about the days when, in your company, I
+    could sometimes sink the thoughts which "remind me of departed
+    days," I fear departed never to return,--I remain, etc.'
+
+In this letter we see that Branwell details to Mr. Grundy the story
+about Mrs. ----, which he was publishing whenever he could obtain a
+hearing. He speaks, too, of his ill-health, the shattering of body and
+the breaking down of mind, which at the time prostrated him. Charlotte
+seems scarcely to have credited Branwell's representations of the
+bodily condition into which he had fallen; for she says, in one of her
+letters, a little later, 'Branwell offers no prospect of hope: he
+professes to be too ill to think of seeking employment.'[21] There are
+passages of a like tendency in others of Charlotte's letters about this
+time; but we shall see presently that, whatever might be his condition
+of health, he was by no means so unsolicitous for employment, or so
+heedless of the future, as she supposed.
+
+        [21] 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Bronte,' _Hours at
+        Home_, xi.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+'REAL REST.'--'PENMAENMAWR.'
+
+'Real Rest'--Comments--Spirit of Branwell and Emily Identical--Letter
+to Leyland--Branwell Broods on his Sorrows--'Penmaenmawr'--Comments
+--He still Searches and Hopes for Employment--Charlotte's somewhat
+Overdrawn Expressions--The Alleged Elopement Proposal--Probable
+Origin of the Story.
+
+
+Though Branwell Bronte was so feeble in health that, despite his
+wishes, he found physical labour impossible, and though the reaction
+from utter despair--through whose impetus he completed one volume of
+his novel--had been followed by a condition which led him to think
+worthy literary work beyond his power, we find him, almost at the same
+time, writing two of the finest poems which remain from his hand. It
+has been seen, in the letter addressed to Mr. Grundy, how he declares
+that, owing to the state of his mind, he is unable to undertake any
+literary work worth reading. But we have certain knowledge of an
+immediate movement of his genius, and that it found expression in
+verse, which gave a free course to his feelings. In the following poem
+we have perhaps the most powerful and weird expression of inconsolable
+sorrow ever penned. A strange calm had now succeeded the storms of
+feeling its author had passed through.
+
+    REAL REST.
+
+    'I see a corpse upon the waters lie,
+    With eyes turned, swelled and sightless, to the sky,
+    And arms outstretched to move, as wave on wave
+    Upbears it in its boundless billowy grave.
+    Not time, but ocean, thins its flowing hair;
+    Decay, not sorrow, lays its forehead bare;
+    Its members move, but not in thankless toil,
+    For seas are milder than this world's turmoil;
+    Corruption robs its lips and cheeks of red,
+    But wounded vanity grieves not the dead;
+    And, though those members hasten to decay,
+    No pang of suffering takes their strength away.
+    With untormented eye, and heart, and brain,
+    Through calm and storm it floats across the main;
+    Though love and joy have perished long ago,
+    Its bosom suffers not one pang of woe;
+    Though weeds and worms its cherished beauty hide,
+    It feels not wounded vanity nor pride;
+    Though journeying towards some far off shore,
+    It needs no care nor gold to float it o'er;
+    Though launched in voyage for eternity,
+    It need not think upon what is _to be_;
+    Though naked, helpless, and companionless,
+    It feels not poverty, nor knows distress.
+
+    'Ah, corpse! if thou couldst tell my aching mind
+    What scenes of sorrow thou hast left behind,
+    How sad the life which, breathing, thou hast led,
+    How free from strife thy sojourn with the dead;
+    I would assume thy place--would long to be
+    A world-wide wanderer o'er the waves with thee!
+    I have a misery, where thou hast none;
+    My heart beats, bursting, whilst thine lies like stone;
+    My veins throb wild, whilst thine are dead and dry;
+    And woes, not waters, dim my restless eye;
+    Thou longest not with one well loved to be,
+    And absence does not break a chain with thee;
+    No sudden agonies dart through thy breast;
+    Thou hast what all men covet,--REAL REST.
+    I have an outward frame, unlike to thine,
+    Warm with young life--not cold in death's decline;
+    An eye that sees the sunny light of Heaven,--
+    A heart by pleasure thrilled, by anguish riven--
+    But, in exchange for thy untroubled calm,
+    Thy gift of cold oblivion's healing balm,
+    I'd give my youth, my health, my life to come,
+    And share thy slumbers in thy ocean tomb.'
+
+Here the poet, his soul longing for freedom from mortality, his
+crushed and wounded spirit hovering above the salt and restless wave,
+contemplates the pale and ghastly body that floats thereon, and,
+holding communion with it, touches in melancholy and beautiful words
+its isolation and oblivion. Accompanying the dead in its watery
+wanderings, he sees, with keen sympathy, its utter disseverance from
+the world it has left, and contrasts with its condition the hopeless
+sorrow of his own disappointed youth. He delineates, in words of
+singular power and felicity, this weird and lonely picture; and, as an
+artist and a poet, paints wildly, but beautifully, the decay of the
+drowned in the ocean, and of the living, through the effects of
+long-continued woe. Branwell had loved, indeed, however unfortunately;
+and the misery of his passion caused him to turn his reflections within
+upon himself. As with the 'Wandering Jew,' who sees in every rock, in
+every bush, in every cloud, without hope of alleviation from his
+abiding woe, the _via crucis_ of his suffering Lord--every thought
+of Branwell's gifted mind, every conception of his fertile brain, every
+aspect, to him, of ocean, earth, and sky,--was, in one way or other,
+instinct with his own initial and irrepressible affection. Apart,
+however, from the illusions respecting the lady of his heart, under
+which he laboured, and which drove him to madness, there was a tendency
+to gloom and despondency implanted in his very nature, a disposition of
+mind in which his sister Emily largely resembled him. To such an extent
+was this the case that, in her poem of 'The Philosopher,' written in
+the October of 1845, she not only gives expression to similar weird
+thoughts and desires, but one might think there had been some
+interchange of ideas between the two,--that, perhaps, she had read his
+'Real Rest,' and wrote the following words in half-censure of its
+tendency. She is speaking of an enlightening spirit:
+
+    'Had I but seen his glorious eye
+      _Once_ light the clouds that wilder me;
+    I ne'er had raised this coward cry
+      To cease to think, and cease to be;
+    I ne'er had called oblivion blest,
+      Nor stretching eager hands to death,
+    Implored to change for senseless rest
+      This sentient soul, this living breath--
+    Oh, let me die--that power and will
+      Their cruel strife may close;
+    And conquered good and conquering ill
+      Be lost in one repose!'
+
+It is noteworthy that Charlotte, also, in the second part of her poem
+'Gilbert,' has used the incident of a corpse floating upon the waters,
+which is seen by the unhappy man in his vision, not, indeed, to give
+him the calm of oblivion, but rather, in contrast to Branwell's poem,
+to wake in him the pains of sorrow and remorse.
+
+Again, on the 25th of November, 1845, Branwell wrote to Leyland. He
+could not free himself from the unfortunate ideas which had perverted
+his understanding, but on every other subject he wrote justly.
+
+    'Haworth,
+    'Bradford, Yorks.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I send you the enclosed,--and I ought to tell you why I wished
+    anything of so personal a nature to appear in print.
+
+    'I have no other way, not pregnant with danger, of communicating
+    with one whom I cannot help loving. Printed lines, with my usual
+    signature, "Northangerland," could excite no suspicion--as my late
+    unhappy employer shrank from the bare idea of my being able to
+    write anything, and had a day's sickness after hearing that
+    Macaulay had sent me a complimentary letter; so _he_ won't know
+    the name.
+
+    'I sent through a private channel one letter of comfort in her
+    great and agonizing present afflictions, but I recalled it through
+    dread of the consequences of a discovery.
+
+    'These lines have only one merit,--that of really expressing my
+    feelings, while sailing under the Welsh mountain, when the band on
+    board the steamer struck up, "Ye banks and braes!" God knows that,
+    for many different reasons, those feelings were far enough from
+    pleasure.
+
+    'I suffer very much from that mental exhaustion which arises from
+    brooding on matters useless at present to think of,--and active
+    employment would be my greatest cure and blessing,--for really,
+    after hours of thoughts which business would have hushed, I have
+    felt as if I could not live, and, if long-continued, such a state
+    will bring on permanent affection of the heart, which is already
+    bothered with most uneasy palpitations.
+
+    'I should like extremely to have an hour's sitting with you, and,
+    if I had the chance, I would promise to try not to look gloomy. You
+    said you would be at Haworth ere long, but that "ere" has doubtless
+    changed to "ne'er;" so I must wish to get to Halifax some time to
+    see you.
+
+    'I saw Murray's monument praised in the papers, and I trust you are
+    getting on well with Beckwith's, as well as with your own personal
+    statue of living flesh and blood.
+
+    'Mine, like your Theseus, has lost its hands and feet, and I fear
+    its head also, for it can neither move, write, nor think as it once
+    could.
+
+    'I hope I shall hear from you on John Brown's return from Halifax,
+    whither he has gone.
+
+    'I remain, &c.,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+The poem enclosed was entitled:
+
+    PENMAENMAWR.
+
+    'These winds, these clouds, this chill November storm
+    Bring back again thy tempest-beaten form
+    To eyes that look upon yon dreary sky
+    As late they looked on thy sublimity;
+    When I, more troubled than thy restless sea,
+    Found, in its waves, companionship with thee.
+    'Mid mists thou frownedst over Arvon's shore,
+    'Mid tears I watched thee over ocean's roar,
+    And thy blue front, by thousand storms laid bare,
+    Claimed kindred with a heart worn down by care.
+    No smile had'st thou, o'er smiling fields aspiring,
+    And none had I, from smiling fields retiring;
+    Blackness, 'mid sunlight, tinged thy slaty brow,
+    I, 'mid sweet music, looked as dark as thou;
+    Old Scotland's song, o'er murmuring surges borne,
+    Of "times departed,--never to return,"
+    Was echoed back in mournful tones from thee,
+    And found an echo, quite as sad, in me;
+    Waves, clouds, and shadows moved in restless change,
+    Around, above, and on thy rocky range,
+    But seldom saw that sovereign front of thine
+    Changes more quick than those which passed o'er mine.
+    And as wild winds and human hands, at length,
+    Have turned to scattered stones the mighty strength
+    Of that old fort, whose belt of boulders grey
+    Roman or Saxon legions held at bay;
+    So had, methought, the young, unshaken nerve--
+    That, when WILL wished, no doubt could cause to swerve,
+    That on its vigour ever placed reliance,
+    That to its sorrows sometimes bade defiance--
+    Now left my spirit, like thyself, old hill,
+    With head defenceless against human ill;
+    And, as thou long hast looked upon the wave
+    That takes, but gives not, like a churchyard grave,
+    I, like life's course, through ether's weary range,
+    Never know rest from ceaseless strife and change.
+
+    'But, PENMAENMAWR! a better fate was thine,
+    Through all its shades, than that which darkened mine;
+    No quick thoughts thrilled through thy gigantic mass
+    Of woe for what might be, or is, or was;
+    Thou hadst no memory of the glorious hour
+    When Britain rested on thy giant power;
+    Thou hadst no feeling for the verdant slope
+    That leant on thee as man's heart leads on hope;
+    The pastures, chequered o'er with cot and tree,
+    Though thou wert guardian, got no smile from thee;
+    Old ocean's wrath their charms might overwhelm,
+    But thou could'st still keep thy unshaken realm--
+    While I felt flashes of an inward feeling
+    As fierce as those thy craggy form revealing
+    In nights of blinding gleams, when deafening roar
+    Hurls back thy echo to old Mona's shore.
+    I knew a flower, whose leaves were meant to bloom
+    Till Death should snatch it to adorn a tomb,
+    Now, blanching 'neath the blight of hopeless grief,
+    With never blooming, and yet living leaf;
+    A flower on which my mind would wish to shine,
+    If but one beam could break from mind like mine.
+    I had an ear which could on accents dwell
+    That might as well say "perish!" as "farewell!"
+    An eye which saw, far off, a tender form,
+    Beaten, unsheltered, by affliction's storm;
+    An arm--a lip--that trembled to embrace
+    My angel's gentle breast and sorrowing face,
+    A mind that clung to Ouse's fertile side
+    While tossing--objectless--on Menai's tide!
+
+    'Oh, Soul! that draw'st yon mighty hill and me
+    Into communion of vague unity,
+    Tell me, can I obtain the stony brow
+    That fronts the storm, as much unbroken now
+    As when it once upheld the fortress proud,
+    Now gone, like its own morning cap of cloud?
+    Its breast is stone. Can I have one of steel,
+    To endure--inflict--defend--yet never feel?
+    It stood as firm when haughty Edward's word
+    Gave hill and dale to England's fire and sword,
+    As when white sails and steam-smoke tracked the sea,
+    And all the world breathed peace, but waves and me.
+
+    'Let me, like it, arise o'er mortal care,
+    All woes sustain, yet never know despair;
+    Unshrinking face the grief I now deplore,
+    And stand, through storm and shine, like moveless PENMAENMAWR!'
+
+These lines are shadowed, like all his other writings, with the grief
+that day and night oppressed him. Throughout the theme, his eager
+yearning for mental quiet is finely expressed; and in it he contrasts
+the strength and calm of the everlasting hill in its chequered history,
+and in the ceaseless changes, and the lights and shadows that fall upon
+it, with his own wild and stormy existence; the lady, whose charms have
+bewildered his imagination, supplying him with a subject for sorrowful
+recollections. The giant hill is the mighty image with which his
+perturbed soul communes, and he implores for strength to enable him
+to rise superior to his misfortunes, and to face, like 'moveless
+Penmaenmawr,' the storm, adversity, and ruin that threaten him. But
+there was little likelihood of the lady seeing these lines.
+
+We find Branwell, at the time, making efforts to obtain some
+employment that would divert him from useless brooding upon the
+unfortunate circumstances that destroyed his peace. Scarcely, also,
+was he less anxious to be away from home, for his presence there had
+been his greatest humiliation when his family knew of his disgrace;
+yet, with a method of which he was master, he appears to have kept
+silence there on the subject his madness made him so ready to repeat
+to others. However his sisters Emily and Anne might regard him,
+Charlotte, at least, looked upon him as one of the fallen. She thus
+writes to her friend concerning him on the 4th of November, 1845: 'I
+hoped to be able to ask you to come to Haworth. It almost seemed as if
+Branwell had a chance of getting employment, and I waited to know the
+result of his efforts in order to say, dear ----, come and see us. But
+the place (a secretaryship to a railway committee) is given to another
+person. Branwell still remains at home; and while _he_ is here, _you_
+shall not come. I am more confirmed in that resolution the more I see
+of him. I wish I could say one word to you in his favour, but I
+cannot. I will hold my tongue. We are all obliged to you for your kind
+suggestion about Leeds; but I think our school schemes are, for the
+present, at rest.' Again, she says on December 31st of the same year:
+'You say well, in speaking of ----, that no sufferings are so awful as
+those brought on by dissipation; alas! I see the truth of this
+observation daily proved. ---- and ---- must have as weary and
+burdensome a life of it in waiting upon their unhappy brother. It
+seems grievous, indeed, that those who have not sinned should suffer
+so largely.'[22] Charlotte also, writing to Nancy Garrs, who at times
+assisted at the parsonage, complained of the conduct of her brother;
+but, later, requested that the letter should be destroyed. Her wish
+was complied with.
+
+        [22] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xiii.
+
+It is, indeed, an almost impossible task to convey to the reader, in
+the pages of a biography, an idea which will, in an adequate degree,
+approach the intimate acquaintance which those who lived, saw, and
+spoke with its subject possessed. And, yet, how necessary is such
+knowledge to the right understanding of anyone's letters! But with what
+chance of a true insight, then, shall we read the letters of Branwell
+Bronte and his sister, if we have an incorrect view of his character?
+
+Miss Robinson has confidently concluded, from certain depreciatory
+references to himself, in his letters to Mr. Grundy, that, at this
+period, 'he was manifestly, and by his own confession, too physically
+prostrate for any literary effort,' with how much accuracy the reader
+has seen and will further see. And Mr. Wemyss Reid, with respect to the
+character of Mr. Bronte, adopting much of Mrs. Gaskell's view of him,
+and relying upon his children's letters, has produced a portrait of him
+to which, as he allows, 'some of those who knew him in his later years,
+including one who is above all others entitled to an opinion on the
+subject, have objected as being over-coloured.' We must not read, then,
+too literally all that we find in the letters. It would be folly to
+take word for word Charlotte's account of her father's anger when she
+announced to him a proposal of marriage which had been made to her, and
+which did not accord with his wish; or to believe that 'compassion or
+relenting is no more to be looked for from papa than sap from
+firewood,' when we know that he afterwards voluntarily gave way, and
+sacrificed his own opinion. Nor would it be right to accept any
+exaggerated confession of Charlotte about herself, in a literal sense.
+And thus it does not sound well in Mrs. Gaskell, after completing her
+account of the outward events of Branwell's life, to say, 'All that is
+to be said more about Branwell Bronte shall be said by Charlotte
+herself, not by me;' and then to proceed to extract such portions of
+the sister's letters as condemned him, and to summarize or repress
+anything favourable. But Miss Robinson has gone further. She, by
+extracting a few censures from various letters, apart in date, and
+leaving out all mention of the chance of the secretaryship in the
+letter of November the 4th, and the words 'to him' in another, has left
+her reader under the impression that, after his dismissal, Branwell
+would not seek employment. 'Such was not his intention,' she says. But
+Branwell's efforts to obtain the secretaryship, to which Charlotte
+alludes, are sufficient evidence of a contrary disposition in him; and
+we shall find that he exerted himself in other directions also.
+
+The failure of the school-keeping has likewise been duly laid to his
+charge, although, as we have seen, Mr. Bronte's oncoming blindness, in
+the first place, and the difficulty of procuring pupils at Haworth,
+were the causes of its failure. To the reason why no attempt was made
+to open a school elsewhere, I shall have further to allude.
+
+We have been told by Mrs. Gaskell that, some months after Branwell's
+dismissal, he met the wife of his former employer clandestinely by
+appointment. 'There was,' she says, 'a strange lingering of conscience,
+when ... he refused to consent to the elopement which she proposed.'[23]
+Miss Robinson, who adopts this report, thinks that the phrase 'herself
+and estate,' in the letter he sent to Mr. Grundy, throws quite a new
+light upon Mrs. Gaskell's opinion that there were any remains of
+conscience left in Branwell Bronte. She says he counselled 'a little
+longer waiting,'--that he might become possessed of the property, on
+the death of the lady's husband. But if this incident of the proposed
+elopement had actually taken place, the delay suggested by Branwell
+should surely be held as proof that anything positively dishonourable
+was repulsive to him. The lady, too, had an ample fortune of her own,
+of which, had she proposed an elopement, she would have informed him.
+But, if we consider the possible sources from which such a story as
+this could arise, we may surmise that Mrs. Gaskell,--who first gave it
+to the public, and on whose authority it alone remains,--obtained it,
+with the many other incidents she has published, from the current
+scandal of Haworth,--where else could she have heard it?--and when we
+remember that the rumours of the village, though magnified a
+hundred-fold, had their origin in the infatuated belief and wild
+statements of Branwell himself, possibly we shall not be wrong if we
+conclude that it had no foundation whatever in fact. Certainly there is
+no sufficient evidence for it. And the story is in itself inherently
+improbable, for it alleges that the lady had been not only regardless
+of her reputation, but had cast to the winds all thoughts of those
+pecuniary considerations which, a little later, upon the death of her
+husband, are stated to have prevented her from marrying in honour the
+supposed object of her affections.
+
+        [23] 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap, xiii., 1st edition.
+
+I have, earlier in this work, spoken of a poem on one of the traditions
+of Lancashire, by Mr. Peters, entitled: 'Leyland's Daughter,' which is
+the story of a romantic elopement. Branwell, early in 1846, proposed to
+write a poem on Morley Hall, in the parish of Leigh, where the
+elopement took place in the reign of Edward VI., in which he also would
+touch upon the incident.
+
+This tradition, and Branwell's intended work on the subject, became
+often a topic of conversation both at Haworth and Halifax: and, it is
+not improbable that, some ten years afterwards, when Mrs. Gaskell was
+searching at the former place for materials for her work, the story of
+this ancient elopement had become mixed with the stories of the village
+respecting Branwell and the lady of his late employer, and thus, with
+them, was ready for Mrs. Gaskell's hand, additions having been made as
+to time and place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+THE SISTERS' POEMS AND NOVELS.--BRANWELL'S LITERARY OCCUPATIONS.
+
+The Sisters as Writers of Poetry--They Decide to Publish--Each
+begins a Novel--The Spirit under which the Work was Undertaken--
+'The Professor'--'Agnes Grey'--'Wuthering Heights'--Branwell's
+Condition--A Touching Incident--'Epistle from a Father to a Child
+in her Grave'--Letter with Sonnet--Publication of the Sisters'
+Poems.
+
+
+If Branwell Bronte had devoted himself to literature under the impulse
+of his misfortune, his sisters were not long unoccupied ere they also
+entered upon its pursuit. 'One day, in the autumn of 1845,' says
+Charlotte, 'I accidentally lighted on a MS. volume of verse in my
+sister Emily's handwriting.' The elder sister was not surprised,
+knowing that the younger could and did write verse; but she thought
+these were no common effusions. 'To my ear,' she says, 'they had also a
+peculiar music--wild, melancholy, and elevating. My sister Emily was
+not a person of demonstrative character, nor one on the recesses of
+whose mind and feelings even those nearest and dearest to her could,
+with impunity, intrude unlicensed; it took hours to reconcile her to
+the discovery I had made, and days to persuade her that such poems
+merited publication.' Charlotte Bronte here grasped, with unfailing
+precision, the very secret spell which we find in Emily's poetry; the
+strange, wild, weird voice, with which it speaks to us, spoke first of
+all to her, and she felt the heather-scented breath, even as we do, of
+the moorland air on which its music was borne. Anne also produced
+verses, which had 'a sweet, sincere pathos of their own;' and the three
+sisters, believing, after anxious deliberation, that they might get
+their respective productions accepted for publication in one volume,
+set on foot inquiries on the subject, and now adopted the pseudonyms of
+Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell, which were afterwards to become so
+famous. It was not, however, to be expected that the effusions of
+inexperienced and unknown writers would be of such value as to induce
+any publisher to take them on his own risk. Indeed, Miss Bronte says
+'the great puzzle lay in the difficulty of getting answers of any kind
+from the publishers to whom we applied.' She wrote to Messrs. Chambers,
+of Edinburgh, asking advice, and received a brief and business-like
+reply, upon which the sisters acted, and at last made way.
+
+On the 28th of January, 1846, Charlotte, as we have been informed,
+wrote to Messrs. Aylott and Jones, asking if they would publish a
+one-volume, octavo, of poems; if not at their own risk, on the authors'
+account. Messrs. Aylott and Jones did not hesitate to accept the latter
+proposal.
+
+It must have been when the sisters became aware that publishers would
+not accept the poetry of unknown writers on any other terms, that they
+turned their thoughts to prose composition. Branwell, in his dire
+distress, had fixed his attention on the writing of a three-volume
+novel, principally as a refuge from mental disquiet; but his sisters,
+now, with very different feelings, each set to work on a one-volume
+tale. It had occurred to them, we are told, that by novel writing money
+was to be made. They were, in fact, influenced by precisely the view of
+the profit to be derived from fiction which Branwell had propounded in
+his remarkable letter to his friend Leyland. 'Ill-success,' says
+Charlotte, 'failed to crush us: the mere effort to succeed had given a
+wonderful zest to existence; it must be pursued. We each set to work on
+a prose tale: Ellis Bell produced "Wuthering Heights," Acton Bell,
+"Agnes Grey," and Currer Bell also wrote a narrative in one volume.'
+
+The business-like way in which the sisters went about their novel
+writing, forbids us to believe that they brooded very much on the
+conduct of their brother when the literary fervour was upon them; but
+Miss Robinson leads her readers to think that his character and
+failings had much to do with the tone which their works assumed.
+Writing under this belief, and with this intention,--as might have been
+expected,--she has found it necessary to paint every circumstance
+relating to him, and the inmates of the parsonage, in the darkest
+colours, and often has arrived at conclusions widely different from the
+actual facts. Moreover this writer, in supporting her views, has fallen
+into the serious error of placing the event which completed Branwell's
+disappointment, and its consequences to him, four months earlier than
+they occurred.
+
+The novels which the sisters wrote under the influence of these
+troubles do not, indeed, bear any marked traces of them. 'The
+Professor,' Charlotte's story, which was not published until long
+after, is the direct outcome of her personal experiences in Brussels,
+and the few shadows that one finds in it are the record of such
+troubles as she had there. In this book, Currer Bell describes the life
+of endeavour, which seemed to her the most honourable, the treading of
+those paths in the outer world whose pleasures and pains she had found
+so keen. Already, in the March of 1845, she had written to a friend
+telling her that she was no longer happy at Haworth, though it was her
+duty to remain there. 'There was a time when Haworth was a very
+pleasant place to me; it is not so now. I feel as if we were all buried
+here. I long to travel; to work; to live a life of action.' Thus 'The
+Professor' is the story of the work and of the life of action for which
+the author herself was pining. William Crimsworth, neglected by his
+rich relations, cut off by his brutal brother, seeks his fortune in
+Brussels, and obtains a place as professor of English in a school
+there. He leads a life that Charlotte knows well; he is in the place
+she has learned to love; and he describes, with close observation, the
+character and the routine to which she is so well accustomed. Pelet,
+his master, is an original, as Paul Emanuel is, and Zoraide Reuter is
+the prototype of Madame Beck. These characters are forcibly conceived,
+as is that of Mademoiselle Henri; but the book bears the traces of a
+novice's hand. Thus, how unnatural does the proposal which Crimsworth
+makes to Frances read to us, where, while asking her to be his wife,
+demanding of her what regard she has for him, he says not a word of his
+own devotion to her; and where, even when she grants him all he has
+been hoping for so long, his sole remark is, 'Very well, Frances!' But
+a stronger point of interest for us in the book is the spirit which
+moves Crimsworth in his endeavours, where he struggles with might and
+main, just as Charlotte herself wished to do, for a competency; and
+there is the school, too, which his wife designs and establishes, the
+very pattern of that which was in Charlotte's own mind. It is
+instructive and singular that in this book we find Crimsworth suffering
+from the hypochondria which beset its author, and that, too, at the
+time when he should have been happiest.
+
+'Man,' he says, 'is ever clogged with his mortality, and it was my
+mortal nature which now faltered and plained; my nerves, which jarred
+and gave a false sound, because the soul, of late rushing headlong to
+an aim, had over-strained the body's comparative weakness. A horror of
+great darkness fell upon me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had
+known formerly, but had thought for ever departed. I was temporarily a
+prey to hypochondria. She had been my acquaintance, nay, my guest, once
+before in boyhood; I had entertained her at bed and board for a year;
+for that space of time I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me,
+she ate with me, she walked out with me, showing me nooks in woods,
+hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop
+her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree;
+taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom, and holding me with arms of
+bone.' This was the phantom that visited Charlotte also. Of the effect
+of her brother's conduct on her I have found but two passages in 'The
+Professor,'--that which I have quoted respecting the youth of Victor
+Crimsworth earlier in this volume, and that, in Chapter xx., where
+William Crimsworth leaves Pelet's house lest a 'practical modern French
+novel' should be in process beneath its roof. It was Charlotte's
+design, in writing 'The Professor,' to lend it no charm of romance. Her
+hero was to work his way through life, and to find no sudden turn to
+endow him with wealth, for he was to earn every shilling he possessed,
+and he was not even to marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank in the
+end. 'In the sequel, however,' says Charlotte, 'I find that publishers
+in general scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked
+something more imaginative and poetical;' and for this reason,
+probably, the book did not find a publisher so soon as 'Agnes Grey,'
+and 'Wuthering Heights,' which were sent from the parsonage with it.
+
+'Agnes Grey,' Anne Bronte's story, like 'The Professor,' is the
+picture of things its author had known, painted almost as she saw
+them. Anne's experience as a governess had made her acquainted with
+certain phases of life, which she could not but reproduce. Hence Agnes
+Grey is thrown into the sphere of the careless and selfish family of
+the Bloomfields; and afterwards, with the Murrays at Horton Lodge, she
+sees a kind of personal character and social life which, on account of
+its coldness and worldliness, greatly repelled Anne Bronte, with her
+warm and sympathetic nature. She teaches the same lesson of the folly
+of _mariages de convenance_, and of the wrong of subjecting the
+affections, and bartering happiness for the sake of worldly position,
+which she afterwards dwells upon more strongly in 'The Tenant of
+Wildfell Hall.' It is in this fictitious parallel of Anne Bronte's own
+experience, if anywhere in her writings, that we might expect to find
+some reflection of the recent history of her brother's fall. Mr. Reid
+has asserted that this formed the dark turning-point in her life, for
+'living under the same roof with him when he went astray,' she 'was
+compelled to be a closer and more constant witness of his sins and his
+sufferings than either Charlotte or Emily.' Her letters home, it has
+been stated, conveyed the news of her dark forebodings. But, all the
+same, the story she wrote, almost under the shadow of her brother's
+disgrace, is the simple, straightforward, humorous narrative of the
+gentle and pious Anne Bronte, revealing not so much as a suspicion of
+vice or thought of evil; and, in this respect, it presents a contrast
+to her second work. There is evidence that when the sisters wrote
+their novels they had already attributed monomania to Branwell, and
+could thus explain his history for themselves. It was not in the
+nature of 'Agnes Grey' to be successful as a novel, but we find in it
+that Anne possessed a faculty which scarcely appears in Charlotte's
+writings,--that of humour. Look, for instance, at the way in which she
+sketches so forcibly, and with such droll perception, the character of
+the youthful Bloomfields, and, afterwards, of Miss Matilda Murray,
+with her equine propensities and masculine tastes.
+
+'Wuthering Heights,' the work which Emily Bronte sent from the
+parsonage at the same time, incomparably finer in its powers than
+either 'The Professor' or 'Agnes Grey,' is a dramatic story of passion
+and tragic energy that astonished the world,--and with which it has
+been said Branwell's life in those days had much concern.
+Inferentially, it is contended that, without the darkening effect on
+her understanding of Branwell's misfortunes, without the neighbourhood
+of the 'brother of set purpose drinking himself to death out of furious
+thwarted passion for a mistress he might not marry,' Emily Bronte could
+not have conceived it. It will, then, perhaps be better to defer the
+study of Emily's production till something more has been said of the
+period in which it was written; and until some new light has been
+thrown upon Branwell's character and career, and upon the anachronistic
+improprieties of previous writers.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell passes over the period in which the sisters betook
+themselves to novel writing with little comment. But she keeps in
+remembrance the presence of Branwell while their literary labours
+continued,--'the black shadow of remorse lying over one in their home.'
+What it was that the biographer of Charlotte supposed stung Branwell's
+conscience is well-known; but, if there had been this cause for it in
+one of a naturally remorseful disposition, as his was, we must have met
+with some expression of it in his letters or poems, for
+
+    'The Mind, that broods o'er guilty woes,
+      Is like the Scorpion girt by fire.'
+
+Yet, perhaps, one of the most significant points to be observed in
+Branwell's writings, and in studying his conduct, is the absence of any
+such remorse. He encouraged himself--after the first shock of his
+disappointment--with the hope that time would bring him the happiness
+he wished; and, as some believe, with good and sufficient reason. He
+was unhappy when he thought of the supposed ill-health and sufferings
+of the lady.
+
+It is noteworthy that something inconsequent, in putting down
+Branwell's conduct entirely to remorse in this way, was the feature of
+Mrs. Gaskell's work, to which so great an analyzer of motives as George
+Eliot, as shown by her letters published quite recently, took
+exception, and regretted.[24]
+
+        [24] 'George Eliot's Life, as related in her Letters and
+        Journals,' arranged and edited by her husband, J. W. Cross,
+        1885, vol. i., p. 441.
+
+If we believe Branwell to have been subject to hallucination, we may
+then, perhaps, gain an idea of the true cause of the wretchedness he
+endured when he fell back on his own reflections. His life had been one
+of severe disappointment. Those early aims in art, for which he had
+spent so much preparation, and from which he hoped so much, had fallen
+away before him; his first efforts as usher and tutor had come to
+nothing; then followed the lapse which ended his stay with the railway
+company; and, lastly, the infatuation which had seized him in his late
+employment, with its vision of future opulence, and rest from all
+former change and trouble, ending in dismissal, distraction, and
+disgrace. All these things, rushing back upon his mind in moments of
+reflection, were more than he could bear, and he sought, in various
+ways, some honourable to him, to divert himself from the subject, but
+sometimes in a manner that gave cause for complaint at home, and
+resulted in moodiness and irritability of temper. On the other hand, he
+seems to have felt himself aggrieved by a want of sympathy on the part
+of his family in sufferings they did not comprehend.
+
+Mr. George Searle Phillips, with whom Branwell became acquainted at
+Bradford, and who visited him at Haworth, says that he complained
+sometimes of the way in which he was treated at home; and, as an
+instance, relates the following:
+
+'One of the Sunday-school girls, in whom he and all his house took much
+interest, fell very sick, and they were afraid she would not live. "I
+went to see the poor little thing," he said; "sat with her
+half-an-hour, and read a psalm to her, and a hymn at her request. I
+felt very like praying with her too," he added, his voice trembling
+with emotion; "but, you see, I was not good enough. How dare I pray for
+another, who had almost forgotten how to pray for myself! I came away
+with a heavy heart, for I felt sure she would die, and went straight
+home, where I fell into melancholy musings. I wanted somebody to cheer
+me. I often do, but no kind word finds its way even to my ears, much
+less to my heart. Charlotte observed my depression, and asked what
+ailed me. So I told her. She looked at me with a look I shall never
+forget--if I live to be a hundred years old--which I never shall. It
+was not like her at all. It wounded me as if some one had struck me a
+blow in the mouth. It involved ever so many things in it. It was a
+dubious look. It ran over me, questioning, and examining, as if I had
+been a wild beast. It said, 'Did my ears deceive me, or did I hear
+aright?' And then came the painful, baffled expression, which was worse
+than all. It said, 'I wonder if that's true?' But, as she left the
+room, she seemed to accuse herself of having wronged me, and smiled
+kindly upon me, and said, 'She is my little scholar, and I will go and
+see her.' I replied not a word. I was too much cut up. When she was
+gone, I came over here to the 'Black Bull,' and made a note of it in
+sheer disgust and desperation. Why could they not give me some credit
+when I was trying to be good?"'[25]
+
+        [25] 'The Mirror,' 1872.
+
+At the beginning of March, Charlotte returned from a visit to a friend,
+and we hear that she found it very forced work to address her brother
+when she went into the room where he was; but he took no notice, and
+made no reply; he was stupefied; she had heard that he had got a
+sovereign while she was away, on pretence of paying a pressing debt,
+and had changed it, at a public-house, with the expected result.
+
+Again Charlotte says, on March 31st, 1846: 'I am thankful papa
+continues pretty well, though often made very miserable by Branwell's
+wretched conduct. _There_--there is no change but for the worse.'
+
+At this time Branwell wrote the following beautiful ode, somewhat
+incomplete in its expression, yet characteristic of his genius, which
+seems to have been inspired by the outcast feelings of which he spoke
+to Mr. Phillips, and to contain some reproach to those who thought him
+deficient in natural affection. It bears date April 3rd, 1846:
+
+    EPISTLE FROM A FATHER TO A CHILD IN HER GRAVE.
+
+      'From Earth,--whose life-reviving April showers
+    Hide withered grass 'neath Springtide's herald flowers,
+    And give, in each soft wind that drives her rain,
+    Promise of fields and forests rich again,--
+    I write to thee, the aspect of whose face
+    Can never change with altered time or place;
+    Whose eyes could look on India's fiercest wars
+    Less shrinking than the boldest son of Mars;
+    Whose lips, more firm that Stoic's long ago,
+    Would neither smile with joy nor blanch with woe;
+    Whose limbs could sufferings far more firmly bear
+    Than mightiest heroes in the storms of war;
+    Whose frame, nor wishes good, nor shrinks from ill,
+    Nor feels distraction's throb, nor pleasure's thrill.
+
+      'I write to thee what thou wilt never read,
+    For heed me thou _wilt not_, howe'er may bleed
+    The heart that many think a worthless stone,
+    But which oft aches for some beloved one;
+    Nor, if that life, mysterious, from on high,
+    Once more gave feeling to thy stony eye,
+    Could'st thou thy father know, or feel that he
+    Gave life and lineaments and thoughts to thee;
+    For when thou died'st, thy day was in its dawn,
+    And night still struggled with Life's opening morn;
+    The twilight star of childhood, thy young days
+    Alone illumined, with its twinkling rays,
+    So sweet, yet feeble, given from those dusk skies,
+    Whose kindling, coming noontide prophesies,
+    But tells us not that Summer's noon can shroud
+    Our sunshine with a veil of thunder-cloud.
+
+      'If, when thou freely gave the life, that ne'er
+    To thee had given either hope or fear,
+    But quietly had shone; nor asked if joy
+    Thy future course should cheer, or grief annoy;
+
+      'If then thoud'st seen, upon a summer sea,
+    One, once in features, as in blood, like thee,
+    On skies of azure blue and waters green,
+    Melting to mist amid the summer sheen,
+    In trouble gazing--ever hesitating
+    'Twixt miseries each hour new dread creating,
+    And joys--whate'er they cost--still doubly dear,
+    Those "troubled pleasures soon chastised by fear;"
+    If thou _had'st_ seen him, thou would'st ne'er believe
+    That thou had'st yet known what it was to live!
+
+      'Thine eyes could only see thy mother's breast;
+    Thy feelings only wished on that to rest;
+    That was thy world;--thy food and sleep it gave,
+    And slight the change 'twixt it and childhood's grave.
+    Thou saw'st this world like one who, prone, reposes,
+    Upon a plain, and in a bed of roses,
+    With nought in sight save marbled skies above,
+    Nought heard but breezes whispering in the grove:
+    I--thy life's source--was like a wanderer breasting
+    Keen mountain winds, and on a summit resting,
+    Whose rough rocks rose above the grassy mead,
+    With sleet and north winds howling overhead,
+    And Nature, like a map, beneath him spread;
+    Far winding river, tree, and tower, and town,
+    Shadow and sunlight, 'neath his gaze marked down
+    By that mysterious hand which graves the plan
+    Of that drear country called "The Life of Man."
+
+      'If seen, men's eyes would loathing shrink from thee,
+    And turn, perhaps, with no disgust to me;
+    Yet thou had'st beauty, innocence, and smiles,
+    And now hast rest from this world's woes and wiles,
+    While I have restlessness and worrying care,
+    So sure, thy lot is brighter, happier far.
+
+      'So let it be; and though thy ears may never
+    Hear these lines read beyond Death's darksome river,
+    Not vainly from the borders of despair
+    May rise a sound of joy that thou art freed from care!'
+
+On the 6th of April of this year, Charlotte wrote to Messrs. Aylott &
+Jones, informing them that 'the Messrs. Bell' were preparing for the
+press a work of fiction, consisting of three distinct and unconnected
+tales, which might be published either together, as a work of three
+volumes of the ordinary novel size, or separately, as single volumes.
+It was not their intention to publish these at their own expense, and
+they wished to know if Messrs. Aylott would be likely to undertake the
+work, if approved.
+
+The novels must have been well on towards completion before the sisters
+ventured on these inquiries. The firm thus addressed kindly offered
+advice, of which Charlotte gladly availed herself to ask some
+questions. These were respecting the difficulty which unknown authors
+find in obtaining assistance from publishers; and Charlotte has indeed
+informed us that the three tales were going about among them 'for the
+space of a year and a half.' But 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey'
+at last found acceptance in the early summer of 1847.
+
+A friendly compact had been made between Branwell and Leyland that the
+latter should model a medallion of his friend, and that Branwell should
+write the poem 'Morley Hall,'--to which I have had occasion above to
+allude--a subject in which the sculptor was much interested. Shortly
+after his sister made the inquiries from Messrs. Aylott, Branwell
+visited Halifax to sit for his medallion; and, on the 28th of April, he
+wrote the following letter to his friend:--
+
+    'Haworth, Bradford,
+    'Yorks.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'As I am anxious--though my return for your kindness will be like
+    giving a sixpence for a sovereign lent--to do my best in my
+    intended lines on Morley, I want answers to the following
+    questions.... If I learn these facts, I'll do my best, but in all I
+    try to write I desire to stick to probabilities and local
+    characteristics.
+
+    'I cannot, without a smile at myself, think of my stay for three
+    days in Halifax on a business which need not have occupied three
+    hours; but, in truth, when I fall back _on_ myself, I suffer so
+    much wretchedness that I cannot withstand any temptation to get
+    _out_ of myself--and for that reason, I am prosecuting enquiries
+    about situations suitable to me, whereby I could have a voyage
+    abroad. The quietude of home, and the inability to make my family
+    aware of the nature of most of my sufferings, makes me write:
+
+        'Home thoughts are not with me,
+          Bright, as of yore;
+        Joys are forgot by me,
+          Taught to deplore!
+        My home has taken rest
+        In an afflicted breast,
+        Which I have often pressed,
+          But may no more.
+
+    'Troubles never come alone--and I have some little troubles astride
+    the shoulders of the big one.
+
+    'Literary exertion would seem a resource; but the depression
+    attendant on it, and the almost hopelessness of bursting through
+    the barriers of literary circles, and getting a hearing among
+    publishers, make me disheartened and indifferent, for I cannot
+    write what would be thrown unread into a library fire. Otherwise, I
+    have the materials for a respectably sized volume, and, if I were
+    in London personally, I might, perhaps, try ---- ----, a patronizer
+    of the sons of rhyme; though I daresay the poor man often smarts
+    for his liberality in publishing hideous trash. As I know that,
+    while here, I might send a manuscript to London, and say good-bye
+    to it, I feel it folly to feed the flames of a printer's fire. So
+    much for egotism!
+
+    'I enclose a horribly ill-drawn daub done to while away the time
+    this morning. I meant it to represent a very rough figure in stone.
+
+        'When all our cheerful hours seem gone for ever,
+          All lost that caused the body or the mind
+          To nourish love or friendship for our kind,
+        And Charon's boat, prepared, o'er Lethe's river
+        Our souls to waft, and all our thoughts to sever
+          From what was once life's Light; still there may be
+          Some well-loved bosom to whose pillow we
+        Could heartily our utter self deliver;
+        And if, toward her grave--Death's dreary road--
+          Our Darling's feet should tread, each step by her
+        Would draw our own steps to the same abode,
+          And make a festival of sepulture;
+        For what gave joy, and joy to us had owed,
+        Should death affright us from, when he would her restore?
+
+    'Yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+The sketch, referred to in this letter, is in Indian-ink, and is of a
+female figure, with clasped hands, streaming hair, and averted face. We
+need not entertain a doubt as to whom it is intended to represent. It
+is inscribed, in Spanish, 'Nuestra Senora de la Pena'--Our Lady of
+Grief--which also appears on a headstone in the sketch.
+
+The sonnet, which concludes this letter to Leyland, is beautiful as it
+is sad, and not only possesses the musical cadences, and completeness
+of theme, so essential in this mode of expression, but exhibits the
+high culture of Branwell's mind, and the direction in which the
+irrepressible emotions of his heart are moved.
+
+Branwell, in this communication, makes no further mention of his novel.
+Yet the experience of his sisters with their poems had only confirmed
+the judgment he expressed six months before, that no pecuniary
+advantage was to be obtained by publishing verse. The sisters had
+expended, on their little volume, over thirty pounds; but they valued
+it rightly as an effort to succeed. It was issued from the press early
+in May.
+
+Charlotte had conducted the negotiations with the publishers in a very
+business-like way. She had directed them as to the copies to be sent
+for review, and as to the advertisements, on which she wished to expend
+little. The book appeared, and the world took little note of it: it was
+scarcely mentioned anywhere; but the sisters at Haworth waited
+patiently, and they were not dismayed that they waited in vain; for
+they had new-born hope in their other literary venture of the three
+prose stories. 'The book,' says Charlotte of the Poems, 'was printed:
+it is scarcely known, and all of it that merits to be known are the
+poems of Ellis Bell. The fixed conviction I held, and hold, of the
+worth of these poems has not indeed received the confirmation of much
+favourable criticism; but I must retain it notwithstanding.'
+
+In his letter Branwell expresses himself as still anxious for
+employment; and wise in the direction in which he seeks it. A total
+change of scene and circumstance would have been, at this time, his
+best cure and greatest blessing. Unhappily, he failed in the attempt;
+and we find him again writing to Mr. Grundy, inquiring for some kind of
+occupation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+DESPONDENCY.--BRANWELL'S LETTERS.
+
+Death of Branwell's late Employer--Branwell's Disappointment--His
+Letters--His Delusion--Leyland's Medallion of Him--Mr. Bronte's
+Blindness--Branwell's Statement to Mr. Grundy in Reference to
+'Wuthering Heights'--The Sisters Relinquish the Intention of Opening
+a School.
+
+
+An event occurred, in the early summer of 1846, which plunged
+Branwell into a despair, wilder, and more distracting than the one
+from which he had partially recovered. This resulted from the death
+of his late employer. No doubt, during the interval which had elapsed
+between his dismissal from his tutorship, and the event last named,
+he had encouraged himself, it might be unconsciously for the most
+part, with the hope that, on the death of her husband, the lady on
+whom he doted would marry him. In this frame of mind, when his
+illusion was intensified by the clearance of the path before him, and
+his self-control unbridled, it may not be a subject of wonder, if he
+became troublesome to the inmates of the dwelling afflicted by death.
+
+The following story, with variations, has been told as having
+reference to some actual or intended act of indiscretion of Branwell's
+at the time. It has been said that, at this juncture, a messenger was
+sent over to Haworth by Mrs. ----, forbidding Branwell 'ever to see
+her again, as, if he did, she would forfeit her fortune.'[26] It will
+be seen shortly that no such provision was made in her husband's will,
+and that the fortune she had secured to her could not be forfeited by
+any such act of Branwell's. The whole story, therefore, to which Mrs.
+Gaskell and Miss Robinson have devoted so much space may well be
+discredited. But Mrs. Gaskell says absolutely that Mrs. ----
+'despatched _a_ servant in hot haste to Haworth. He stopped at the
+"Black Bull," and a messenger was sent up to the parsonage for
+Branwell. He came down, &c.'[27] Miss Robinson, twenty-five years
+later, amplifies the story. She says: '_two_ men came riding to the
+village post haste. They sent for Branwell, and when he arrived, in a
+great state of excitement, one of the riders dismounted and went with
+him into the "Black Bull."'[28] Without inquiring into Branwell's
+excitement, or into the variations in the two accounts--for there is
+but one point in the story on which the two authors are perfectly
+agreed, _viz._, that Branwell, on the occasion, 'bleated like a
+calf!'--there can be little doubt that this case, on such evidence,
+could not get upon its legs before any country jury impanelled to try
+petty causes. But Branwell himself, in his letter to Mr. Grundy, given
+below, says the coachman _came_ to _see_ him, not that the lady _sent_
+him; and we may justly infer--if ever he came at all--that he come on
+his own account, having been personally acquainted with Branwell when
+he was tutor at ----. But, can it be believed that, supposing Mrs.
+---- to have been enamoured of Branwell, as asserted, she could find
+no other confidant than her 'coachman,' as a means of communicating
+her sorrows and lamentations to the distracted object of her devotion?
+There is, in this story, the inconsistency of madness. And it must be
+borne in mind that the other stories, relating to Branwell at the time
+of his tutorship at ----, which appear to have so much interested the
+biographers of Charlotte and Emily, have their paternity at Haworth,
+and are not the more trustworthy on that account.
+
+        [26] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap, xiii., 1st.
+        edit.
+
+        [27] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap, xiii., 1st.
+        edit.
+
+        [28] Robinson's 'Emily Bronte,' p. 145.
+
+I regret to trouble the reader still further with the errors of fact,
+and the exaggerated statements into which Mrs. Gaskell has fallen
+respecting this event. She says of Mrs. ----: '_Her husband had made
+a will, in which what property he left her was bequeathed solely on
+the condition that she should never see Branwell Bronte again_.'[29]
+(The Italics are my own.) Mrs. Gaskell's postulations concerning this
+will are quite as erroneous as that she made in reference to Miss
+Branwell's, so far as it related to her nephew. Indeed, like her other
+allegations respecting this most painful epoch of Branwell's life, she
+derived the information on which they were based, more from hearsay
+than from respectable or documentary evidence. It is clear she never
+saw the wills about which she speaks with so much assurance.
+
+        [29] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap, xiii., 1st
+        edit.
+
+Mrs. ----, by virtue of an indenture and a certain marriage
+settlement, was put into possession of an income that would, after her
+husband's death, have enabled her to live for the term of her life
+with Branwell in comparative plenty. To his wife, Mr. ----, in
+addition to this, left the interest arising from his real and personal
+estate. She was also principal trustee, executor, and guardian of his
+children. Moreover, he enjoined upon her co-trustees always to regard
+the wishes and interests of his wife, and to do nothing without
+consulting her about the administering of his affairs. But all
+this--and it is quite usual--was to continue only during her
+widowhood; and this common arrangement, let it be borne in mind, was
+no more directed against Branwell than anyone else. What then, it may
+well be asked, becomes of Mrs. Gaskell's assertion that the property
+left to Mrs. ---- was bequeathed solely on the condition that 'she
+should never see Branwell Bronte again'? Whatever Mrs. Gaskell and her
+followers may have asserted respecting Mr. ----'s will, it was made
+without the slightest reference to Branwell, who himself misconceived
+its character, and whose very existence is unknown to it, its
+provisions being made without the most distant allusion to the affair
+that worried the unfortunate tutor day and night.
+
+If the widow's love for Branwell had not been a mere figment of his
+wounded humanity, but the real affection which he fervently believed it
+to be, she had now the opportunity, with a sufficient income for the
+residue of her days, of enjoying with him an honourable and peaceful
+life. But the affection that makes sacrifices light, where they present
+themselves, was not there to call for them on behalf of Branwell, even
+had they now been needed. Moreover, there is no evidence worth the name
+that Mrs. ---- ever committed the acts in relation to him attributed to
+her; on the contrary, the sincere affection and touching reliance on
+his wife, manifested throughout his will, is proof enough that her
+husband had had no cause to call her fidelity in question. It is,
+indeed, true that, while the lady's reputation was unblemished in the
+wide circle of her friends in the neighbourhood of her residence, she
+was being traduced, misrepresented, and belied at Haworth and its
+vicinity alone. This was all known to Charlotte Bronte when she wrote
+her poem of 'Preference.'
+
+The state of Branwell's mind, and the extent of his hallucinations
+under their last phase, may be observed in the following letters,
+written in the month of June, 1846, the first being to Mr. Grundy.[30]
+
+        [30] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 89.
+
+    'Haworth, Bradford,
+    'York.
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I must again trouble you with--' (Here comes another prayer for
+    employment, with, at the same time, a confession that his health
+    alone renders the wish all but hopeless.) Subsequently he says,
+    'The gentleman with whom I have been is dead. His property is left
+    in trust for the family, provided I do not see the widow; and if I
+    do, it reverts to the executing trustees, with ruin to her. She is
+    now distracted with sorrows and agonies; and the statement of her
+    case, as given by her coachman, who has come to see me at Haworth,
+    fills me with inexpressible grief. Her mind is distracted to the
+    verge of insanity, and mine is so wearied that I wish I were in my
+    grave.
+
+    'Yours very sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+He also wrote to Leyland in great distraction.
+
+    'I should have sent you "Morley Hall" ere now, but I am unable to
+    finish it at present, from agony to which the grave would be far
+    preferable. Mr. ---- is _dead_, and he has left his widow in a
+    dreadful state of health.... Through the will, she is left quite
+    powerless. The executing trustees' (the principal one of whom, as
+    we have seen, was the very lady whose hopeless love for him he was
+    deploring) 'detest me, and one declares that, if he sees me, he
+    will shoot me.
+
+    'These things I do not care about, but I do care for the life of
+    the one who suffers even more than I do....
+
+    'You, though not much older than myself, have known life. I now
+    know it, with a vengeance--for four nights I have not slept--for
+    three days I have not tasted food--and, when I think of the state
+    of her I love best on earth, I could wish that my head was as cold
+    and stupid as the medallion which lies in your studio.
+
+    'I write very egotistically, but it is because my mind is crowded
+    with one set of thoughts, and I long for one sentence from a
+    friend.
+
+    'What shall I _do_? I know not--I am too hard to die, and too
+    wretched to live. My wretchedness is not about castles in the air,
+    but about stern realities; my hardihood lies in bodily vigour;
+    but, dear sir, my mind sees only a dreary future, which I as
+    little wish to enter on as could a martyr to be bound to a stake.
+
+    'I sincerely trust that you are quite well, and hope that this
+    wretched scrawl will not make me appear to you a worthless fool,
+    or a thorough bore.
+
+    'Believe me, yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+With this letter was enclosed a pen-and-ink sketch of Branwell bound
+to the stake, his wrists chained together, and surrounded by flames
+and smoke. The rigidity of the muscles, the fixed expression of the
+face, and the manifest beginning of pain are well portrayed.
+Underneath the drawing, in a constrained hand, is written, 'Myself.'
+
+Again he writes to Leyland a letter in which he dwells on his
+unavailing grief, and vividly points out its effects upon him. He
+says, alluding to the lady of his distracted thoughts, 'Well, my dear
+sir, I have got my finishing stroke at last, and I feel stunned into
+marble by the blow.
+
+'I have this morning received a long, kind, and faithful letter from
+the medical gentleman who attended ---- in his last illness, and who
+has since had an interview with one whom I can never forget.
+
+'He knows me _well_, and pities my case most sincerely.... It's hard
+work for me, dear sir; I would bear it, but my health is so bad that
+the body seems as if it could not bear the mental shock.... My
+appetite is lost, my nights are dreadful, and having nothing to do
+makes me dwell on past scenes,--on her own self--her own voice--her
+person--her thoughts--till I could be glad if God would take me. In
+the next world I could not be worse than I am in this.'
+
+On June the 17th, Charlotte writes:
+
+'Branwell declares that he neither can nor will do anything for
+himself; good situations have been offered him, for which, by a
+fortnight's work, he might have qualified himself, but he will do
+nothing except drink and make us all wretched.'[31]
+
+        [31] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xiv.
+
+It would seem that the sisters were unaware of the depth of his
+present misery, and in part misunderstood the disturbed condition of
+their brother's mind at this juncture. But Branwell, although
+suffering great mental prostration under the infliction of any sudden
+and unexpected disappointment, was possessed of considerable
+recuperative power; and, after a period of brooding melancholy over
+his woes, he appeared to take renewed interest in the events that were
+passing around him. This seems to have been the case even under his
+late circumstances; there was, in the depth of his own heart, a woe
+from which he endeavoured to escape by engaging in the pursuits and
+pleasures of his friends.
+
+On the 3rd of July, having, to all appearance, somewhat recovered from
+this disappointment, Branwell wrote to his friend the sculptor:
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'John Brown told me that you had a relievo of my very wretched
+    self, framed in your studio.
+
+    'If it be a _duplicate_, I should like the carrier to bring it to
+    Haworth; not that I care a fig for it, save from regard for its
+    maker,--but my sisters ask me to try to obtain it; and I write in
+    obedience to them.
+
+    'I earnestly trust that you are heartier than I am, and I promise
+    to send you "Morley Hall" as soon as dreary days and nights will
+    give me leave to do so.
+
+    'Believe me,
+
+    'Yours most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+This was a life-size medallion of him, head and shoulders, which
+Leyland had modelled. The work was in very high relief, and the
+likeness was perfect. It was inserted in a deep oval recess, lined
+with crimson velvet, and this was fixed in a massive oak frame,
+glazed. It projected, when hung up in the drawing-room of the
+parsonage at Haworth, some eight inches from the wall; this was the
+one Mrs. Gaskell saw, of which she says:--'I have seen Branwell's
+profile; it is what would be generally esteemed very handsome; the
+forehead is massive, the eye well set, and the expression of it fine
+and intellectual; the nose, too, is good; but there are coarse lines
+about the mouth, and the lips, though of handsome shape, are loose and
+thick, indicating self-indulgence, while the slightly retreating chin
+conveys an idea of weakness of will.'[32] Mrs. Gaskell had only an
+imperfect view of the work she describes, for it was hung on the wall
+directly _opposite_ to the windows, so that it was destitute of any
+side-light.
+
+        [32] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. ix.
+
+Again Branwell writes to Leyland, on the 16th of July, now more
+himself, and anxious to see his friends:
+
+'I enclose the accompanying bill to tempt you to Haworth next
+Monday....
+
+'For myself, after a fit of horror inexpressible, and violent
+palpitation of the heart, I have taken care of myself bodily, but to
+what good? The best health will not kill _acute_, and _not ideal_,
+mental agony.
+
+'Cheerful company does me good till some bitter truth blazes through
+my brain, and then the present of a bullet would be received with
+thanks.
+
+'I wish I could flee to writing as a refuge, but I cannot; and, as to
+_slumber_, my mind, whether awake or asleep, has been in incessant
+action for seven weeks.'
+
+Branwell wrote also to Mr. Grundy.[33]
+
+        [33] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 89.
+
+'Since I saw Mr. George Gooch, I have suffered much from the accounts
+of the declining health of her whom I must love most in the world, and
+who, for my fault, suffers sorrows which surely were never her due. My
+father, too, is now quite blind, and from such causes literary
+pursuits have become matters I have no heart to wield. If I could see
+you it would be a sincere pleasure, but.... Perhaps your memory of me
+may be dimmed, for you have known little in me worth remembering; but
+I still think often with pleasure of yourself, though so different
+from me in head and mind.'
+
+'I invited him,' says Mr. Grundy, 'to come to me at the Devonshire
+Hotel, Skipton, a distance of some seventeen miles, and in reply
+received the last letter he ever wrote.' Branwell says,
+
+    'If I have strength enough for the journey, and the weather be
+    tolerable, I shall feel happy in visiting you at the Devonshire on
+    Friday, the 31st of this month. The sight of a face I have been
+    accustomed to see and like when I was happier and stronger, now
+    proves my best medicine.'
+
+Mr. Grundy, supposing these letters to have been written in the year
+1848, is in error in stating this to have been the last Branwell ever
+wrote. The Friday Branwell mentions must have been the one that fell
+on the 31st of July, 1846. About the close of that month, Charlotte
+and Emily went to Manchester to consult Mr. Wilson, the oculist, who,
+later, removed the cataract from Mr. Bronte's eyes. Under these
+circumstances, Branwell failed in his intended journey to Skipton.
+
+The cataract had slowly increased as the summer advanced, till at last
+Mr. Bronte was quite blind. This gradual disappearance from his vision
+of the things he knew had necessarily a very depressing effect upon
+him. The thought would sometimes come to him that, if his sight were
+permanently lost, he would be nothing in his parish; but he supported
+himself, for the most part, under his affliction with his accustomed
+stoicism of endurance. His great trouble was that, when his sight
+became so dim that he could barely recognize his children's faces, and
+when he was debarred from using his eyes in reading, he was shut off
+from the solace of his books, and from the sources--the periodical
+press--of his knowledge of the current affairs of the outside world,
+wherein he took such intense interest. He was, then, left dependent on
+the information of others, or on his children, who read to him in such
+time as they could spare from literary and household occupations. Yet
+there was hope--hope of an ultimate restoration of sight, and Mr.
+Bronte was still able to preach, even when he could not see those to
+whom he spoke. It was remarked that even then his sermons occupied
+exactly half-an-hour in delivery. This was the length of time he, with
+his ready use of words, had always found sufficient, and he did not
+exceed it now.
+
+Every inquiry had been made from private friends that might throw
+light upon the chances of success in any possible operation, and it
+was in view of this object that the sisters visited Manchester. There
+they met with Mr. Wilson, who was, however, unable to say positively
+from description whether the eyes were ready for an operation or not.
+He proposed to extract the cataract, and it was accordingly arranged
+that Mr. Bronte should meet him.
+
+Charlotte took her father to Manchester on the 16th of August, and,
+writing a few days later, she says to her friend, 'I just scribble a
+line to you to let you know where I am, in order that you may write to
+me here, for it seems to me that a letter from you would relieve me
+from the feeling of strangeness I have in this big town. Papa and I
+came here on Wednesday; we saw Mr. Wilson, the oculist, the same day;
+he pronounced papa's eyes quite ready for an operation, and has fixed
+next Monday for the performance of it. Think of us on that day! We got
+into our lodgings yesterday. I think we shall be comfortable; at
+least, our rooms are very good.... Mr. Wilson says we shall have to
+stay here for a month at least. I wonder how Emily and Anne will get
+on at home with Branwell. They, too, will have their troubles. What
+would I not give to have you here! One is forced, step by step, to get
+experience in the world; but the learning is so disagreeable. One
+cheerful feature in the business is that Mr. Wilson thinks most
+favourably of the case.'
+
+Charlotte's fears respecting her brother happily proved to be
+unfounded; he was himself anxious about his father's recovery; and, on
+her return, Charlotte, says Mrs. Gaskell, expressed herself thankful
+for the good ensured, and the evil spared during her absence.
+
+From Charlotte's next letter we learn that the operation was over.
+'Mr. Wilson performed it; two other surgeons assisted. Mr. Wilson says
+he considers it quite successful; but papa cannot yet see anything.
+The affair lasted precisely a quarter-of-an-hour; it was not the
+simple operation of couching, Mr. C. described, but the more
+complicated one of extracting the cataract. Mr. Wilson entirely
+disapproves of couching. Papa displayed extraordinary patience and
+firmness; the surgeons seemed surprised. I was in the room all the
+time, as it was his wish that I should be there; of course, I neither
+spoke nor moved till the thing was done, and then I felt that the less
+I said, either to papa or the surgeons, the better. Papa is now
+confined to his bed in a dark room, and is not to be stirred for four
+days; he is to speak and be spoken to as little as possible.' No
+inflammation ensued, yet the greatest care, perfect quiet, and utter
+privation of light were still necessary to complete the success of the
+operation; and Mr. Bronte remained in his darkened room with his eyes
+bandaged. Charlotte thus speaks of her father under these trying
+circumstances. 'He is very patient, but, of course, depressed and
+weary. He was allowed to try his sight for the first time yesterday.
+He could see dimly. Mr. Wilson seemed perfectly satisfied, and said
+all was right. I have had bad nights from the toothache since I came
+to Manchester.' But, when the danger was over, daily progress was
+made, and Mr. Bronte and his helpful daughter were able to return to
+Haworth at the end of September, when he was fast regaining his sight.
+
+It was probably during the six weeks when Mr. Bronte and Charlotte
+were absent in Manchester that Mr. Grundy resolved to visit Branwell.
+He says: 'As he never came to see me, I shortly made up my mind to
+visit him at Haworth, and was shocked at the wrecked and wretched
+appearance he presented. Yet he still craved for an appointment of any
+kind, in order that he might try the excitement of change; of course
+uselessly.'[34]
+
+        [34] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 90.
+
+It must, it seems, have been on this occasion, in the course of
+conversation at the parsonage, that Branwell made a statement,
+respecting his novel, to Mr. Grundy, which has acquired considerable
+interest. I give it in the words in which Mr. Grundy recalls the
+incident. 'Patrick Bronte declared to me, and what his sister said
+bore out the assertion, that he wrote a great portion of "Wuthering
+Heights" himself.' It should be remembered, in connection with this
+occurrence, that, when Mr. Grundy talked with Branwell and Emily at
+Haworth, the three novels which the sisters had completed a few months
+before, had met only with repeated rejection, and, perhaps, they felt
+little confidence in the ultimate publication of them. 'The Professor,'
+indeed, had come back to Charlotte's hands, curtly rejected, on the
+very day of the operation. Doubtful of ever finding a publisher willing
+to take this tale, or, at any rate, undaunted, she had commenced, while
+her father was confined to his darkened room at Manchester, the
+three-volume story which was afterwards to become famous as 'Jane
+Eyre;' Anne, too, since she had finished 'Agnes Grey,' had been busily
+writing 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' also meant to be a three-volume
+story. So absorbed had the sisters become in novel writing, that a
+suggestion made by a friend, at this period, of a suitable place for
+opening a school, met only with an evasive answer.
+
+'Leave home!' exclaims Charlotte, in her reply. 'I shall neither be
+able to find place nor employment; perhaps, too, I shall be quite
+past the prime of life, my faculties will be rusted, and my few
+acquirements in a great measure forgotten. These ideas sting me keenly
+sometimes; but, whenever I consult my conscience, it affirms that I am
+doing right in staying at home, and bitter are its upbraidings when I
+yield to an eager desire for release. I could hardly expect success if
+I were to err against such warnings. I should like to hear from you
+again soon. Bring ---- to the point, and make him give you a clear,
+not a vague, account of what pupils he really could promise; people
+often think they can do great things in that way till they have tried;
+but getting pupils is unlike getting any other sort of goods.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+BRANWELL'S LETTERS AND LAST INTERVIEW WITH MR. GRUNDY.
+
+Branwell's Sardonic Humour--Mr. Grundy's Visit to him at Haworth--
+Errors regarding the Period of it--Tragic Description--Probable
+Ruse of Branwell--Correspondence between him and Mr. Grundy ceases
+--Writes to Leyland--A Plaintive Verse--Another Letter.
+
+
+Branwell, having shared the family anxiety, as the time drew near for
+the operation which restored his father's sight, experienced a sense
+of deep relief when all went well; moreover, the keenness of his
+disappointment had had time to soften, and now a grim and sardonic
+humour began to characterize his proceedings and his correspondence.
+In this frame of mind he wrote to Leyland, early in October, 1846, a
+letter illustrated by some of his most spirited pen-and-ink sketches,
+in black and outline. It was headed by a drawing of John Brown, who
+had been engaged in lettering a monument, and who was represented
+under two different aspects. These are in one sketch, divided in
+the middle by a pole, on which is placed a skull. In the first
+compartment, the sexton is exhibited in a state of glorious
+exultation, kicking over the table and stools, while the chair he
+occupies is falling backwards. He holds a tumbler in his right hand,
+and swears, in his Yorkshire dialect, that he is 'King and a hauf!'
+under this, the word 'PARADISE' is inscribed. The second tableau
+represents John Brown commencing his work. On a table-tomb, the
+sexton's maul and chisels are placed. Being in uncertainty as to how,
+or where, to begin, he exclaims, 'Whativver mun I do?' In the corner,
+is a drawing of the western elevation of Haworth Church, and, near to
+Brown, a head-stone, with skull and crossbones, inscribed, 'Here lieth
+the Poor.' Underneath the subject is the word 'PURGATORY.' The
+following is the letter:
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'Mr. John Brown wishes me to tell you that, if, by return of post,
+    you can tell him the nature of his intended work, and the time it
+    will probably occupy in execution, either himself or his brother,
+    or both, will wait on you _early_ next week.
+
+    'He has only delayed answering your communication from his
+    unavoidable absence in a pilgrimage from Rochdale-on-the-Rhine to
+    the Land of Ham, and from thence to Gehenna, Tophet, Golgotha,
+    Erebus, the Styx, and to the place he now occupies, called
+    Tartarus, where he, along with Sisyphus, Tantalus, Theseus, and
+    Ixion, lodge and board together.
+
+    'However, I hope that, when he meets you, he will join the company
+    of Moses, Elias, and the prophets, "singing psalms, sitting on a
+    wet cloud," as an acquaintance of mine described the occupation of
+    the Blest.
+
+    '"Morley Hall" is in the eighth month of her pregnancy, and
+    expects ere long to be delivered of a fine thumping boy, whom his
+    father means to christen _Homer_, at least, though the mother
+    suggests that "Poetaster" would be more suitable; but that sounds
+    too aristocratic.
+
+    'Is the medallion cracked that Thorwaldsen executed of AUGUSTUS
+    CAESAR?' To this question is appended a drawing of a coin, about
+    the size of an ordinary penny, with the head of Branwell--an
+    excellent likeness--around which the name of the emperor is
+    placed. He continues:
+
+    'I wish I could see you; and, as Haworth fair is held on Monday
+    after the ensuing one, your presence there would gratify one of
+    the FALLEN.' Here he represents himself as plunging head foremost
+    into a gulf.
+
+    'In my own register of transactions during my nights and days, I
+    find no matter worthy of extraction for your perusal. All is yet
+    with me clouds and darkness. I hope you have, at least, blue sky
+    and sunshine.
+
+    'Constant and unavoidable depression of mind and body sadly
+    shackle me in even trying to go on with any mental effort, which
+    might rescue me from the fate of a dry toast, soaked six hours in
+    a glass of cold water, and intended to be given to an old maid's
+    squeamish cat.'
+
+Here is a sketch of the cat, distracted between a tumbler on each
+side held by an attenuated hand.
+
+    'Is there really such a thing as the _Risus Sardonicus_--the
+    sardonic laugh? Did a man ever laugh the morning he was to be
+    hanged?'
+
+The tail-piece to this letter is a drawing of a gallows, a hand
+holding forth the halter to the culprit, who is John Brown, and an
+excellent portrait, grinning at the rope that is to terminate his
+existence!
+
+Mr. Grundy--'very soon'--visited Haworth again. But I must premise,
+to the account of his visit which Mr. Grundy has published, some
+observations respecting the period at which it occurred. Mr. Grundy,
+having attributed the later letters, which Branwell Bronte addressed
+to him, to the year 1848--though they really belong to 1846--has, with
+some appearance of consistency, produced the following picture of his
+friend, under the impression that 'a few days afterwards he died.' But
+the circumstances that Mr. Grundy's journey to Haworth arose out of
+the wish to see him, which Branwell had expressed in a letter written
+at the time when his father was 'quite blind,' and that, as Mr. Grundy
+says his visits followed shortly after Branwell had failed to go to
+Skipton, are themselves sufficient evidence as to the question of
+date.
+
+Mr. Grundy says of his final interview: 'Very soon I went to Haworth
+again to see him, for the last time. From the little inn I sent for
+him to the great, square, cold-looking Rectory. I had ordered a dinner
+for two, and the room looked cosy and warm, the bright glass and
+silver pleasantly reflecting the sparkling fire-light, deeply toned by
+the red curtains. Whilst I waited his appearance, his father was shown
+in. Much of the Rector's old stiffness of manner was gone. He spoke of
+Branwell with more affection than I had ever heretofore heard him
+express, but he also spoke almost hopelessly. He said that when my
+message came, Branwell was in bed, and had been almost too weak for
+the last few days to leave it; nevertheless, he had insisted upon
+coming, and would be there immediately. We parted, and I never saw him
+again.
+
+'Presently the door opened cautiously, and a head appeared. It was a
+mass of red, unkempt, uncut hair, wildly floating round a great, gaunt
+forehead; the cheeks yellow and hollow, the mouth fallen, the thin
+white lips not trembling but shaking, the sunken eyes, once small, now
+glaring with the light of madness--all told the sad tale but too
+surely. I hastened to my friend, greeted him in the gayest manner, as
+I knew he best liked, drew him quickly into the room, and forced upon
+him a stiff glass of hot brandy. Under its influence, and that of the
+bright, cheerful surroundings, he looked frightened--frightened of
+himself. He glanced at me a moment, and muttered something about
+leaving a warm bed to come out into the cold night. Another glass of
+brandy, and returning warmth, gradually brought him back to something
+like the Bronte of old. He even ate some dinner, a thing which he said
+he had not done for long; so our last interview was pleasant, though
+grave. I never knew his intellect clearer. He described himself as
+waiting anxiously for death--indeed, longing for it, and happy, in
+these his sane moments, to think that it was so near. He once again
+declared that that death would be due to the story I knew, and to
+nothing else.
+
+'When at last I was compelled to leave, he quietly drew from his coat
+sleeve a carving-knife, placed it on the table, and holding me by
+both hands, said that, having given up all thoughts of ever seeing
+me again, he imagined when my message came that it was a call from
+Satan. Dressing himself, he took the knife, which he had long had
+secreted, and came to the inn, with a full determination to rush into
+the room and stab the occupant. In the excited state of his mind he
+did not recognise me when he opened the door, but my voice and manner
+conquered him, and "brought him home to himself," as he expressed it.
+I left him standing bareheaded in the road, with bowed form and
+dropping tears. A few days afterwards he died.... His age was
+twenty-eight.'[35]
+
+        [35] 'Pictures of the Past,' pp. 90-92.
+
+Mr. Grundy's account of this interview is inconsistent in itself. Of
+course, if his friend had really been so far gone as he represents,
+it is incredible that Mr. Bronte would have been privy to his son's
+visit to the inn. It is quite clear that Mr. Grundy's recollection
+of the interview, and of Branwell's appearance, at this distance of
+time, with Mrs. Gaskell's account before him, has received a new
+significance. I incline to the belief that the truth of the matter is
+this: that, in the spirit of his letters to Leyland, Branwell acted a
+part, and imposed this ruse upon his friend to gratify the peculiar
+humour that was then upon him, an episode which the latter, with his
+erroneous impression as to the date, has been led to depict in
+somewhat lurid colours. It is most probable, indeed, that, like
+Hamlet, he 'put an antic disposition on.' Something confirmatory of
+this view will appear in the next chapter. Among his friends, as I
+know, Branwell would now and then assume an indignant, and sometimes
+a furious mood, and put on airs of wild abstraction from which he
+suddenly recovered, and was again calm and natural, smiling, indeed,
+at his successful impersonation of passions he scarcely felt at the
+time. The absence of further correspondence between Branwell and Mr.
+Grundy, and the fact that the Skipton and Bradford railway, for
+hich that gentleman was resident engineer, was fully opened more
+than a year before Branwell's death, seem to indicate that further
+intercourse ceased between the two at this date. It would not,
+perhaps, have been necessary to trouble the reader with these
+explanations, had not Mr. Grundy's narrative of his last evening with
+Branwell appeared to receive some sort of confirmation through its
+republication by Miss Robinson, in her picture of the brother of Emily
+Bronte shortly before his end.
+
+Again Branwell wrote to Leyland:
+
+    'DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I had a letter written, and intended to have been forwarded to
+    you a few days after I last left the ensnaring town of Halifax.
+
+    'That letter, from being kept so long in my pocket-book, has gone
+    out of date, so I have burnt it, and now send a short note as a
+    precursor to an awfully lengthy one.
+
+    'I have much to say to you with which you would probably be sadly
+    bored; but, as it will be only asking for advice, I hope you will
+    feel as a cat does when her hair is stroked down towards her tail.
+    She _purrs_ then; but she _spits_ when it is stroked upwards.
+
+    'I wish Mr. ---- of ---- would send me my bill of what I owe him,
+    and the moment that I receive my outlaid cash, or any sum that may
+    fall into my hands, I shall settle it.
+
+    'That settlement, I have some reason to hope, will be shortly.
+
+    'But can a few pounds make a fellow's soul like a calm bowl of
+    creamed milk?
+
+    'If it can, I should like to drink that bowl dry.
+
+    'I shall write more at length (Deo Volente) on matters of much
+    importance to me, but of little to yourself.
+
+    'Yours in the bonds,
+
+    'SANCTUS PATRICIUS BRANWELLIUS BRONTEIO.'
+
+With the foregoing letter, Branwell enclosed a page containing three
+spirited sketches. The first is a scene in which the sculptor and
+Branwell are the principal actors. They are seated on stools, facing
+one another, each holding a wine glass, and, between them on the
+ground, is a decanter. Behind the sculptor is placed the mutilated
+statue of Theseus. A copy of Cowper's 'Anatomy' is open at the
+title-page; and, leaning over it, is a figure of Admodeus, Setebos, or
+some other winged imp, taking sight at the two. The second sketch is
+of Branwell himself, represented as a recumbent statue, resting on a
+slab, under which are the following mournful lines:--
+
+        'Thy soul is flown,
+        And clay alone
+    Has nought to do with joy or care;
+        So if the light of light be gone,
+        There come no sorrows crowding on,
+    And powerless lies DESPAIR.'
+
+The third drawing is a landscape, having in the foreground a
+head-stone, with a skull and crossbones in the semi-circular head. On
+the stone are carved the words, HIC JACET. Distant peaked hills bound
+the view. Two pines are to the right of the picture, and the crescent
+moon, which represents a human profile, is accommodated with a pipe.
+Underneath it is inscribed the sentence:
+
+    'MARTINI LUIGI IMPLORA ETERNA QUIETE!'
+
+The following letter, written to Leyland a little later, shows again
+the stormy perturbations of Branwell's mind. He still clings to the
+fond imagination that he is the object of the lady's unwavering
+devotion; and, with the incoherency of the monomania with which he
+continues to be afflicted, he solemnly declares to the sculptor that
+he had said to no one what he is then saying to him; while, in truth,
+he was telling the story of his disappointed hopes to all who would
+hear the recital. The theme is that of a wild, eager, and unavailing
+love--whose joys and sorrows he tells in vivid words--which he
+believes to be returned with equal energy and passion.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I am going to write a scrawl, for the querulous egotism of which
+    I must entreat your mercy; but, when I look _upon_ my past,
+    present, and future, and then _into_ my own self, I find much,
+    however unpleasant, that yearns for utterance.
+
+    'This last week an honest and kindly friend has warned me that
+    concealed hopes about one lady should be given up, let the effort
+    to do so cost what it may. He is the ----, and was commanded by
+    ----, M.P. for ----, to return me, unopened, a letter which I
+    addressed to ----, and which the Lady was not permitted to see.
+    She too, surrounded by powerful persons who hate me like Hell, has
+    sunk into religious melancholy, believes that her weight of sorrow
+    is God's punishment, and hopelessly resigns herself to her doom.
+    God only knows what it does cost, and will, hereafter, cost me, to
+    tear from my heart and remembrance the thousand recollections that
+    rush upon me at the thought of four years gone by. Like ideas of
+    sunlight to a man who has lost his sight, they must be bright
+    phantoms not to be realized again.
+
+    'I had reason to hope that ere very long I should be the husband
+    of a Lady whom I loved best in the world, and with whom, in more
+    than competence, I might live at leisure to try to make myself a
+    name in the world of posterity, without being pestered by the
+    small but countless botherments, which, like mosquitoes, sting
+    us in the world of work-day toil. That hope and herself are
+    _gone_--_she_ to wither into patiently pining decline,--_it_ to
+    make room for drudgery, falling on one now ill-fitted to bear it.
+    That ill-fittedness rises from causes which I should find myself
+    able partially to overcome, had I bodily strength; but, with the
+    want of that, and with the presence of daily lacerated nerves,
+    the task is not easy. I have been, in truth, too much petted
+    through life, and, in my last situation, I was so much master,
+    and gave myself so much up to enjoyment, that now, when the cloud
+    of ill-health and adversity has come upon me, it will be a
+    disheartening job to work myself up again, through a new life's
+    battle, from the position of five years ago, to that from which I
+    have been compelled to retreat with heavy loss and no gain. My
+    army stands now where it did then, but mourning the slaughter of
+    Youth, Health, Hope, and both mental and physical elasticity.
+
+    'The last two losses are, indeed, important to one who once built
+    his hopes of rising in the world on the possession of them. Noble
+    writings, works of art, music, or poetry, now, instead of rousing
+    my imagination, cause a whirlwind of blighting sorrow that sweeps
+    over my mind with unspeakable dreariness; and, if I sit down and
+    try to write, all ideas that used to come, clothed in sunlight,
+    now press round me in funereal black; for really every pleasurable
+    excitement that I used to know has changed to insipidity or pain.
+
+    'I shall never be able to realize the too sanguine hopes of my
+    friends, for at twenty-nine I am a thoroughly _old man_, mentally
+    and bodily--far more, indeed, than I am willing to express. God
+    knows I do not scribble like a poetaster when I quote Byron's
+    terribly truthful words--
+
+        '"No more--no more--oh! never more on me
+          The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew,
+        Which, out of all the lovely things we see,
+          Extracts emotions beautiful and new!"
+
+    'I used to think that if I could have, for a week, the free range
+    of the British Museum--the library included--I could feel as
+    though I were placed for seven days in Paradise; but now, really,
+    dear sir, my eyes would rest upon the Elgin marbles, the Egyptian
+    saloon, and the most treasured columns, like the eyes of a dead
+    cod-fish.
+
+    'My rude, rough acquaintances here ascribe my unhappiness solely
+    to causes produced by my sometimes irregular life, because they
+    have known no other pains than those resulting from excess or want
+    of ready cash. They do not know that I would rather want a shirt
+    than want a springy mind, and that my total want of happiness,
+    were I to step into York Minster now, would be far, far worse than
+    their want of a hundred pounds when they might happen to need it;
+    and that, if a dozen glasses, or a bottle of wine, drives off
+    their cares, such cures only make me outwardly passable in
+    company, but _never_ drive off mine.
+
+    'I know only that it is time for me to be something, when I am
+    nothing, that my father cannot have long to live, and that, when
+    he dies, my evening, which is already twilight, will become night;
+    that I shall then have a constitution still so strong that it will
+    keep me years in torture and despair, when I should every hour
+    pray that I might die.
+
+    'I know that I am avoiding, while I write, one greatest cause of
+    my utter despair; but, by G----, sir, it is nearly too bitter for
+    me to allude to it!' Here follow a number of references to the
+    subject, with which the reader is already familiar, and therefore
+    it is unnecessary to repeat them here. Then Branwell continues:
+
+    'To no one living have I said what I now say to you, and I should
+    not bother yourself with my incoherent account, did I not believe
+    that you would be able to understand somewhat of what I
+    meant--though _not all_, sir; for he who is without hope, and
+    knows that his clock is at twelve at night, cannot communicate his
+    feelings to one who finds _his_ at twelve at noon.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+BRANWELL BRONTE AND 'WUTHERING HEIGHTS.'
+
+'Wuthering Heights'--Reception of the Book by the Public--It is
+Misunderstood--Its Authorship--Mr. Dearden's Account--Statements
+of Mr. Edward Sloane and Mr. Grundy--Remarks by Mr. T. Wemyss
+Reid--Correspondences between 'Wuthering Heights' and Branwell's
+Letters--The 'Carving-knife Episode'--Further Correspondences--
+Resemblances of Thought in Branwell and Emily.
+
+
+We have now become acquainted with the principal features of
+Branwell's career, have obtained some insight into his character, and
+learned much respecting his genius. We have gained also some knowledge
+of the history of the Bronte sisters in that most crucial period of
+their lives, when they returned again to literature with the new
+earnest which led them to fame.
+
+We have seen that it was Branwell who first seriously undertook the
+production of a novel, and we have noticed Mr. Grundy's statement
+concerning the authorship of 'Wuthering Heights.' Here, then, is the
+proper place in which to say something on this question; for there
+have not been wanting others also to assert that Branwell was, in
+great part, the writer of it. Miss Robinson, in her 'Emily Bronte,'
+dismisses the assertion as altogether untrue; but she rightly says, as
+all will agree, that 'in the contemptuous silence of those who know
+their falsity, such slanders live and thrive like unclean insects
+under fallen stones.' It cannot, therefore, be inappropriate, in such
+a work as the present, to record, as clearly and succinctly as may be,
+what has been said on the subject, and to make a suggestion--for it is
+nothing more--as to what is the truth of the matter.
+
+When 'Wuthering Heights,' after its slow progress through the press,
+was given to the world in the December of 1847, neither the critics
+nor the public were very well able to grasp its meaning. Reviewers,
+to quote Charlotte Bronte, 'too often remind us of the mob of
+Astrologers, Chaldeans, and Soothsayers gathered before the "writing
+on the wall," and unable to read the characters or make known the
+interpretation.' In 'Wuthering Heights' they found the subject
+disagreeable, the characters brutal, the conception crude, and the
+object of the work wholly unintelligible. The most that could be made
+of it, was that some rude soul in the north of England, burning with
+spite against his species, had set himself, with intent little short
+of diabolical, to lay open the most vicious depths of selfishness and
+crime, which he had embodied in the actions of characters so lost and
+revolting, that the mind recoiled with a shudder from the perusal of
+the monstrosity he had created. One critic, who dwelt at some length
+on the want of 'tone' and polish in the book, surmised that the writer
+of it had suffered, 'not disappointment in love, but some great
+mortification of pride,' which had so embittered his spirit that he
+had prepared this stinging story in vengeance on his species, and had
+flung it, crying, 'There, take that!' with cynical pleasure, in the
+very teeth of humankind.
+
+This writer even felt it his duty to caution young people against the
+book. 'It ought to be banished from refined society,' he says. 'The
+whole tone of the book smacks of lowness.'--'A person may be
+ill-mannered from want of delicacy of perception or cultivation, or
+ill-mannered intentionally; the author of "Wuthering Heights" is
+both.'--'But the taint of vulgarity in our author extends deeper than
+mere snobbishness; he is rude, because he prefers to be so.' I quote
+these remarks, as an extreme instance, to show that a critic, who
+could recognize the great imaginative power, the subtlety, the keen
+insight, and the fine dramatic character of 'Wuthering Heights,' yet
+felt such a strong repugnance to its unknown author that he thought
+him unfit to associate with his fellow-men. It never crossed the minds
+of the critics in those times that the book could be by any but a man
+of strong personal character, and one with a wide experience of the
+dark side of human nature.
+
+However, a feeling speedily grew up that 'Wuthering Heights' was an
+earlier and immature production, attempted to be palmed off upon the
+public, of the author of 'Jane Eyre,' against whom a charge of bad
+faith was thereby virtually made; and even Sydney Dobell (in the
+'Palladium' of September, 1850), the first critic who had sympathy
+enough with genius to discern the nature and comprehend the
+significance of the book, did not escape this error. It is not
+necessary here to repeat the unfortunate consequences of this
+misunderstanding, which caused Charlotte eventually to throw off the
+disguise, and declare openly that 'Wuthering Heights' was the work of
+her sister Emily. 'Unjust and grievous error!' says Charlotte. 'We
+laughed at it at first, but I deeply lament it now.' In the face of
+her statement, further remark on the authorship was naturally
+silenced; but, from time to time, when the book was discussed, much
+astonishment was manifested that a simple and inexperienced girl, like
+Emily Bronte, had been able to draw, with such nervous and morbid
+analysis, so sombre a picture of the workings of passions which she
+could never have actually known, and of natures 'so relentless and
+implacable, of spirits so lost and fallen,' as those of Heathcliff and
+Hindley Earnshaw.
+
+A writer in the 'Cornhill Magazine'[36] who attributes to Emily Bronte
+the distinction that she has written a book 'which stands as
+completely alone in the language as does "Paradise Lost," or the
+"Pilgrim's Progress,"' thus speaks of it: 'Its power,' he says, 'is
+absolutely Titanic; from the first page to the last it reads like the
+intellectual throes of a giant. It is fearful, it is true, and perhaps
+one of the most unpleasant books ever written: but we stand in amaze
+at the almost incredible fact that it was written by a slim country
+girl, who would have passed in a crowd as an insignificant person, and
+who had had little or no experience of the ways of the world. In
+Heathcliff, Emily Bronte has drawn the greatest villain extant, after
+Iago. He has no match out of Shakespeare. The Mephistopheles of
+Goethe's "Faust" is a person of gentlemanly proclivities compared with
+Heathcliff.... But "Wuthering Heights" is a marvellous curiosity in
+literature. We challenge the world to produce another work in which
+the whole atmosphere seems so surcharged with suppressed electricity,
+and bound in with the blackness of tempest and desolation.'
+
+        [36] Vol. xxviii, p. 54. 1873.
+
+Perhaps this same grim and Titanic power of 'Wuthering Heights' is one
+reason why many readers do not understand it fully. 'It is possible,'
+Mr. Swinburne says, 'that, to take full delight in Emily Bronte's
+book, one must have something by natural inheritance of her instinct,
+and something by earlier association of her love of the special points
+of earth--the same lights, and sounds, and colours, and odours, and
+sights, and shapes of the same fierce, free landscape of tenantless,
+and fruitless, and fenceless moor.'
+
+But the composition of 'Wuthering Heights' was in great part
+incomprehensible to Charlotte herself, though she endeavours to
+account for it by a consideration of her sister's character and
+circumstances. For, as we have seen, she says, 'I am bound to avow
+that she had scarcely more practical knowledge of the peasantry
+amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country people who
+sometimes pass her convent gates.'
+
+'"Wuthering Heights,"' to quote Charlotte Bronte's Preface to the new
+edition of it, 'was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of
+homely materials. The statuary found a granite block on a solitary
+moor; gazing thereon, he saw how from the crag might be elicited a
+head, savage, swart, sinister; a form moulded with at least one
+element of grandeur--power. He wrought with a rude chisel, from no
+model but the vision of his meditations. With time and labour, the
+crag took human shape; and there it stands colossal, dark, and
+frowning, half statue, half rock: in the former sense, terrible and
+goblin-like; in the latter, almost beautiful, for its colouring is of
+mellow grey, and moorland moss clothes it; and heath, with its
+blooming bells and balmy fragrance, grows faithfully close to the
+giant's foot.'
+
+Many years ago, a writer in the 'People's Magazine,' speaking of the
+authorship of 'Wuthering Heights,' said: 'Who would suppose that
+Heathcliff, a man who never swerved from his arrow-straight course to
+perdition from his cradle to his grave, ... had been conceived by a
+timid and retiring female? But this was the case.' The perusal of this
+sentence led Mr. William Dearden--author of the 'Star Seer' and the
+'Maid of Caldene'--who was acquainted with Branwell Bronte, to
+communicate to the 'Halifax Guardian,' in June, 1867, some facts,
+within his personal knowledge, touching the question, which he
+extracted from the MS. preface to his poem entitled, 'The Demon
+Queen,' not then published.
+
+It appears, from this account, that Branwell and Mr. Dearden had
+entered into a friendly poetic contest. Each was to write a poem
+in which the principal character was to have a real or imaginary
+existence before the Deluge. They met, on the occasion, at the 'Cross
+Roads,' a hostel a little more than a mile from Haworth on the road
+to Keighley, where an evening was spent in the reading of their
+respective productions. Leyland was to decide upon the merits of the
+poems. In reference to this meeting Mr. Dearden says,
+
+    'We met at the time and place appointed ... I read the first act
+    of the "Demon Queen;" but, when Branwell dived into his hat--the
+    usual receptacle of his fugitive scraps--where he supposed he had
+    deposited his MS. poem, he found he had by mistake placed there
+    a number of stray leaves of a novel on which he had been trying
+    his "prentice hand." Chagrined at the disappointment he had
+    caused, he was about to return the papers to his hat, when both
+    friends earnestly pressed him to read them, as they felt a
+    curiosity to see how he could wield the pen of a novelist. After
+    some hesitation, he complied with the request, and riveted our
+    attention for about an hour, dropping each sheet, when read, into
+    his hat. The story broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence,
+    and he gave us the sequel, _viva voce_, together with the real
+    names of the prototypes of his characters; but, as some of these
+    personages are still living, I refrain from pointing them out to
+    the public. He said he had not yet fixed upon a title for his
+    production, and was afraid he should never be able to meet with a
+    publisher who would have the hardihood to usher it into the world.
+    The scene of the fragment which Branwell read, and the characters
+    introduced in it--so far as then developed--were the same as those
+    in "Wuthering Heights," which Charlotte Bronte confidently asserts
+    was the production of her sister Emily.'
+
+Another friend of Branwell Bronte also, Mr. Edward Sloane of Halifax,
+author of a work entitled, 'Essays, Tales, and Sketches,' (1849)
+declared to Mr. Dearden that Branwell had read to him, portion by
+portion, the novel as it was produced, at the time, insomuch that he
+no sooner began the perusal of 'Wuthering Heights,' when published,
+than he was able to anticipate the characters and incidents to be
+disclosed.[37] Thus Mr. Dearden and the late Mr. Sloane claimed to have
+knowledge of 'Wuthering Heights' as the work of Branwell, before it
+was issued from the press; and we have seen that Mr. Grundy declares
+Branwell to have said, with the consent of his sister, that he had
+written 'a great portion of "Wuthering Heights" himself,' a statement
+which, remembering the 'weird fancies of diseased genius' with which
+Branwell had entertained him at Luddenden Foot, inclined Mr. Grundy to
+believe 'that the very plot was his invention rather than his
+sister's.'[38]
+
+        [37] It should be stated, perhaps, that one recent newspaper
+        writer, possibly with the intention of discrediting any
+        claim that might be set up for Branwell's authorship of
+        'Wuthering Heights,' has drawn from the depths of his
+        memory, or, possibly, of his imagination, a story that
+        Branwell had read to him, as his own, the plot of 'Shirley.'
+        But, since 'Shirley' was not commenced very many months
+        before Branwell's death, and since he had been in his grave
+        a year when it was published, it is obviously impossible
+        that he can ever have desired to draw to himself the praise
+        which was bestowed upon it. And this ingenious writer has
+        adopted, curiously enough, almost the phraseology of Mr.
+        Dearden's account, published eighteen years ago, saying, 'he
+        took from his hat, the usual receptacle, &c.,' which
+        suggests an impression of unconscious plagiarism.
+
+        [38] 'Pictures of the Past,' by Francis H. Grundy, C.E.
+        1879, p. 80.
+
+The evidence for the original ascription of authorship is simple in
+the extreme. Charlotte Bronte has told us in the Biographical Notice,
+as well as in the Preface, which she has prefixed to 'Wuthering
+Heights,' that the book was the work of Ellis Bell; and clearly no
+shadow of doubt was on her mind at the time as to the accuracy of this
+statement; nor had the publisher of the book any uncertainty as to the
+matter. Moreover, the servant Martha is said to have seen Emily Bronte
+writing it. We are told, also, that it is impossible that the upright
+spirit of the gentle Emily could resort to the miserable fraud of
+appropriating a work which was not her own. And, lastly, modern
+critics have not found it difficult to believe that a woman might be
+the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' They see nothing incongruous or
+impossible in the possession, by a feminine intellect, of such a
+searching knowledge of sinister propensities as are developed in that
+book, nor of its descending to those chaotic depths of black moral
+distortion, where it is possible for Hindley Earnshaw, with hideous
+blasphemy, to drink damnation to his soul, that he may be able to
+'punish its Maker,' and where the life-long vengeance of Heathcliff is
+drawn out, with wondrous power, to its ghastly and impotent end.
+
+How far Charlotte's statement is weakened by the fact that, up to the
+time when she discovered the volume of verse, and the three sisters
+commenced their novels--at which period it will be remembered one
+volume of Branwell's work was written--they had made no communication
+to one another of the literary work which each had in progress, is,
+perhaps, a matter for personal opinion. The declaration of Martha
+would probably be of little value, unless we knew that what Emily was
+writing was entirely independent of Branwell's work. And, again, those
+who have sought to defend Ellis Bell from the charge of fraud, have
+perhaps been over hasty; for, so far as I know, that charge has never
+been either made or implied.
+
+As to the capability of Branwell to write 'Wuthering Heights,' not
+much need be said here. Those who read this book will see that,
+despite his weaknesses and his follies, Branwell was, indeed,
+unfortunate in having to bear the penalty, in ceaseless open
+discussion, of 'une fanfaronnade des vices qu'il n'avait pas,' and
+that, moreover, his memory has been darkened, and his acts
+misconstrued, by sundry writers, who have endeavoured to find in
+his character the source of the darkest passages in the works of
+his sisters.
+
+Far from being hopelessly a 'miserable fellow,' an 'unprincipled
+dreamer,' an 'unnerved and garrulous prodigal,' as we have been told
+he was, he had, in fact, within him, an abundance of worthy ambition,
+a modest confidence in his own ability, which he was never known to
+vaunt, and a just pride in the celebrity of his family, which, it may
+be trusted, will remove from him, at any rate, the imputation of a
+lack of moral power to do anything good or forcible at all.
+
+Those who have heard fall from the lips of Branwell Bronte--and they
+are few now--all those weird stories, strange imaginings, and vivid
+and brilliant disquisitions on the life of the people of the
+West-Riding, will recognize that there was at least no opposition, but
+rather an affinity, between the tendency of his thoughts and those of
+the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' And, as to special points in the
+story, it may be said that Branwell Bronte had tasted most of the
+passions, weaknesses, and emotions there depicted; had loved, in
+frenzied delusion, as fiercely as Heathcliff loved; as with Hindley
+Earnshaw, too, in the pain of loss, 'when his ship struck; the captain
+abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her,
+rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless
+vessel.' He had, too, indeed, manifested much of the doating folly of
+the unhappy master of the 'Heights'; and, finally, there is no doubt
+that he possessed, nevertheless, almost as much force of character,
+determination, and energy as Heathcliff himself.
+
+The following extract from a lecture by Mr. T. Wemyss Reid, will show
+the opinion of that gentleman--which he applies to prove that Branwell
+was in part the subject of his sister's work--that there is a distinct
+correspondence in the feelings and utterances of Heathcliff and
+Branwell in this book, which, as he observes, critics have again and
+again declared to be like the dream of an opium-eater, which we have
+seen that Branwell was. Mr. Reid states: 'I said that, perhaps, the
+most striking part of "Wuthering Heights" was that which deals with
+the relations of Heathcliff and Catherine, after she had become the
+wife of another. Whole pages of the story are filled with the ravings
+and ragings of the villain against the man whose life stands between
+him and the woman he loves. Similar ravings are to be found in all the
+letters of Branwell Bronte written at this period of his career; and
+we may be sure that similar ravings were always on his lips, as, moody
+and more than half mad, he wandered about the rooms of the parsonage
+at Haworth. Nay, I have found some striking verbal coincidences
+between Branwell's own language and passages in "Wuthering Heights."
+In one of his own letters there are these words in reference to the
+object of his passion: "My own life without her will be hell. What can
+the so-called love of her wretched, sickly husband be to her compared
+with mine?" Now, turn to "Wuthering Heights," and you will read these
+words: "Two words would comprehend my future--_death_ and _hell_:
+existence, after losing her, would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy
+for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine.
+If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as
+much in eighty years as I could in a day."'[39]
+
+        [39] Lecture by Mr. T. Wemyss Reid.
+
+If Mr. Reid had quoted the beginning of this paragraph, another point
+of correspondence would have been perceived between the feelings
+manifested in it and those which had actuated Branwell Bronte.
+Heathcliff is speaking: '"You suppose she has nearly forgotten me?" he
+said. "Oh, Nelly! you know she has not! You know as well as I do, that
+for every thought she spends on Linton, she spends a thousand on me!
+At a most miserable period of my life, I had a notion of the kind: it
+haunted me on my return to the neighbourhood last summer; but only her
+own assurance could make me admit the horrible idea again. And then,
+Linton would be nothing, nor Hindley, nor all the dreams that ever I
+dreamt!"'
+
+We have seen that, in the summer of 1845, Branwell lost his employment,
+and returned to the neighbourhood of Haworth, and that he, too, at
+that most miserable period of _his_ life, when he wrote his novel, and
+'Real Rest,' and 'Penmaenmawr,' had had a notion that the lady of his
+affections had nearly forgotten him.
+
+It may be observed that Catherine Earnshaw, in an earlier part of the
+book, uses a like antithesis to that quoted by Mr. Reid. 'Whatever our
+souls are made of,' says she, speaking of Heathcliff and herself, 'his
+and mine are the same; and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from
+lightning, or frost from fire.' Though it is not strictly accurate
+that in _all_ Branwell's letters at this period there are similar
+ravings, or that such were always on his lips, there are, at all
+events, other coincidences of thought and expression to be found in
+his letters and poems with certain features and passages in 'Wuthering
+Heights,' which are not less striking. A few instances will illustrate
+much in that work which it is not easy to believe could have been
+transcribed by the writer from the utterances of another. Even so
+early as his letter to John Brown, we have seen with what force
+Branwell could express himself when he chose. He speaks in that letter
+of one who 'will be used as the tongs of hell,' and of another 'out
+of whose eyes Satan looks as from windows.' Let us turn to where
+Heathcliff's eyes are described, in Chapter vii. of the novel, as
+'that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried, who never open their
+windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them, like devil's spies;'
+and, in Chapter xvii., where Isabella Heathcliff says of them: 'The
+clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me; the fiend which
+usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not
+fear to hazard another sound of derision.'
+
+We have noticed how Branwell plays upon the word _castaway_ at the
+close of his letter on his novel. Charlotte has said they all had a
+leaning to Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway,' and appropriated it in one
+way or another; she told Mrs. Gaskell that Branwell had done so. The
+word is used twice in 'Wuthering Heights.' Heathcliff is described as
+having been a 'little Lascar, or an American or Spanish castaway,' and
+the younger Catherine addresses pious Joseph, oddly enough, and by a
+coincidence singular enough, remembering Branwell's allusion in his
+letter, in these words: 'No, reprobate! you are a castaway--be off, or
+I'll hurt you seriously! I'll have you all modelled in wax and clay.'
+
+Mention may also be made here, with reference to the occurrence of the
+names 'Linton' and 'Hareton' in 'Wuthering Heights,' that, somewhat
+before the time of the writing of his novel, Branwell was accustomed
+frequently to visit a place of the former designation, and that he
+had, as we have seen, when he was in Broughton-in-Furness, a friend of
+the name of Ayrton.
+
+In the above letter on his novel it will be remembered, in speaking of
+the character of his work, that Branwell says he hopes to leap from
+the present bathos of fictitious literature to the firmly-fixed rock
+honoured by the foot of a Smollett or a Fielding, and speaks of
+revealing man's heart as faithfully as in the pages of 'Hamlet' or
+'Lear.' In the first four chapters of 'Wuthering Heights,' which serve
+as prelude to the darker portions of the story, we are introduced to
+the inmates of the farm that gives its name to the novel. Mr.
+Lockwood, who has rented Thrushcross Grange of Heathcliff, and has
+come to reside there, relates his experience of two visits he pays to
+his landlord at the 'Heights.' In the excellent humour of this portion
+of the story we are certainly reminded of Branwell Bronte, and perhaps
+of Smollett and Fielding too. The succeeding chapters are related in a
+manner more subdued, proper to the narration of the housekeeper. There
+is just one mention of 'King Lear' in 'Wuthering Heights,' on the
+second of these visits, when, at last, Mr. Lockwood, after he has been
+knocked down by the dogs, addresses the inmates of the 'Heights,'
+'with several incoherent threats of retaliation, that, in their
+infinite depth of virulency, smacked of "King Lear."' More than once
+have this story and Shakspeare's great tragedy been named in kinship,
+and Miss Robinson, unaware of Branwell's observation on his own prose
+tale, gives a second place, with 'King Lear,' to 'Wuthering Heights.'
+
+It is impossible to read 'Wuthering Heights' without being struck with
+the part which consumption and death are made to play in the progress
+of the story. Scarcely a character is there depicted in whom we do
+not recognize some trait, some weakness, remotely or more closely,
+indicating deep-seated phthisis; and evidences of a true and certain
+observation, in the writer, are to be found in the pictures of its
+power there delineated. In Branwell's poem on 'Caroline,' we have
+already seen with what certain touch he depicts her death from that
+disease; and how deeply, and almost morbidly, he broods on its
+ravages; and, in one of his later poems, we have a second and more
+striking picture of decline. In Emily's verse anything of the kind is
+entirely wanting; and, indeed, it is what we miss in her poems, even
+more than what we find in Branwell's, that must ever surprise us when
+we look for the author of 'Wuthering Heights.' Branwell, in his
+writings, is often engaged with subjects of real and personal
+interest, and the scheme of his work is apparent. Several of his
+poems, indeed, when once read, leave an impress on the memory which
+is evidence enough of the power and originality by which they are
+inspired. For the most part, Emily's poems are impersonal,
+imaginative, and ideal.
+
+It will be remembered that Mr. Grundy, in his 'Pictures of the Past,'
+has given an account of his last interview with Branwell, which he
+declares took place but a few days before Branwell died. I have shown
+conclusively that the interview is ascribed by Mr. Grundy, and by Miss
+Robinson following him, to a wrong date, and that it took place, in
+fact, in 1846, when the manuscript was still in the author's hands,
+perhaps, indeed, undergoing revision at the time. Branwell, according
+to his friend, had concealed in his coat sleeve, on this occasion, a
+carving-knife, with which, in his frenzy, he designed to kill the
+devil, whose call, he supposed, had summoned him to the inn; and he
+was surprised to find Mr. Grundy there instead. I have surmised that,
+when this grotesque episode occurred, Branwell was but jesting with
+his friend, who, in his surprise, took him altogether _au serieux_;
+and, remembering that Mr. Grundy says Branwell had declared to him
+before that 'Wuthering Heights' was in great part his own work, it
+will be seen that there are passages in the novel which seem to lend
+probability both to this surmise as to Branwell's intention, and also
+to Mr. Grundy's statement. Thus, in Chapter ix., Hindley Earnshaw
+returns to the house in a state of frenzied intoxication, and, finding
+Nelly Dean stowing away his son in a cupboard, he flies at her with a
+madman's rage, crying: 'By heaven and hell, you've sworn between you
+to murder that child! I know how it is, now, that he is always out of
+my way. But, with the help of Satan, I shall make you swallow the
+carving-knife, Nelly! You needn't laugh; for I've just crammed
+Kenneth, head-downmost, in the Blackhorse marsh; two is the same as
+one--and I want to kill some of you: I shall have no rest till I do!'
+To which Nelly Dean replies, 'But I don't like the carving-knife, Mr.
+Hindley; it has been cutting red herrings. I'd rather be shot, if you
+please.' Again, in Chapter xvii., when Isabella's taunts have stung
+Heathcliff to retaliation, he snatches up a dinner-knife and flings it
+at her head; and she is struck beneath the ear. We may believe, then,
+that when Branwell appeared in this strange guise before his friend,
+he was but jestingly rehearsing in act, with an 'antic disposition'
+such incidents as he had recently described in the volume he had
+mentioned to Mr. Grundy.
+
+Miss Robinson, in her 'Emily Bronte' (p. 95), has some sarcastic
+remarks about Branwell's pride in his family name. 'Proud of his
+name!' she writes: 'He wrote a poem on it, "Bronte," an eulogy of
+Nelson, which won the patronizing approbation of Leigh Hunt, Miss
+Martineau, and others, to whom, at his special request, it was
+submitted. Had he ever heard of his dozen aunts and uncles, the
+Pruntys of Ahaderg? Or if not, with what sensations must the Vicar
+(_sic_) of Haworth have listened to this blazoning forth and
+triumphing over the glories of his ancient name?' Branwell's pride in
+the name of Bronte would have been foolish enough if it had been of
+the nature Miss Robinson supposes; but perhaps it had another meaning.
+At any rate Nelly Dean puts pride of birth in quite a different light
+in 'Wuthering Heights,' where she gives good advice to Heathcliff.
+'You're fit for a prince in disguise,' she says even to the 'little
+Lascar,' the 'American or Spanish castaway.' 'Who knows but your
+father was Emperor of China, and your mother an Indian queen, each of
+them able to buy up, with one week's income, Wuthering Heights and
+Thrushcross Grange together? And you were kidnapped by wicked sailors
+and brought to England. Were I in your place, I would frame high
+notions of my birth; and the thoughts of what I was should give me
+courage and dignity to support the oppressions of a little farmer!'
+This was exactly what Branwell Bronte did.
+
+There are two other points in which I will indicate correspondences
+between the phraseology and ideas of 'Wuthering Heights' and those of
+Branwell Bronte. In one of his letters here published, Branwell,
+sketching a criminal grinning with the halter round his neck, asks the
+question: 'Is there really such a thing as the _Risus Sardonicus_? Did
+a man ever laugh the morning he was to be hanged?' Now, in the novel,
+Isabella Heathcliff says: 'I was in the condition of mind to be
+shocked at nothing: in fact, I was as reckless as some malefactors
+show themselves at the foot of the gallows.' Lastly, Heathcliff
+declares, speaking of Hindley Earnshaw: 'Correctly, that fool's body
+should be buried at the cross-roads, without ceremony of any kind.'
+Now Branwell was not only familiar with the traditions of suicides
+buried at the cross-roads near Haworth, as well as at similar
+cross-roads, but he was accustomed, in his perambulations through the
+district, when in this direction, to visit the ancient hostel at that
+place: and, indeed, it was this house he fixed upon for the reading of
+the poem he had written, and where he read, as we have seen, in lieu
+of it, the portion, of his novel, surmised to be 'Wuthering Heights,'
+to Mr. Dearden and his other friend. It would be tedious to indicate
+all the minor similarities of expression in the novel to those in
+Branwell's letters.
+
+Yet there are two or three points noticeable in 'Wuthering Heights,'
+which are marked in Emily's verse. Emily's love of Nature, of the
+moors; her deep brooding on the mystery of being, which led her to
+look on the calm of death as an assurance of future rest for all, are
+to be found in her poetry; and, in a lesser degree, also in 'Wuthering
+Heights.' Thus we read, in Chapter xvi. of the story, of Linton and
+his dead wife: 'Next morning--bright and cheerful out of doors--stole
+softened in through the blinds of the silent room, and suffused the
+couch and its occupant with a mellow, tender glow. Edgar Linton had
+his head laid on the pillow, and his eyes shut. His young and fair
+features were almost as death-like as those of the form beside him,
+and almost as fixed: but _his_ was the hush of exhausted anguish, and
+_hers_ of perfect peace. Her brow smooth, her lids closed, her lips
+wearing the expression of a smile; no angel in heaven could be more
+beautiful than she appeared. And I partook of the infinite calm in
+which she lay: my mind was never in a holier frame than while I gazed
+on that untroubled image of Divine rest. I instinctively echoed the
+words she had uttered a few hours before: "Incomparably beyond and
+above us all! Whether still on earth or now in heaven, her spirit is
+at home with God!"'
+
+The reflections suggested to Nelly Dean by the spectacle of repose
+presented by the dead Catherine seem to Mr. Reid to be characteristic
+of Emily, speaking 'out of the fulness of her heart.' 'I don't know if
+it be a peculiarity in me,' says the narrator in the story, 'but I am
+seldom otherwise than happy while watching in the chamber of death,
+should no frenzied or despairing mourner share the duty with me. I
+see a repose that neither earth nor hell can break, and I feel an
+assurance of the endless and shadowless hereafter--the Eternity they
+have entered--where life is boundless in its duration, and love in its
+sympathy, and joy in its fulness. I noticed on that occasion how much
+selfishness there is even in a love like Mr. Linton's, when he so
+regretted Catherine's blessed release! To be sure, one might have
+doubted, after the wayward and impatient existence she had led,
+whether she merited a haven of peace at last. One might doubt in
+seasons of cold reflection; but not then, in the presence of her
+corpse. It asserted its own tranquillity, which seemed a pledge of
+equal quiet to its former inhabitants.' But Mr. Lockwood is made to
+say, speaking of the housekeeper's anxiety to know if he thinks such
+people are happy in the other world, 'I declined answering Mrs. Dean's
+question, which struck me as something heterodox.' The story also
+concludes, speaking of the head-stones of Edgar Linton, Heathcliff,
+and Catherine: 'I lingered round them, under that benign sky: watched
+the moths fluttering among the heath and harebells, listened to the
+soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could
+ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.'
+But there is in these very points a remarkable coincidence of feeling
+between Branwell and Emily also. Indeed, in the expression of these
+thoughts, Branwell's verse is well-nigh more powerful than Emily's. We
+have known his desire for the oblivious peace of 'Real Rest'; and, in
+his letters, he has sketched many head-stones, on one of which are the
+words: 'I implore for rest'; and, in the 'Epistle to a Child in her
+Grave,' he has told us of the freedom from ill of that quiet and
+painless sepulchre. Here are a few stray lines of Branwell's, which
+will serve as illustration of this coincidence:
+
+    'Think not that Life is happiness,
+      But deem it _duty_ joined with _care_;
+    Implore for _hope_ in your distress,
+      And for your answers, get _despair_;
+    Yet travel on, for Life's rough road
+      May end, at last, in rest with _God_!'
+
+Again we may ask: did Branwell Bronte write 'Wuthering Heights,'
+or any part of it? The evidence that he did so is, probably,
+insufficient. But let it be remembered that, as stated in his letter
+to Leyland, he had clearly undertaken a three-volume novel, and, in
+one way or other, had written a volume of his story. The charge of
+falsehood brought against Branwell in his statement to Mr. Grundy will
+not now probably be renewed; but there may not be wanting some to say
+that Mr. Grundy is in error in connecting what his friend said to him
+about his own novel with some allusion of his sister's to 'Wuthering
+Heights,' and that those gentlemen who believe the novel Branwell read
+to them to be the same as that attributed to Emily are in error also.
+It has been said that, on the rare occasions on which the father or
+brother entered the room where the sisters were writing their novels,
+nothing was said of the work in progress. But it must be confessed
+that these views meet with little encouragement from what we know of
+the history of that period.
+
+We have seen that, prior to the autumn of 1845, Branwell had been
+employed in writing his novel; a little later, we have reason to
+suspect that he is not going on with it, and we find him writing a
+poem with the same theme as a contemporary one of Emily's. We then
+find the sisters taking up novel writing with precisely Branwell's
+views of the profit to be derived from it. When he writes to Leyland
+on the 28th of April, 1846, shortly before the poems of his sisters
+were published, and while they are finishing their novels, Branwell
+has ceased to speak of his, but says that, if he were in London
+personally, he would try a certain publisher with his poems. Now it
+was an edition of Wordsworth by this same publisher that Charlotte
+had, four months earlier, fixed upon as a model for the sisters' own
+volume of poems. Branwell, then, however strained his relations with
+his sister Charlotte might be at this late date, must have known that
+his sisters were writing their tales. Why, then, the change in his
+aims? Why is he, who had propounded that view of the superior
+advantages of prose over poetic writing, which afterwards determined
+the sisters to write novels, silent about his own, and thinking of
+publishing his poems? and never again do we hear of any attempt on his
+part to finish his novel, though he lived a year after his sisters'
+works were published. What had become of his novel in the interim?
+
+Perhaps there is evidence, then, to warrant us in throwing out a
+suggestion that there may have been some measure of collaboration
+between Branwell and his sister, that he originated the idea, moulded
+the characters, and wrote the earlier portion of the work, which she,
+taking, revised, amended, completed, and imbued with enough of an
+individual spirit to give unity to the whole. In support of this view,
+it may be noted that, though there is no break in the style of
+'Wuthering Heights,' yet all the interests of the original story are,
+in a manner, completed in the seventeenth chapter--that is, something
+more than half-way through the book. In that first portion of it we
+trace the vehement passion of Heathcliff for Catherine up to her
+death. We see his enmity to Edgar Linton, which is satisfied by his
+possession of Linton's sister, whom he hates and despises, but who is
+the mother of a child to be heir to Thrushcross Grange, and we see the
+death of this unhappy wife. In this first portion of the novel is
+unrolled also the gradual growth of Heathcliff's hatred of Earnshaw,
+from the time when he says: 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay
+Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at
+last. I hope he will not die before I do,' up to the death of that
+miserable character, whose son remains an ignorant dependent, because
+his drunken father has been lured to make away with his wealth at the
+gaming-table to his Mephistophelian pursuer. Here is depicted that
+dark and malevolent spirit which ranks Heathcliff with the demons, as
+where he says: 'I have no pity--I have no pity! The more the worms
+writhe, the more I yearn to crush out their entrails. It is a moral
+teething, and I grind with greater energy in proportion to the
+increase of pain.'
+
+In the second part of the story, opening with the eighteenth chapter,
+we are occupied with the fates of the children of Linton, Earnshaw,
+and Heathcliff. We learn how the latter trains up his miserable,
+puling son for the purpose of marrying the daughter of Linton, which
+he forcibly brings about, and thus completes his possession of the
+Grange; how he endeavours to pervert the youthful Hareton Earnshaw, to
+'see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another with the same wind
+to twist it;' and in the end how his vengeance is completely thwarted.
+Thus there are two distinct parts in 'Wuthering Heights,' one being
+the completion and complement of the other.
+
+As some evidence for the view here thrown out, I may mention that, in
+reading 'Wuthering Heights' in order to discover what correspondences
+there might exist between it and Branwell's writings, in letters,
+etc., I was very much struck with the fact that, for every five of
+such correspondences which I discovered in the first part of the
+novel, I could find only one in the latter. We need not, therefore, be
+surprised if, in the concluding half of 'Wuthering Heights,' Branwell
+has stood to the author as model for some details of character, though
+these can be very few. Yet Nelly Dean does say of Heathcliff's love
+for Catherine: 'He might have had a monomania on the subject of his
+departed idol; but on every other point his wits were as sound as
+mine.'[40]
+
+        [40] 'Wuthering Heights,' chap. xxxiii.
+
+The collaboration which I have mentioned would by no means imply
+unfair action on the part of Emily Bronte: she was ever a kind,
+gentle, and faithful friend to Branwell, and had looked forward,
+perhaps more anxiously than her sisters, to his success in the world.
+There would be nothing extraordinary, then, in Branwell handing over
+to his favourite sister, to whom he was always grateful for her
+abiding affection, the work which he had begun, and which he, perhaps,
+felt himself dissatisfied with, or unable to complete, or in his
+supplying her with a plot, and assisting her with his experience in
+the delineation of the characters in any story she might wish to
+produce. To have done so would be quite consistent with what we know
+of him; and he never claimed the authorship, so far as I know, after
+the occasion of Mr. Grundy's visit to the parsonage twelve months
+before the publication of the novel; and he read it to two or three
+personal friends only, and to these, if my supposition be correct,
+perhaps before his sister had taken up the work.
+
+One other circumstance, besides the disappearance of Branwell's novel,
+finds explanation in this view of the matter: that Emily, who never
+undertook a second novel, produced, not only the most original and
+powerful of the contemporary tales of the sisters, but one that is
+also a much longer story than 'The Professor,' by Charlotte, and half
+as long again as 'Agnes Grey,' by Anne. Here, then, must probably
+remain the question of the origin of 'Wuthering Heights.'
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+BRANWELL BRONTE AND 'THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.'
+
+Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in
+consequence of her Brother's Conduct--Supposition of Some that
+Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon--The Characters are
+Entirely Distinct--Real Sources of the Story--Anne Bronte at
+Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of
+Branwell.
+
+
+Charlotte Bronte, who never dreamed of attributing the production
+of so dire a story as 'Wuthering Heights,' by her sister Emily,
+o brooding on Branwell's misfortunes, has, however, in her
+remarks on Anne Bronte's second novel, 'The Tenant of Wildfell
+Hall,'--meant by its author as a tale of warning against the evils of
+intemperance,--intimated that it was carried out as a duty by Anne, in
+consequence of the impression made upon her by her brother's conduct;
+and certain writers, questioning the statement of Charlotte that the
+characters are fictitious, have concluded that, in Arthur Huntingdon,
+we have 'a picture' and a 'portrait' of Branwell Bronte. It seems to
+me, rightly considered, a cruel thing to Anne Bronte to believe that
+she has given us a portrait of her brother in the character of the
+perfidious Huntingdon. Had her brother been thus vile, she could not
+have borne to write over the details of his character; were he not
+like Huntingdon, she could not have libelled him so.
+
+As none of the biographers of the Bronte sisters ever knew Branwell,
+it is probable that the Branwell Bronte of the biographies owes more
+to the supposed Branwell of the novels, than the characters in the
+novels do to the brother of the Brontes. It is Huntingdon's wit,
+superficial as it is, that has connected him with the ideal of
+Branwell Bronte. A few traits of his, indeed, there may be in
+Huntingdon, but they are not the worst of those depicted in that
+character. The contempt for gambling which Huntingdon expresses may
+be taken as an instance.
+
+We shall, however, look in vain for any true resemblance between the
+characters of Arthur Huntingdon and Branwell Bronte, and, certainly,
+in almost every respect, one is a direct contrast to the other. The
+biographer of Emily Bronte says, indeed, that Branwell 'sat to Anne
+sorrily enough for the portrait of Henry (_sic_) Huntingdon;' but I
+would ask where that portraiture lies? Huntingdon, be it marked, is
+not only a drunkard, but he is a libertine, a man who has even the
+callous brutality to recount to his trusting wife, as she sits by him
+on the sofa, endeavouring to amuse him, the 'stories of his former
+amours, always turning upon the ruin of some confiding girl, or the
+cozening of some unsuspecting husband; and when I express my horror
+and indignation,' she says, 'he lays it to the charge of jealousy, and
+laughs till the tears run down his cheeks.' But it was different with
+Branwell, against whom it has never been charged that he sank to these
+low depths of criminal debauchery, indulgence, and treachery; and even
+those who have recounted the story of his passion for the wife of his
+employer, are compelled to say that he remained pure, and shrank in
+horror from the advances which they suppose she made. Huntingdon's
+vicious disposition, too, is so sunk in selfishness, and there is in
+him such a cold brutality,--as where on many an occasion he triumphs
+over his powerless wife,--that he is placed in absolute contrast to
+Branwell, with his confiding, considerate, open-hearted, and generous
+nature.
+
+It is but necessary to allude to Huntingdon's hypocrisy to establish
+a further difference between his character and Branwell's; and it
+is, moreover, very distinctive of Huntingdon's mind that he is,
+throughout, utterly irreverent and irreligious, to such an extent that
+he jests at sacred things, and declares that his wife's piety is
+enough to make him jealous of his Maker. Again he says, when he places
+her hand on the top of his head, and it sinks in a bed of curls,
+'rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle;' 'if God meant me to
+be religious, why didn't He give me a proper organ of veneration?'
+This irreverence he carries with him into domestic life, and he
+invades the sanctity of human affection, and the places the heart
+keeps holy, with his gross and insensate brutality. How different is
+this from Branwell Bronte, in whose character reverence and affection,
+above all things, were strong! Can we imagine Huntingdon dwelling so
+fondly in the affection of the long departed, as Branwell does in his
+poems of 'Caroline;' can we imagine him venerating as a precious
+possession to his dying day the sacred memories of his early years, as
+his supposed prototype did? What 'swell of thought,' seeming to fill
+'the bursting heart, the gushing eye' with the memories of bygone
+years, could flood the shallow brain of the selfish and unfeeling
+Huntingdon? And Huntingdon, too, is afflicted with that well-known
+complaint of the continual drinker; he loses all interest in the
+affairs of life, and exists in perpetual levity. 'There is always a
+"but" in this imperfect world,' says his wife, 'and I do wish he would
+sometimes be serious. I cannot get him to write or speak in real,
+solid earnest. I don't much mind it now, but if it be always so what
+shall I do with the serious part of myself?' I would ask when Branwell
+Bronte displayed this unseemly levity? if he did not always write and
+speak in solid earnest; if, indeed, he did not live in the very midst
+of that storm and stress of acute feeling which Huntingdon's wretched
+nature was incapable of experiencing at all?
+
+Lastly, Helen Huntingdon tells us that her husband is impenetrable to
+good and lofty thoughts, that he never reads anything but newspapers
+and sporting magazines, that she wishes he would take up some literary
+study, or learn to draw or play; and that, when deprived of his
+friends, his condition is comfortless, unalleviated as it is by the
+consolations of intellectual resources, and the answer of a good
+conscience towards God. What, then, were Branwell's mental resources?
+His thoughts, on the contrary, were good and lofty enough; he was a
+student of literature, and especially a reader of the great poets; he
+had, indeed, taken up literary work; and he could and did both draw,
+and play on the organ; and when he was deprived of society, or cast
+into trouble, he found his consolation in his literary labours, and we
+have seen that, for the very purpose of obtaining alleviation in
+distress, he had written a volume of his novel. In short, he was, as
+far as his intellectual character and habits were concerned, exactly
+what Helen Huntingdon wished her husband might be.
+
+If, then, there is no resemblance between Branwell Bronte's
+disposition, character, and capabilities and those of Huntingdon in
+the novel, we might, after what has been said, surely expect to find
+that, in the unique point in which there is a correspondence of
+fact--their indulgence in drink--there would be some similar traits.
+But here, again, the resemblance is of the faintest, while the
+differences are radical. Huntingdon, for instance, is a continual and
+inveterate drinker; Branwell drank but occasionally, and had long
+periods of temperance: Huntingdon drinks for the love of drink;
+Branwell drank in order to drown his sorrows. It is, moreover, made a
+special point by the Bronte biographers that part of Branwell's
+intemperance was in taking opium, but this feature does not exist in
+Huntingdon, though Anne was clearly acquainted with the practice, for
+she mentions in the novel that Lord Lowborough at one time took it.
+
+But, for the character of Huntingdon, we must look elsewhere. The
+account Charlotte gave of one whom the Brontes had known well, will
+show from what sources Anne drew her plot.
+
+'You remember Mr. and Mrs. ----? Mrs. ---- came here the other day,
+with a most melancholy tale of her wretched husband's drunken,
+extravagant, profligate habits. She asked papa's advice; there was
+nothing, she said, but ruin before them. They owed debts which they
+could never pay. She expected Mr. ----'s instant dismissal from his
+curacy; she knew, from bitter experience, that his vices were utterly
+hopeless. He treated her and her child savagely; with much more to the
+same effect. Papa advised her to leave him for ever, and go home, if
+she had a home to go to. She said this was what she had long resolved
+to do; and she would leave him directly, as soon as Mr. B----
+dismissed him. She expressed great disgust and contempt towards him,
+and did not affect to have the shadow of regard in any way. I do not
+wonder at this, but I do wonder she should ever marry a man towards
+whom her feelings must always have been pretty much the same as they
+are now. I am morally certain no decent woman could experience
+anything but aversion towards such a man as Mr. ----. Before I knew,
+or suspected his character, and when I rather wondered at his
+versatile talents, I felt it in an uncontrollable degree. I hated to
+talk with him--hated to look at him; though, as I was not certain that
+there was substantial reason for such a dislike, and thought it absurd
+to trust to mere instinct, I both concealed and repressed the feeling
+as much as I could; and, on all occasions, treated him with as much
+civility as I was mistress of. I was struck with Mary's expression of
+a similar feeling at first sight; she said, when we left him, "That is
+a hideous man, Charlotte!" I thought, "He is indeed."'[41]
+
+        [41] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. ix.
+
+And here is another case known to the Brontes. 'Do you remember my
+telling you--or did I ever tell you--about that wretched and most
+criminal Mr. ----? After running an infamous career of vice, both in
+England and France, abandoning his wife to disease and total
+destitution in Manchester, with two children and without a farthing,
+in a strange lodging-house? Yesterday evening Martha came upstairs to
+say that a woman--"rather lady-like," as she said--wished to speak to
+me in the kitchen. I went down. There stood Mrs. ----, pale and worn,
+but still interesting-looking and cleanly and neatly dressed, as was
+her little girl who was with her. I kissed her heartily. I could
+almost have cried to see her, for I had pitied her with my whole soul
+when I heard of her undeserved sufferings, agonies, and physical
+degradation. She took tea with us, stayed about two hours, and frankly
+entered into a narrative of her appalling distresses.... She does not
+know where Mr. ---- is, and of course can never more endure to see
+him. She is now staying a few days at E---- with the ----s, who, I
+believe, have been all along very kind to her, and the circumstance is
+greatly to their credit.'[42]
+
+        [42] T. Wemyss Reid's 'Charlotte Bronte, a Monograph,' chap.
+        vii., p. 83.
+
+It was with cases like these before them that the Brontes wrought the
+infelicity of Heathcliff and Isabella, of Huntingdon and Helen. They
+felt themselves compelled to represent life as it appeared to them,
+they said.
+
+Consumption and intemperance, the curses of our island and our
+climate, are found not the less in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. A
+cold and humid atmosphere, like poverty and want, begets a recourse to
+stimulants, and, with some natures, the bounds of moderation are soon
+passed. The prevalence of the latter evil had entered deeply into
+Anne's thoughts. Her brother's occasional indulgence had made it
+familiar to her; but we should clearly commit an error, as well as a
+great injustice to her, in supposing that, in the character of
+Huntingdon, she wished to present his failings to the public.
+
+A careful study of the question has, indeed, convinced me, not only
+that Huntingdon is no portrait of Branwell Bronte, but that he is
+distinctly and designedly his very antitype. The author of 'Wildfell
+Hall' could scarcely have created a character so completely different
+from Branwell, unless she intended to do so; for, otherwise, writing
+under the influence of circumstances, and the inspiration of the
+moment, something of his strong personality must surely have found its
+way into the book. It is pleasant to be thus able to record, as an act
+of justice to Anne Bronte, that, though she had been compelled to
+witness the results of intemperance both in Branwell and in others,
+she purposely conveyed her lesson of these evils in the acts and
+thoughts of a character utterly distinct from her brother. Indeed, she
+was at considerable pains--which have unfortunately availed little--to
+prevent even a suspicion that her brother was the prototype of
+Huntingdon; for, to remove that impression, she has placed the hero of
+the story, Gilbert Markham, to a considerable extent, in Branwell's
+very circumstances. There is no resemblance between Markham's
+character and Branwell's, beyond that of an ardent and generous
+temperament; but it should be observed that--exactly as with
+Branwell--Markham is enamoured of a married woman, the death of whose
+husband he anxiously awaits; that this passion is attributed to him as
+a monomania--'A monomania,' says his brother Fergus, 'but don't
+mention it; all right but that;' and, lastly, that Markham, too,
+thinks, as Branwell did, that the deceased husband of the lady 'might
+have so constructed his will as to place restrictions upon her
+marrying again.'
+
+It should likewise be observed that 'Wildfell Hall' is just as much
+a protest against _mariages de convenance_, as it is against
+intemperance; but what had this to do with the family circumstances of
+the Brontes? It had far more to do with such instances as that of 'Mr.
+and Mrs. ----,' quoted above from Charlotte's letter, where infelicity
+was combined with intemperance, as it is in the case of Arthur and
+Helen Huntingdon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+BRANWELL'S FAILINGS.--PUBLICATION OF 'JANE EYRE.'
+
+Novel-writing--The Sisters' Method of Work--Branwell's Failing Health
+and Irregularities--'Jane Eyre'--Its Reception and Character--It was
+not Influenced by Branwell--Letter and Sketches of Branwell, 1848.
+
+
+But, at this time, neither 'Wuthering Heights' nor 'The Tenant of
+Wildfell Hall' was before the public. It was not, indeed, till the
+summer of 1847 that the former, with 'Agnes Grey,' was accepted for
+publication. Meanwhile Anne was toiling away at her second book, and
+Charlotte was writing 'Jane Eyre,' under spells of inspiration.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell has told us that the sisters were wont to put away their
+work at nine o'clock, and to walk about the sitting-room, talking over
+the plots of their stories, and discussing the incidents of them. Once
+or twice a week each was accustomed to read to the others what she had
+written, and hear the opinions they passed upon it. Mr. Bronte retired
+early to rest, and was in ignorance of the nature of the work going
+on, for his daughters never spoke to him of it, any more than they did
+to their friends. The writing of the sisters was, in fact, a secret
+shared only by their brother Branwell, who unquestionably gave his
+advice upon it, and instructed them on many points, besides, of
+practical value in their dealings with publishers and literary men,
+which their small knowledge of the world caused them to overlook.
+
+But, at the time, Branwell's health was visibly failing, and it became
+evident that, though naturally stronger than his sisters, he was not
+exempt from the consumptive tendency of his family. All his endeavours
+to obtain employment had proved futile. His physical health had long
+been giving way, and this soon rendered him incapable of sustained
+exertion. Much of his strange conduct arose probably from the reaction
+of this weakness on a mind endowed with so much intellectual power.
+
+In most winters on these Yorkshire hills there are spells of severe
+frost and cold, and these were always times of suffering to the
+Brontes. Influenza would become epidemic at Haworth, and seldom
+neglected the inmates of the parsonage, close by the churchyard as the
+house was. Mr. Bronte had struggled hard to have proper drainage
+introduced into the village, but in vain. There was, indeed, 'such a
+series of North-pole days' in the December of 1846, as Charlotte did
+not remember; the sky looked like ice, and the wind was as keen as a
+two-edged blade. The consequence was that all the house was laid up
+with coughs and colds. Anne suffered from asthma; Mr. Bronte and
+Branwell had influenza and cough. Anxiously must they have watched
+every indication of change in the wind, and longed for the southwest
+breezes that, even in winter, sometimes came over the moors with all
+the softness of spring; and, on this occasion, they were not long
+disappointed, and Anne became much better. The novel writing went on
+as before. Branwell's weakness and failings sometimes broke in upon
+this employment, but we do not find that, during the year 1847, he
+gave such trouble as would be likely to influence his sisters' work.
+Of course he had little or no money at hand, and we know that he had
+contracted some small obligations during the period of distraction of
+the previous year. The result of this was that a sheriff's-officer
+arrived at Haworth, and Branwell's debts had to be paid, whereat his
+sister Charlotte seems to have been very angry, for she appears
+afterwards to accuse herself of being 'too demonstrative and
+vehement.' About three months later Charlotte was again in doubt about
+Branwell; she says his behaviour was 'extravagant,' and that he
+dropped 'mysterious hints,' which led her to believe that he had
+contracted further debts. In this, however, she was mistaken.
+
+In the May of 1847, Charlotte invited 'E.' to visit her, and said that
+Branwell was quieter, for the good reason that he had got to the end
+of a considerable sum of money he became possessed of in the spring,
+and was obliged to restrict himself in some degree. 'You must,' she
+continues, 'expect to find him weaker in mind, and the complete rake
+in appearance. I have no apprehension of his being uncivil to you; on
+the contrary, he will be as smooth as oil.' It would appear that he
+had had some sum laid out, which he then recovered; but, as we have
+seen, he had got into debt before, and, in his alarm at the prospect
+of imprisonment in York Castle, it is said, told his friends, in the
+neighbourhood where he had been tutor, of his straits; upon which the
+widow of his late employer sent him money in kindness of heart,
+through a third person. At this period he expended much of his time at
+home in reading, and he wrote several poems.
+
+At the end of July, Charlotte, as we have been told, consulted her
+brother as to the reason why Messrs. Smith and Elder, to whom she had
+sent 'The Professor,' did not reply. He at once set it down to her not
+having enclosed a postage stamp. On the 2nd of August, she wrote
+again, and promptly received the considerate answer which encouraged
+her to send to them, on the twenty-fourth of the same month, her
+three-volume work, 'Jane Eyre.' This was accepted, and given to the
+world in the following October. Meanwhile, in the beginning of August,
+'E.' had paid her visit to the parsonage, and the friends had enjoyed
+the glorious weather in walking on the moors. Charlotte had returned
+the visit almost immediately, and the proofs of 'Jane Eyre' were
+corrected by her during her absence, sitting even at the same table
+with her friend, to whom, curiously enough, she said not a word about
+the work in hand. Upon her return to Haworth, she wrote: 'I reached
+home, and found all well. Thank God for it.' 'Wuthering Heights' and
+'Agnes Grey' still lingered in the hands of the publisher, from whom
+the authors had obtained but impoverishing terms; 'a bargain,' says
+Mrs. Gaskell, in mentioning the circumstance, 'to be alluded to
+further.' Nothing more, however, appears in the 'Life of Charlotte' on
+the subject; and we may hope that the celebrity which the novels of
+the 'Messrs. Bell' soon acquired, made a substantial difference in the
+first terms of the agreement. During the next three months, Charlotte
+was in correspondence with Messrs. Smith and Elder, Mr. G. H. Lewes,
+and Mr. W. S. Williams, in respect of the reviews of 'Jane Eyre,'
+which were then appearing.
+
+'Jane Eyre' came upon the reading world of 1847 as a veritable
+revelation. It was a tragic story of the feelings, so different in
+character from the trite affectations of the commonplace novel of the
+day; it was informed with such a passionate energy, and filled with
+such soul-absorbing interests, that it was received at once as a
+monument of great and undoubted genius. Reading the book to-day, we
+can easily understand why Charlotte Bronte gained such a mastery over
+the spirits of her time, and earned for herself an imperishable
+renown. She would do the same now. The strange, lonely, unfriended
+childhood of Jane Eyre, the experiences she undergoes at Gateshead,
+and at the Lowood School, and her confidence and self-reliance through
+them all, mark the story as vitally true; but, when this plain little
+personage manifests the depths of her feelings, and calls forth our
+human sympathies in her hopes and her sorrows; when we read the
+terrific tragedy of her relationship with Rochester, and are shaken
+with the storm and stress of the feelings that move her; when, above
+all, we see her come out from the shadow, with her nobility and purity
+unsullied, though once more she is friendless and alone, we are
+carried beyond ourselves in admiration of the genius who has painted a
+picture at once so truly human and so very strange.
+
+'Jane Eyre,' the book, was the natural and unforced outcome of its
+author's personality, and, though Jane Eyre, the character, is not
+Charlotte Bronte in the sense in which Lucy Snowe is, yet in Charlotte
+Bronte were all the powers and capabilities that moved Jane Eyre. This
+book, then, came upon people in 1847 as a revelation; they felt
+themselves in the hands of a very Titan, and were carried on by an
+uncontrollable stream. But there were some amongst them who struggled
+against its influence, when they found that the shallow bounds of
+conventionality had been far overpassed, and when they saw that its
+author was little skilled in the ways of the world. These revolted
+against the power that made them, perforce, interested in a character,
+in Rochester, who had fallen away from the high Christian ideal. Hence
+arose that outcry against what was termed the 'immorality' of the
+book, against its 'coarseness,' its 'laxity of tone,' and the
+'heathenish doctrine of religion' that filled it, which gave such
+pain, in the parsonage at Haworth, to the simple-minded girl, its
+author, against whom the dictum of the 'Quarterly Review' was written:
+'If we ascribe the book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but
+to ascribe it to one who has for some sufficient reason long forfeited
+the society of her own sex.'
+
+But such critics as these forgot that the people whom we love most in
+life, are not those who are supremely noble, absolutely perfect,
+superhuman, and angelic; but those who are beautiful and true in spite
+of their failings, and though clogged with all the faults with which
+our humanity has laden them; those who, like the child in Wordsworth's
+ode, live 'trailing clouds of glory' with them from divinity, in the
+midst of the shame and sin of the world. These are the lights which
+illumine 'Jane Eyre,' with a loveliness that is truly and perfectly
+human. So the book made its way, after the wild fervour of its first
+reception, to a pinnacle in English literature where it must ever
+remain, as the work of a great and original genius, and, as we now
+know, of a true and noble woman.
+
+Small need was there, then, that Mrs. Gaskell should seek to explain
+those features of Charlotte's genius, which brought down upon 'Jane
+Eyre' and its author such expressions of blame as these, by references
+to her brother's character and history, as she understood them.
+Whatever may have been the case with the novels of Emily and Anne,
+those of Charlotte were clearly the outcome of her own nature and of
+her own experience, and were uninfluenced in one way or other by her
+brother. If she takes a suggestion from his affairs at all, she deals
+with it coldly or sternly. Take for instance that passage I have
+quoted from 'The Professor,' where William Crimsworth speaks of his
+recollection of an instance of domestic treachery.
+
+In December, 1847, appeared the works of Ellis and Acton Bell. The
+Christmas of that year found the three sisters noted in the world of
+authors--Currer Bell, famous. Not often can so much be recorded of a
+family. Branwell seems to have been considerably elated by their
+success, and the festivities of the season were indulged in by him to
+his injury. His feeble health was soon affected by things that would
+have had little influence upon ordinarily strong men, and he suffered
+the consequences. On the 11th of January, 1848, Charlotte writes:--'We
+have not been very comfortable here at home lately. Branwell has, by
+some means, continued to get more money from the old quarter, and has
+led us a sad life.... Papa is harassed day and night; we have little
+peace; he is always sick; has two or three times fallen down in fits;
+what will be the ultimate end, God knows. But who is without their
+drawback, their scourge, their skeleton behind the curtain? It remains
+only to do one's best, and endure with patience what God sends.' In
+this month the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' appeared.
+
+It must have been in reference to this period that Mrs. Gaskell has
+said it might well have happened that Branwell had shot his father.
+But the statement is an exaggeration; and, indeed, I have been told,
+both by Martha Brown and Nancy Wainwright, that Branwell was not
+nearly so bad as Mrs. Gaskell has made him appear. 'If he had wanted
+to shoot his father,' says my informant, 'he could easily have done
+it, for there were loaded guns and pistols hung over the bed-room door
+constantly.' She relates that, on one occasion, she was occupied in
+tidying up the bed-room, and had just taken down the fire-arms to
+dust, when Mr. Bronte entered the room in great consternation,
+forbidding her, at any time thenceforth, on any account whatever, to
+meddle with them, for they were loaded even then, and might have been
+accidentally discharged to her own danger. He again hung up the arms
+himself. Mr. Bronte carried on this singular practice, and could not
+be induced to discontinue it; and, as the reader is aware, Branwell
+and his father occupied this bed-room.
+
+Branwell himself was very conscious of his failings at this time, and
+somewhat ashamed of them. He writes to Leyland during the January of
+1848: 'I was _really_ far enough from well when I saw you last week at
+Halifax; and, if you should happen to see Mrs. ---- of ----, you would
+greatly oblige me by telling her that I consider her conduct towards
+me as most kind and motherly, and that, if I did anything during
+temporary illness, to offend her, I deeply regret it, and beg her to
+take my regret as my apology till I see her again; which I trust will
+be ere long.' He continues, speaking in general terms of his literary
+work, and his poems, mentioning especially the poem of 'Caroline,'
+which he had written a long time before, and concludes by promising a
+longer letter later on.
+
+There is prefixed to this letter a drawing, one of the strangest that
+Branwell ever made,--which he advises his friend to destroy,--a
+portrait of himself, head and shoulders, vigorously executed with the
+pen, and an admirable likeness too, in profile, grave and thoughtful,
+wearing his spectacles, but a portrait of Branwell in what a plight!
+For, just as the martyrs of old are represented with the knife planted
+in their breast, and the rope placed round their neck, so has Branwell
+pictured himself, with the halter about his throat, in the morbid
+martyrdom of his feverish imagination.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+BRANWELL'S LATER POETICAL WORKS.
+
+Branwell's Poetical Work--Sketch of the Materials which he intended
+to use in the Poem of 'Morley Hall'--The Poem--The Subject left
+Incomplete--Branwell's Poem, 'The End of All'--His Letter to Leyland
+asking an Opinion on his Poem, 'Percy Hall'--Observations--The Poem.
+
+
+Branwell's poetical work in this period, when his health was failing,
+is incomplete, for there remain two pieces from his hand, both of
+which are fragments only. The first of these is 'Morley Hall,' which
+he was writing for his friend Leyland, but which he never lived to
+finish. He designed it to be an epic, in several cantos, dealing with
+a succession of romantic episodes, of which an elopement that actually
+took place, as I have previously had occasion to mention, was the
+chief feature. The part he completed was the introductory canto, or
+rather a portion of it, which is given below; but, since this was a
+work into which he entered with much spirit, and which would have been
+a long and important one, had it been completed, it may not be amiss
+here to sketch briefly the materials with which he proposed to work.
+
+Morley Hall, or all that remains of it, is situated in the parish of
+Leigh, in the county of Lancaster; and was the residence of two
+families in succession, which became allied by marriage, and attained
+some celebrity. The first family was that of Leyland, originally of
+the place of that name in Lancashire, and afterwards, for many
+generations preceding the reign of King Henry VIII., residing at
+Morley Hall.
+
+In Henry VIII.'s time the mansion was owned by Sir William Leyland, or
+Leland, whose family consisted of Thomas, his son and heir, and his
+daughters Anne and Elizabeth, by his marriage with Anne, daughter and
+heiress of Allan Syngleton of Whitgill, in Craven, Esq. Living in
+great opulence at Morley, Sir William was visited by the learned
+antiquary, his friend, and probably his relative, John Leland. This
+writer says of his visit: 'Cumming from Manchestre towards Morle, Syr
+William Lelande's howse, I passid by enclosid grounde, ... leving on
+the left hand a mile and more of, a fair place of Mr. Langforde's
+caulled Agecroft.... Morle, Mr. Lelande's Place, is buildid, saving
+the Fundation, of stone squarid that risith within a great Moote a vi
+foot above the water, al of tymbre, after the commune sort of building
+of Houses of the Gentilmen for most of Lancastreshire. Ther is as much
+Plesur of Orchardes, of great Varite of Frute and fair made Walkes and
+Gardines as ther is in any Place of Lancastreshire.'[43]
+
+        [43] Itinerary, vol. 5, p. 83.
+
+Sir William was succeeded by Thomas, his son, who had married Anne,
+daughter of Sir John Atherton, and had issue Robert, his son and
+heir,[44] and two daughters, Anne and Alice. Anne married Edward
+Tyldesley, of Tyldesley, with whom the legend, versified by Mr.
+Peters, and on which Branwell intended to write at greater length,
+alleges that she eloped. The tradition of this event still lingers at
+Morley Hall. It is said that when the attachment sprang up between
+Anne, the eldest daughter of Thomas Leyland, and Edward Tyldesley, the
+connection was forbidden by the lady's father. It is further said
+that, regardless of this prohibition, a night was fixed upon for an
+elopement, and that, when the inmates of the house were buried in
+sleep, it was arranged she should tie a rope round her waist, the
+loose end of which she should throw across the moat to Tyldesley, who
+was to be in waiting, and, with another, should lower herself into the
+water, and be drawn to the land by him. The legend says this was
+successfully accomplished, and that the marriage was celebrated before
+the elopement was known to the family.[45]
+
+        [44] Inquisition _post mortem_ of Thomas Leyland of the
+        Morleys, co. Lanc., Esq. (Yorkshire lands) taken at
+        Bradford, co. York, 11th Sept., 6 Eliz.
+
+        [45] 'The White Rose of York,' 1834, pp. 226-229.
+
+It is remarkable that, while Thomas Leyland had a legitimate son and
+heir in Robert Leyland, the manor-house of Morley and its demesnes
+passed into the family of Tyldesley by marriage alone, as if there had
+been no such person.
+
+There are other stories relating to this family, of wild and weird
+interest, with which Branwell was acquainted; but this passing
+allusion is all that the scope of the present work will allow.
+
+Of the family of Tyldesley of Morley was the brave Sir Thomas, a
+major-general in the royal army, who was slain at Wigan on the 25th of
+August, 1651. To this circumstance Branwell alludes in his poem. The
+fragment is as follows:--
+
+    MORLEY HALL,
+
+    LEIGH--LANCASHIRE.
+
+    'When Life's youth, overcast by gathering clouds
+    Of cares that come like funeral-following crowds,
+    Wearying of that which is, and cannot see
+    A sunbeam burst upon futurity,
+    It tries to cast away the woes that are
+    And borrow brighter joys from times afar.
+    For what our feet tread may have been a road
+    By horses' hoofs pressed 'neath a camel's load;
+    But what we ran across in childhood's hours
+    Were fields, presenting June with May-tide flowers:
+    So what was done and borne, if long ago,
+    Will satisfy our heart, though stained by tears of woe.
+
+    'When present sorrows every thought employ,
+    Our father's woes may take the garb of joy,
+    And, knowing what our sires have undergone,
+    Ourselves can smile, though weary, wandering on.
+    For if our youth a thunder-cloud o'ershadows,
+    Changing to barren swamps Life's flowering meadows,
+    We know that fiery flash and bursting peal
+    Others, like us, were forced to hear and feel;
+    And while they moulder in a quiet grave,
+    Robbed of all havings--worthless all they have--
+    We still, with face erect, behold the sun--
+    Have bright examples in what has been done
+    By head or hand--and, in the times to come,
+    May tread bright pathways to our gate of doom.
+
+    'So, if we gaze from our snug villa's door,
+    By vines or honeysuckles covered o'er,
+    Though we have saddening thoughts, we still can smile
+    In thinking our hut supersedes the pile
+    Whose turrets totter 'mid the woods before us,
+    And whose proud owners used to trample o'er us;
+    All now by weeds and ivy overgrown,
+    And touched by Time, that hurls down stone from stone.
+    We gaze with scorn on what is worn away,
+    And never dream about our own decay.
+    Thus, while this May-day cheers each flower and tree,
+    Enlivening earth and almost cheering me,
+    I half forget the mouldering moats of Leigh.
+
+    'Wide Lancashire has changed its babyhood,
+    As Time makes saplings spring to timber wood;
+    But as grown men their childhood still remember,
+    And think of Summer in their dark December,
+    So Manchester and Liverpool may wonder,
+    And bow to old halls over which they ponder,
+    Unknowing that man's spirit yearns to all
+    Which--once lost--prayers can never more recall.
+    The storied piles of mortar, brick, and stone,
+    Where trade bids noise and gain to struggle on,
+    Competing for the prize that Mammon gives--
+    Youth killed by toil and profits bought with lives--
+    Will not prevent the quiet, thinking mind
+    From looking back to years when Summer wind
+    Sang, not o'er mills, but round ancestral halls,
+    And, 'stead of engine's steam, gave dews from waterfalls.
+
+    'He who by brick-built houses closely pent,
+    That show nought beautiful to sight or scent,
+    Pines for green fields, will cherish in his room
+    Some pining plant bereft of natural bloom;
+    And, like the crowds which yonder factories hold,
+    Withering 'mid warmth, and in their spring-tide old,
+    So Lancashire may fondly look upon
+    Her wrecks fast vanishing of ages gone,
+    And while encroaching railroad, street, and mill
+    On every side the smoky prospect fill,
+    She yet may smile to see some tottering wall
+    Bring old times back, like ancient Morley Hall.
+    But towers that Leland saw in times of yore
+    Are now, like Leland's works, almost no more--
+    The antiquarian's pages, cobweb-bound,
+    The antique mansion, levelled with the ground.
+
+    'When all is gone that once gave food to pride,
+    Man little cares for what Time leaves beside;
+    And when an orchard and a moat, half dry,
+    Remain, sole relics of a power passed by,
+    Should we not think of what ourselves shall be,
+    And view our coffins in the stones of Leigh.
+    For what within yon space was once the abode
+    Of peace or war to man, and fear of God,
+    Is now the daily sport of shower or wind,
+    And no acquaintance holds with human kind.
+    Some who can be loved, and love can give,
+    While brain thinks, pulses beat, and bodies live,
+    Must, in death's helplessness, lie down with those
+    Who find, like us, the grave their last repose,
+    When Death draws down the veil and Night bids Evening close.
+
+    'King Charles, who, fortune falling, would not fall,
+    Might glance with saddened eyes on Morley Hall,
+    And, while his throne escaped misfortune's wave,
+    Remember Tyldesley died that throne to save.'
+
+                 *       *       *       *       *
+
+Branwell's next poem of this period is entitled the 'End of All,'
+which is complete, and is one of the most pathetic he ever wrote. It
+constitutes a true picture of his mood, and illustrates, at this time,
+the sombre and troubled nature of his thoughts. He pourtrays, in
+shades of great depth, his reflections on the death of one dear to
+him, whose loss leaves his soul a blank and desolate void, an evil
+which nothing can alleviate or remove. But he dreams for a moment that
+a life of peril in far-off lands, and in battle, strife, and danger,
+that the 'stony joys' of solitary ambition, may shrine the memory of
+sorrows which cannot be destroyed. Yet, even from this cold dream,
+this cruel opiate of the heart, he is recalled by the groans of her
+who is dying, to the consciousness that, with her departure, all will
+go. The bereaved is Branwell himself, and his 'Mary' is doubtless the
+lady of his misplaced affection, over whose loss he still broods in
+melancholy and afflicted language, each pathetic chord vibrating with
+intense mental anguish, as he contemplates the future years of
+desolation in which he is left to wander tombward unaided and alone.
+Here, as in his other poems, the rhythmic sweetness of Branwell's
+verse flows on in words well chosen to express the idea he intends to
+convey, which itself is worked out with great suggestiveness of power.
+
+    THE END OF ALL.
+
+    'In that unpitying Winter's night,
+      When my own wife--my Mary--died,
+    I, by my fire's declining light,
+      Sat comfortless, and silent sighed,
+      While burst unchecked grief's bitter tide,
+    As I, methought, when she was gone,
+      Not hours, but years, like this must bide,
+    And wake, and weep, and watch alone.
+
+    'All earthly hope had passed away,
+      And each clock-stroke brought Death more nigh
+    To the still-chamber where she lay,
+      With soul and body calmed to die;
+      But _mine_ was not her heavenward eye
+    When hot tears scorched me, as her doom
+      Made my sick heart throb heavily
+    To give impatient anguish room.
+
+    '"Oh now," methought, "a little while,
+      And this great house will hold no more
+    Her whose fond love the gloom could while
+      Of many a long night gone before!"
+      Oh! all those happy hours were o'er
+    When, seated by our own fireside,
+      I'd smile to hear the wild winds roar,
+    And turn to clasp my beauteous bride.
+
+    'I could not bear the thoughts which rose
+      Of what _had_ been, and what _must_ be,
+    And still the dark night would disclose
+      Its sorrow-pictured prophecy;
+      Still saw I--miserable me--
+    Long, long nights else, in lonely gloom,
+      With time-bleached locks and trembling knee--
+    Walk aidless, hopeless, to my tomb.
+
+    'Still, still that tomb's eternal shade
+      Oppressed my heart with sickening fear,
+    When I could see its shadow spread
+      Over each dreary future year,
+      Whose vale of tears woke such despair
+    That, with the sweat-drops on my brow,
+      I wildly raised my hands in prayer
+    That Death would come and take me now;
+
+    'Then stopped to hear an answer given--
+      So much had madness warped my mind--
+    When, sudden, through the midnight heaven,
+      With long howl woke the Winter's wind;
+      And roused in me, though undefined,
+    A rushing thought of tumbling seas
+      Whose wild waves wandered unconfined,
+    And, far-off, surging, whispered, "Peace."
+
+    'I cannot speak the feeling strange,
+      Which showed that vast December sea,
+    Nor tell whence came that sudden change
+      From aidless, hopeless misery;
+      But somehow it revealed to me
+    A life--when things I loved were gone--
+      Whose solitary liberty
+    Might suit me wandering tombward on.
+
+    ''Twas not that I forgot my love--
+      That night departing evermore--
+    'Twas hopeless grief for her that drove
+      My soul from all it prized before;
+      That misery called me to explore
+    A new-born life, whose stony joy
+      Might calm the pangs of sorrow o'er,
+    Might _shrine_ their memory, not destroy.
+
+    'I rose, and drew the curtains back
+      To gaze upon the starless waste,
+    And image on that midnight wrack
+      The path on which I longed to haste,
+      From storm to storm continual cast,
+    And not one moment given to view;
+      O'er mind's wild winds the memories passed
+    Of hearts I loved--of scenes I knew.
+
+    'My mind anticipated all
+      The things my eyes have seen since then;
+    I heard the trumpet's battle-call,
+      I rode o'er ranks of bleeding men,
+      I swept the waves of Norway's main,
+    I tracked the sands of Syria's shore,
+      I felt that such strange strife and pain
+    Might me from living death restore.
+
+    'Ambition I would make my bride,
+      And joy to see her robed in red,
+    For none through blood so wildly ride
+      As those whose hearts before have bled;
+      Yes, even though _thou_ should'st long have laid
+    Pressed coldly down by churchyard clay,
+      And though I knew thee thus decayed,
+    I _might_ smile grimly when away;
+
+    'Might give an opiate to my breast,
+      Might dream:--but oh! that heart-wrung groan
+    Forced from me with the thought confessed
+      That all would go if _she_ were gone;
+      I turned, and wept, and wandered on
+    All restlessly--from room to room--
+      To that still chamber, where alone
+    A sick-light glimmered through the gloom.
+
+    'The all-unnoticed time flew o'er me,
+      While my breast bent above her bed,
+    And that drear life which loomed before me
+      Choked up my voice--bowed down my head.
+      Sweet holy words to me she said,
+    Of that bright heaven which shone so near,
+      And oft and fervently she prayed
+    That I might some time meet her there;
+
+    'But, soon enough, all words were over,
+      When this world passed, and Paradise,
+    Through deadly darkness, seemed to hover
+      O'er her half-dull, half-brightening eyes;
+      One last dear glance she gives her lover,
+    One last embrace before she dies;
+      And then, while he seems bowed above her,
+    His _Mary_ sees him from the skies.'
+
+Another poem of Branwell's of this date, the last he ever wrote, is
+entitled 'Percy Hall,' which he did not live to complete. The first
+draft was sent for Leyland's opinion, with the following letter:
+
+    'Haworth, Bradford,
+    'Yorks.
+
+    'MY DEAR SIR,
+
+    'I enclose the accompanying fragment, which is so soiled that I
+    would have transcribed it, if I had had the heart to exert myself,
+    only in order to get from you an opinion as to whether, when
+    finished, it would be worth sending to some respectable
+    periodical, like "Blackwood's Magazine."
+
+    'I trust you got safely home from rough Haworth, and am,
+
+    'Dear Sir,
+
+    'Your most sincerely,
+
+    'P. B. BRONTE.'
+
+At the foot of the page on which the letter is written, is drawn, in
+pen-and-ink, a low, massive, stone cross, inscribed with the word,
+'POBRE!' standing on the top of a bleak hill, with a wild sky behind;
+and Branwell says of it below: 'The best epitaph ever written. It is
+carved on a rude cross in Spain, over a murdered traveller, and simply
+means "Poor fellow!"' It will be remembered, in connection with this
+idea of Branwell's, that Lord Byron, in one of his letters, describes
+the impression produced upon him by seeing the inscription, 'Implora
+pace!' upon a tomb at Bologna. The poet says: 'When I die, I should
+wish that some friend would see these words, and no other, placed
+above my grave--"Implora pace!"' The perusal of this remark induced
+Mrs. Hemans to write her pathetic little poem which has the Italian
+epitaph for its title.
+
+This letter of Branwell's is particularly interesting, because it
+shows us that, even in the last year of his life, and when dealing
+with the last uncompleted poem he ever wrote, he preserved the
+ambition of appearing in the literary world as a poet; and because he
+again speaks of 'Blackwood's Magazine,' whose value, it will be
+remembered, had impressed itself upon the youthful minds of himself
+and his sisters.
+
+The fragment, 'Percy Hall,' which was enclosed with the letter to
+Leyland, though still morbid, is one of the most exquisite its author
+wrote. Here, by a strange and beautiful coincidence--if coincidence it
+be--we find Branwell, in his latest work, as in his youthful ones,
+given in the earlier part of this work, occupied with the dread study
+of a consumptive decline; we find him, in short, tinctured with the
+shadows of his later career, telling again of the death of that
+sister, whose memory he cherished with a life-long affection; and
+perhaps, too, with a deeper insight than the other members of his
+family possessed, he foretells the end that awaited his sisters Emily
+and Anne, from that disease, whose poison was working in his own
+slender frame. The treatment of the subject, indeed, is truly
+characteristic of Branwell's feelings at the time, and of his
+impressions engendered by the mournful malady with which his family
+was afflicted. This poem, like some of those already noticed in the
+former pages of the present work, is distinguished by images, scenes,
+and conceptions, almost invariably animated by the instinctive power
+and originality of genius. His descriptions of the condition of the
+lady, of the way in which weakness has schooled her to regard the
+future--the natural expression doubtless of Branwell at the time--of
+the influences that 'forbade her heart to throb, her spirit to
+despond,' and of the agonized feelings of the survivor, are all
+instinct with the living breath of reality; they have the sublime
+dignity of truth, springing, as they do, from a knowledge far too
+intimate with the sorrows which inspired the poem. Perhaps, in the
+gaiety of the affectionate Percy, Branwell depicts, in some sort, his
+own disposition, though it has never been charged against him that he
+was beguiled by 'syren smiles,' or seduced by the delights of 'play.'
+It seems to me that Branwell's poetical genius is as much higher than
+that of his sister Emily as hers was superior to the talents of
+Charlotte and Anne, in their versified productions. Beautiful, wild,
+and touching, like strains from the harp of AEolus, as are the
+emanations of Emily's poetical inspiration, they lack the force,
+depth, and breadth of Branwell's more expansive power of imagination,
+as displayed in his best productions; though even Branwell's poetical
+remains contain rather the evidence of power than the full expression
+of it.
+
+    PERCY HALL.
+
+    'The westering sunbeams smiled on Percy Hall,
+    And green leaves glittered o'er the ancient wall
+    Where Mary sat, to feel the summer breeze,
+    And hear its music mingling 'mid the trees.
+    There she had rested in her quiet bower
+    Through June's long afternoon, while hour on hour
+    Stole, sweetly shining past her, till the shades,
+    Scarce noticed, lengthened o'er the grassy glades;
+    But yet she sat, as if she knew not how
+    Her time wore on, with Heaven-directed brow,
+    And eyes that only seemed awake, whene'er
+    Her face was fanned by summer evening's air.
+    All day her limbs a weariness would feel,
+    As if a slumber o'er her frame would steal;
+    Nor could she wake her drowsy thoughts to care
+    For day, or hour, or what she was, or where:
+    Thus--lost in dreams, although debarred from sleep,
+    While through her limbs a feverish heat would creep,
+    A weariness, a listlessness, that hung
+    About her vigour, and Life's powers unstrung--
+    She did not feel the iron gripe of pain,
+    But _thought_ felt irksome to her heated brain;
+    Sometimes the stately woods would float before her,
+    Commingled with the cloud-piles brightening o'er her,
+    Then change to scenes for ever lost to view,
+    Or mock with phantoms which she never knew:
+    Sometimes her soul seemed brooding on to-day,
+    And then it wildly wandered far away,
+    Snatching short glimpses of her infancy,
+    Or lost in day-dreams of what yet might be.
+
+    'Yes--through the labyrinth-like course of thought--
+    Whate'er might be remembered or forgot,
+    Howe'er diseased the dream might be, or dim,
+    Still seemed the _Future_ through each change to swim,
+    All indefinable, but pointing on
+    To what should welcome her when Life was gone;
+    She felt as if--to all she knew so well--
+    Its voice was whispering her to say "farewell;"
+    Was bidding her forget her happy home;
+    Was farther fleeting still--still beckoning her to come.
+
+    'She felt as one might feel who, laid at rest,
+    With cold hands folded on a panting breast,
+    Has just received a husband's last embrace,
+    Has kissed a child, and turned a pallid face
+    From this world--with its feelings all laid by--
+    To one unknown, yet hovering--oh! how nigh!
+
+    'And yet--unlike that image of decay--
+    There hovered round her, as she silent lay,
+    A holy sunlight, an angelic bloom,
+    That brightened up the terrors of the tomb,
+    And, as it showed Heaven's glorious world beyond,
+    Forbade her heart to throb, her spirit to despond.
+
+    'But, who steps forward, o'er the glowing green,
+    With silent tread, these stately groves between?
+    To watch his fragile flower, who sees him not,
+    Yet keeps his image blended with each thought,
+    Since but for _him_ stole down that single tear
+    From her blue eyes, to think how very near
+    Their farewell hour might be!
+
+                          'With silent tread
+    Percy bent o'er his wife his golden head;
+    And, while he smiled to see how calm she slept,
+    A gentle feeling o'er his spirit crept,
+    Which made him turn toward the shining sky
+    With heart expanding to its majesty,
+    While he bethought him how more blest _its_ glow
+    Than _that_ he left one single hour ago,
+    Where proud rooms, heated by a feverish light,
+    Forced vice and villainy upon his sight;
+    Where snared himself, or snaring into crime,
+    His soul had drowned its hour, and lost its count of time.
+
+    'The syren-sighs and smiles were banished now,
+    The cares of "play" had vanished from his brow;
+    He took his Mary's hot hand in his own,
+    She raised her eyes, and--oh, how soft they shone!
+    Kindling to fondness through their mist of tears,
+    Wakening afresh the light of fading years!--
+    He knew not why she turned those shining eyes
+    With such a mute submission to the skies;
+    He knew not why her arm embraced him so,
+    As if she _must_ depart, yet _could not_ let him go!
+
+    'With death-like voice, but angel-smile, she said,
+    "My love, they need not care, when I am dead,
+    To deck with flowers my capped and coffined head;
+    For all the flowers which I should love to see
+    Are blooming now, and will have died with me:
+    The same sun bids us all revive to-day,
+    And the same winds will bid us to decay;
+    When Winter comes we all shall be no more--
+    Departed into dust--next, covered o'er
+    By Spring's reviving green. See, Percy, now
+    How red my cheek--how red my roses blow!
+    But come again when blasts of Autumn come;
+    _Then_ mark their changing leaves, their blighted bloom;
+    Then come to my bedside, then look at _me_,
+    How changed in all--_except my love for thee_!"
+
+    'She spoke, and laid her hot hand on his own;
+    But he nought answered, save a heart-wrung groan;
+    For oh! too sure, her voice prophetic sounded
+    Too clear the proofs that in her face abounded
+    Of swift Consumption's power! Although each day
+    He'd seen her airy lightness fail away,
+    And gleams unnatural glisten in her eye;
+    He had not dared to dream that she could die,
+    But only fancied his a causeless fear
+    Of losing something which he held so dear;
+    Yet--now--when, startled at her prophet-cries,
+    To hers he turned his stricken, stone-like eyes,
+    And o'er her cheek declined his blighted head.
+    He saw Death write on it the _fatal red_--
+    He saw, and straightway sank his spirit's light
+    Into the sunless twilight of the starless night!
+
+    'While he sat, shaken by his sudden shock,
+    Again--and with an earnestness--she spoke,
+    As if the world of her Creator shone
+    Through all the cloudy shadows of her own:
+    "Come grieve not--darling--o'er my early doom;
+    'Tis well that Death no drearier shape assume
+    Than this he comes in--well that widowed age
+    Will not extend my friendless pilgrimage
+    Through Life's dim vale of tears--'tis well that Pain
+    Wields not its lash nor binds its burning chain,
+    But leaves my death-bed to a mild decline,
+    Soothed and supported by a love like thine!"'
+
+My copy of the poem is illustrated with a portrait, by J. B. Leyland,
+in pen-and-ink, of the ideal Percy. The drawing is bold and effective;
+and, though not intended for an exact portrait of Branwell, bears some
+resemblance to him in general character. The sketch is signed,
+'Northangerland,' at the top; and, at the bottom, 'Alexander Percy,
+Esq.;' while the artist's name is discerned among the shadows which
+fall from the figure of Percy.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+FAME AT HAWORTH.
+
+Charlotte Corresponds on Literary Subjects--Novels--Confession of
+Authorship--Branwell's Failing Health--He Writes to Leyland--Branwell
+and Mr. George Searle Phillips--Branwell's Intellect Retains its
+Power--His Description of 'Professor Leonidas Lyon'--The latter
+Gentleman's Account of his Reading of 'Jane Eyre'--Branwell's Remarks
+on Charlotte and the Work.
+
+
+The early months of the year 1848 proved a severe trial for the Bronte
+family, as they did to the whole of the Haworth villagers. Influenza
+and other ailments were prevalent, and the sisters did not escape the
+former: Anne, indeed, suffered from a severe cough, with some fever,
+and her friends became alarmed. The position of the parsonage in
+relation to the churchyard rendered it unhealthy; but, at the instance
+of Mr. Bronte, a new grave-yard was opened in another place. He did
+not, however, succeed in his attempt to get a good supply of water
+laid on to each house.
+
+Charlotte, at the time, was still in correspondence with Mr. Lewes and
+Mr. Williams, about the review of 'Jane Eyre' in 'Fraser's Magazine,'
+and about other literary subjects. She was still keeping the secret of
+the authorship of her book from her friends, putting off 'E.' with
+evasive letters, and wishing her to 'laugh or scold A---- out of the
+publishing notion.' 'Wuthering Heights' had not been received by the
+public with much favour, and we do not hear of any further literary
+work by Emily. But Charlotte was writing 'Shirley,' and Anne was going
+on with 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' despite a consumptive
+listlessness that was upon her, such as Branwell describes in the wife
+of 'Percy;' and, in her letter written in January, Anne told 'E.' that
+they had done nothing 'to speak of' since she was at Haworth; yet they
+contrived to be busy from morning till night. In the spring, however,
+when this friend visited the Brontes again, full confession of
+authorship was made, and the poems and novels were shown to her. The
+identity of Mr. Bronte's daughters with the 'Messrs. Bell,' had,
+however, been known to some, in connection with the poems, at an
+earlier date, and was occasionally spoken of, though the fact was not
+made public. Branwell himself was at home, quieter, but still failing
+in health and strength, for the constitutional taint, aided by his low
+spirits, and a bronchitis which had become chronic, was telling upon
+him.
+
+'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' was submitted to the publisher of
+'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey,' and accepted by him in the June
+of this year. If the first works of Ellis and Acton Bell were
+undervalued because they were believed to be the earlier productions
+of the author of 'Jane Eyre,' Acton's new volume derived enhanced
+importance from being thought to be a production of the same hand.
+'Jane Eyre' had had a great run in America, and a publisher there had
+offered Messrs. Smith and Elder a high price for early sheets of the
+next work of its author, which they accepted. But the publishers of
+'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' believing that Acton Bell was but a
+second name assumed by Currer Bell, made a similar offer to another
+American house. This circumstance led to questions and explanations;
+and Charlotte and Anne determined to visit London, in order to assure
+Messrs. Smith and Elder that they were indeed distinct persons. The
+publishers were very much astonished to see the two delicate ladies,
+and they made them very welcome. Charlotte and Anne went to the Opera,
+they went to the Royal Academy and the National Gallery, and they
+visited Mr. Smith and Mr. Williams before returning to Haworth.
+
+They found Branwell at home, physically the same as when they left
+him, gradually failing from the chronic bronchitis which had lasted
+through the summer, and with the perceptible wasting away of decline.
+Writing to his friend Leyland on July 22nd, he speaks of 'five months
+of utter sleeplessness, violent cough, and frightful agony of mind.'
+'Long have I resolved,' he continues, 'to write to you a letter of
+five or six pages, but intolerable mental wretchedness and corporeal
+weakness have utterly prevented me.' The letter is signed, 'Yours
+sincerely, but nearly worn out, P. B. Bronte.' Charlotte attributed
+his illness to indulgence solely, and she had no suspicion that the
+end was but two months away. She writes on July 28th: 'Branwell is the
+same in conduct as ever. His constitution seems much shattered. Papa,
+and sometimes all of us, have sad nights with him. He sleeps most of
+the day, and consequently will lie awake at night. But has not every
+house its trial?'[46] But Branwell's condition of health was not such
+as to keep him within doors, and there were revivals, as in Anne's
+case also, which permitted him to visit his friends. I spoke to him
+once in Halifax at the time, and he was often seen in the village of
+Haworth.
+
+        [46] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xvi.
+
+An interesting episode occurred in August or September, for an account
+of which we are indebted to Mr. George Searle Phillips.[47] We learn
+from it that, in the midst of physical decay and mental distress,
+Branwell's intellect retained its power to the last; and we learn also
+what pride he took in the works of his sisters, and in the reputation
+they had made. I can myself, from personal knowledge, endorse all that
+Mr. Phillips says as to Branwell's brilliancy of intellect at this
+time. When Charlotte and Anne went to London, they had assumed the
+name of Brown; but their real name and the place of their residence
+were communicated to some people, and it was not long before it became
+quietly known. Then began the stream of pilgrims to the shrine of
+genius at Haworth, which has continued from that day to this, and will
+for many more. One gentleman, indeed, at the time, stayed three days
+at Haworth, maintaining a close intimacy with Branwell, and we know,
+from Mr. Phillips' narrative, in what light Branwell looked upon the
+first-comers.
+
+        [47] 'Branwell Bronte,' _The Mirror, a reflex of the World's
+        Literature_, 1872.
+
+'Branwell,' says his friend, 'during the latter part of my
+acquaintance with him, was much altered for the worse, in his personal
+appearance; but if he had altered in the same direction mentally, as
+his biographer says he had, then he must have been a man of immense
+and brilliant intellect. For I have rarely heard more eloquent and
+thoughtful discourse, flashing so brightly with random jewels of wit,
+and made more sunny and musical with poetry, than that which flowed
+from his lips during the evenings I passed with him at the "Black
+Bull," in the village of Haworth. His figure was very slight, and he
+had, like his sister Charlotte, a superb forehead. But, even when
+pretty deep in his cups, he had not the slightest appearance of the
+sot that Mrs. Gaskell says he was. "His great tawny mane"--meaning
+thereby the hair of his head--was, it is true, somewhat dishevelled;
+but, apart from this, he gave no sign of intoxication. His eye was as
+bright, and his features were as animated, as they very well could be;
+and, moreover, his whole manner gave indications of intense
+enjoyment.'
+
+Branwell described some of the characters in the novels, and talked
+much about his sisters, and especially about Charlotte, whose
+celebrity, he said, had already attracted more strangers to the
+village than had been known before; and Mr. Phillips gives the
+following account of the visit of one gentleman, an enthusiastic
+admirer of 'Jane Eyre,' whose somewhat eccentric personality he has
+veiled under the style and title of 'Leonidas Lyon, Professor of Greek
+in the London University':--
+
+'One evening, as we sat together in the little parlour of the Inn, the
+landlord entered, and asked Branwell if he would see a gentleman who
+wanted to make his acquaintance.
+
+'"He's a funny fellow," said the landlord; "and is somebody, I dare
+swear, with lots of money."
+
+'As the landlord spoke, a squat little dapper fellow, with a white
+fur hat on his head, an umbrella under his arm, and a pair of blue
+spectacles on his nose, strutted into the room _sans ceremonie_. He
+approached the table in a very fussy and excited manner, exclaiming:
+
+'"Landlord, bring us some brandy. I must have the pleasure of drinking
+a glass with the brother of that distinguished lady, who wrote the
+great book that made London blaze. Three glasses,--landlord--do you
+hear? And you, sir, are the great lady's brother, I presume? Professor
+Leonidas Lyon, sir, has the honour of introducing himself to your
+distinguished notice."
+
+'Branwell responded, gravely:
+
+'"Patrick Branwell Bronte, sir, has the honour of welcoming you to
+Haworth, and begging you to be seated."
+
+'Whereupon the little man bowed and scraped, and laughed a
+good-humoured laugh all over his good, round face, and said it was an
+honour he could not have hoped for, to sit as a guest at the same
+board, as he might say, "with the brother, the very flesh and blood,
+of the great lady who wrote the book."
+
+'Here the brandy and water came in, and the little man grew merrier
+still, and more communicative. He was a Professor of Greek at the
+London University, and, chancing to be at Smith's, the London
+publisher's, whose friend Williams was a "wonderful man of letters--a
+very wonderful man indeed!"--Williams asked the Professor if he had
+seen the book of the season--"the immense book," he called it--which
+was going to make one good reputation, and half a dozen fortunes. Mr.
+Williams praised it so highly that he (the Professor) grew wild about
+it, and asked where it could be got. Upon this, he threw a sovereign
+to pay for it, and ran home without his change, to read it. "It was
+prodigious, sir," he exclaimed.'
+
+The Professor went on in high praise of 'Jane Eyre,' and told Branwell
+and Mr. Phillips that his bed-time was ten o'clock, but that, when
+reading the book, he had sat on, completely absorbed, until six
+o'clock in the morning, when the housemaid came. Then he had retired
+to his own room, but, instead of going to bed, had sat on the edge of
+it, until he finished the story at ten A.M. Branwell said this history
+of a Professor's reading of 'Jane Eyre' made him laugh 'as if he would
+split his sides.' And when he told Charlotte about it the next day,
+she laughed heartily, too, as did the other sisters, when she went up
+stairs to tell them, and their laughter moved Branwell to renewed
+merriment.
+
+'When the Professor's story was ended,' continues Mr. Phillips, 'he
+tried to cajole Branwell into introducing him to the "great lady" who
+wrote the book. He was dying to see her, he said, and had come all the
+way down into Yorkshire, from London, in the fond hope of getting a
+glimpse of her, and perhaps of touching the hem of her garment. When
+he found that Branwell fought shy of the proposition he actually
+offered him a large sum of money, and then, taking from his fob a
+valuable gold watch, laid it on the table, and said he would throw
+that in to boot, if he would only let him see her and shake hands with
+her....
+
+'Poor Branwell spoke of his sister in most affectionate terms, such as
+none but a man of deep feeling could utter. He knew her power, and
+what tremendous depths of passion and pathos lay hid in her great
+surging heart, long before she gave expression to them in "Jane Eyre."
+When she wrote the first chapters of her Richardsonian novel, he
+condemned the work as in opposition to her genius--which is good proof
+of his discrimination and critical judgment. But when "The Professor"
+was written, he said that was better, but that she could do better
+still; and, although it is not equal to "Jane Eyre," yet it is a work
+of great originality and dramatic interest.
+
+'"I know," said Branwell, after speaking of Charlotte's talents, "that
+I also had stuff enough in me to make popular stories; but the failure
+of the Academy plan ruined me. I was felled, like a tree in the
+forest, by a sudden and strong wind, to rise no more. Fancy me, with
+my education, and those early dreams, which had almost ripened into
+realities, turning counter-jumper, or a clerk in a railway-office,
+which last was, you know, my occupation for some time. It simply
+degraded me in my own eyes, and broke my heart."
+
+'It was useless,' says Mr. Phillips, 'to remonstrate with him, and yet
+I could not help it, and did my best to rouse the sleeping energies
+within him to noble action once more.
+
+'"It is too late," he said; "and you would say so, too, if you knew
+all." He used to be the oracle of the secluded household in earlier
+days--before the love of drink mastered him. His opinion was
+invariably sought for upon the literary performances of his sisters;
+but at the time I am now speaking of, he was a cipher in the house.'
+
+Such is the account given by Mr. Phillips of his friend; so different
+in its character from that which Mr. Grundy, and, following him, Miss
+Robinson, offer, in the incredible episode of the carving-knife and
+the slaying of the devil, unless we believe the incident--which that
+gentleman states to have taken place at this period, how erroneously
+we have seen--to have been acted, as is most probable, in grotesque
+humour.
+
+During the last two months of his life, Branwell became the object of
+much interest and received some homage; for, his sisters living
+secluded lives, he was generally the only member of the family
+accessible to the public. When he met with strangers, he invariably
+comported himself with becoming dignity, and did not lay himself open
+to the effects of their curiosity. Those who made his acquaintance
+were impressed, as Mr. Phillips was, with his great mental calibre,
+and with the grace and wit of his conversation. One gentleman--himself
+at the present time in the first place in one of the professions--who
+knew Branwell intimately, declares to me that he always believed the
+abilities of Charlotte's brother were such as might have placed him in
+the very front rank of literature.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+DEATH OF BRANWELL.
+
+Branwell's failing Health--Chronic Bronchitis and Marasmus--His
+Death--Charlotte's allusions to it--Correction of some Statements
+relating to it--Summary of the subsequent History of the Bronte
+Family.
+
+
+The spring and summer of the year 1848 were wild, wet, and
+unfavourable, and the fine weather in August was of little benefit
+to Branwell. His appetite was diminished, and he was weaker. He was
+suffering, in addition to his chronic bronchitis, from marasmus, a
+consumptive wasting away, arising from hereditary tendency, as well as
+from mental agony and the effects of irregular life. However, neither
+himself nor his family, nor his medical attendants had any
+anticipation of immediate danger.
+
+He was not, indeed, altogether confined to the house, and he was in
+the village only two days before his death; but, on that occasion,
+his strength failed before he reached his home. William Brown, the
+sexton's brother, found him in the lane which leads up to the
+parsonage, quite exhausted, panting for breath, and unable to proceed.
+He was helped to the house, which he never again left alive.
+
+In the last few days of his life, Branwell was more reconciled, more
+subdued, and better feelings filled his mind. The affection of his
+family returned undiminished, and they watched with intense anxiety
+the end of their cherished brother. The strange madness that had
+clouded his mind for so many months, left him now, and the simple
+thoughts and feelings of his early years came back to him again. He
+died on the morning of Sunday, September the 24th. He had talked
+through the night of his mis-spent life, his wasted youth, and his
+shame, with compunction. He was also filled with the
+
+    'Sense of past youth and manhood come in vain,
+    Of genius given, and knowledge won in vain.'
+
+His natural love likewise came out in beautiful and touching words,
+that consoled and satisfied those he was about to leave for ever.
+
+Some time before the end, John Brown entered Branwell's room, and they
+were alone. The young man, though faint and dying, spoke of the life
+they had led together. He took a short retrospect of his past excesses,
+in which the grave-digger had often partaken; but in it he made no
+mention of the lady whose image had distracted his brain. He appeared,
+in the calmness of approaching death, and the self-possession that
+preceded it, to be unconscious that he had ever loved any but the
+members of his family, for the depth and tenderness of which affection
+he could find no language to express. But, presently, seizing Brown's
+hand, he uttered the words: 'Oh, John, I am dying!' then, turning, as
+if within himself, he murmured: 'In all my past life I have done
+nothing either great or good.' Conscious that the last moment was near,
+the sexton summoned the household; and retreated to the belfry. It was
+about nine in the morning when the agony began. Branwell's struggles
+and convulsions were great, and continued for some time: in the last
+gasp, he started convulsively, almost to his feet, and fell dead into
+his father's arms.
+
+Mrs. Gaskell says, of this event: 'I have heard, from one who attended
+Branwell in his last illness, that he resolved on standing up to die.
+He had repeatedly said, that as long as there was life, there was
+strength of will to do what it chose; and, when the last agony began,
+he insisted on assuming the position just mentioned.' This account
+does not accord with that given to me by the Browns, and, perhaps, it
+arose from some exaggeration of what actually took place.
+
+On October the 9th, Charlotte writes thus of her brother's end: 'The
+past three weeks have been a dark interval in our humble home.
+Branwell's constitution has been failing fast all the summer; but
+still neither the doctors nor himself thought him so near his end as
+he was. He was entirely confined to his bed but for one single day,
+and was in the village two days before his death. He died, after
+twenty minutes' struggle, on Sunday morning, September 24th. He was
+perfectly conscious till the last agony came on. His mind had
+undergone the peculiar change which frequently precedes death, two
+days previously; the calm of better feelings filled it; a return of
+natural affection marked his last moments. He is in God's hands now;
+and the All-Powerful is likewise the All-Merciful. A deep conviction
+that he rests at last--rests well after his brief, erring, suffering,
+feverish life--fills and quiets my mind now. The final separation, the
+spectacle of his pale corpse, gave me more acute, bitter pain than I
+could have imagined. Till the last hour comes, we never know how much
+we can forgive, pity, regret a near relative. All his vices were and
+are nothing now. We remember only his woes. Papa was acutely
+distressed at first, but, on the whole, has borne the event well.[48]
+
+        [48] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xvi.
+
+A few days later she wrote to another friend, speaking of her brother's
+death. 'The event to which you allude came upon us indeed with
+startling suddenness, and was a severe shock to us all.... I thank
+you for your kind sympathy. Many, under the circumstances, would
+think our loss rather a relief than otherwise; in truth, we must
+acknowledge, in all humility and gratitude, that God has greatly
+tempered judgment with mercy; but, yet, as you doubtless know from
+experience, the last earthly separation cannot take place between
+near relations without the keenest pangs on the part of the
+survivors. Every wrong and sin is forgotten then; pity and grief
+share the hearts and the memory between them. Yet we are not without
+comfort in our affliction. A most propitious change marked the last
+few days of poor Branwell's life ... and this change could not be
+owing to the fear of death, for within half-an-hour of his decease he
+seemed unconscious of danger.'
+
+Charlotte concludes by referring to her own health, which had given
+way under the strain.[49]
+
+        [49] 'Charlotte Bronte: a Monograph,' by T. Wemyss Reid, p.
+        90.
+
+Branwell was buried in the grave in which the remains of his sisters
+Maria and Elizabeth lay, and his name is placed next after theirs on
+the tablet. Thus, after twenty-three years, he joined in the dust
+those from whom in life he had never been separated in affection.
+
+It would have been well if, when the grave closed over his mortal
+remains, it had buried in oblivion the memory of his failings and
+his sorrows. Charlotte, as we have seen, when her brother was gone,
+remembered nothing but his woes; and, if the biographers of herself
+and her sister Emily had consulted the feelings of those on whom they
+wrote--which have been so touchingly and tearfully expressed by
+Charlotte--they would have drawn the veil over whatever offences
+Branwell, as mortal, might have committed. But, amongst Mrs. Gaskell's
+other statements regarding him, there is one, relating even to his
+death, which cannot be passed over in silence here, since, though she
+had been compelled to omit it, with her other charges, from the second
+edition of her work, Miss Robinson has reproduced it recently in her
+'Emily Bronte.' The statement was to the effect that, when Branwell
+died, his pockets were filled with the letters of the lady whom he had
+admired.[50] To this bold statement Martha Brown gave to me a flat
+contradiction, declaring that she was employed in the sick-room at the
+time, and had personal knowledge that not one letter, nor a vestige of
+one, from the lady in question was so found. The letters were mostly
+from a gentleman of Branwell's acquaintance, then living near the
+place of his former employment. Martha was indignant at the
+misrepresentation.
+
+        [50] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. xvi. 1st
+        Ed.
+
+It may not be amiss here, in the briefest possible way, to give an
+outline of the subsequent history of the Bronte family. Emily's health
+began rapidly to fail after Branwell's death, which was a great shock
+to her, and she never left the house alive after the Sunday succeeding
+it. Her cough was very obstinate, and she was troubled with shortness
+of breath. Charlotte saw the danger, but could do nothing to ward it
+off, for Emily was silent and reserved, gave no answers to questions,
+and took no remedies that were prescribed. She grew weaker daily,
+and the end came on Tuesday, December the 19th. At the same time
+Anne was slowly failing, but she lingered longer. 'Anne's decline,'
+said Charlotte, 'is gradual and fluctuating; but its nature is not
+doubtful.' Unlike Emily, she looked for sympathy, took medicines,
+and did her best to get well. It was arranged at last that Charlotte
+and she should go to Scarborough, hoping the change of air might
+invigorate her, and they left the parsonage on May the 24th, 1849. But
+the change had no beneficial effect, and Anne died on May the 28th, at
+Scarborough, where she was buried.
+
+After this the more purely literary portion of Charlotte's life
+commenced. She completed 'Shirley' early in September, 1849, and
+it was published on October the 26th. Her real name, and the
+neighbourhood in which she resided, became now generally known. The
+reviews showered rapidly; but Charlotte thought that one the best by
+Eugene Forcade, in the 'Revue des deux Mondes.' The cloud now passed
+away from her, and she visited London, made the acquaintance of
+Thackeray, Miss Martineau, and others, and entered eagerly into the
+occupations of literary life. 'Villette' was completed in November,
+1852. Charlotte married the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who had long
+been her father's curate, on June the 29th, 1854, and she died on
+Saturday, March the 31st, 1855. The Rev. Patrick Bronte, whom I knew,
+a fine, tall, grey-haired, and venerable old man, survived all his
+children, and died at Haworth on January 7th, 1861.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+BRANWELL'S CHARACTER.
+
+Branwell's Character in his Poetry--The Pious and Tender Tone of
+ Mind which it Displays--Branwell's Tendency to Dwell on the Past
+rather than on the Future--Illustrated--The Sad Tone of his Mind
+--He is Inclined to be Morbid--The Way in which Branwell regarded
+Nature--Observations on the Character Displayed in his Works.
+
+
+It has often been observed that the life of a poet may best be learned
+from the works he has left behind him. We may fall into error in
+dealing with the circumstances of his external life, and may make
+mistakes as to chronology or facts, and, in this way, may be led often
+to form a false estimate of his character; but, if we discover the
+personality concealed in his writings, if we can grasp the hidden
+spirit by which they are informed, we shall be enabled to follow his
+heart in its cherished affections, to understand the characteristic
+tendency of his thoughts, and to comprehend even the very psychology
+of his soul. This enquiry, it is true, is often difficult in the
+extreme; one cannot always unravel the tangled mysteries in which
+natural expression is wrapped up, nor fully pierce the cloudy medium
+of conventionality or affectation through which it may be dimly
+revealed; it is especially difficult, also, to follow it in the works
+of a writer of a school like that of the Euphuists, or of Pope, where
+the medium is one of exaggerated refinement, or of classical and
+formal preciseness.
+
+But, with the writings of Branwell Bronte, the case is entirely
+different; and for a very simple reason, viz., that everything he
+wrote proceeded from a personal inspiration, and was the direct
+expression of the fulness of emotion, and of vivid thoughts or
+feelings which could scarcely be hidden; because, in short, he wrote
+in the true artistic spirit of having something to say.
+
+If Branwell's affectionate nature led him to dwell upon the memories
+of his earlier years, and upon the thoughts of those dead sisters whom
+he had loved so much, he spoke in the voice of Harriet weeping for the
+departed Caroline; it needed but his remembrance of the fell disease
+that had deprived him of his sisters, and the fearful havoc which it
+was yet to work in his family, to inspire him with the sad fancy of
+his 'Percy Hall.' If he sank into the depths of morbid melancholy, and
+was filled with a consciousness of the worthlessness of ambition, the
+folly of pride, and the universality of sorrow, his sonnets were a
+natural expression, in which he found both relief and consolation.
+
+In his case it requires no Pheidian hand to bring out the statue from
+the marble, but only a sympathetic spirit, a heart filled with the
+affections of humanity, and a mind attuned to thoughts somewhat sad,
+to enable one to enter into every mood in which Branwell wrote, and to
+understand the moral and tender pathos that fills his works. It is
+because Branwell's poems are so fully expressive of his feelings at
+the time when they were written that they are so separately placed in
+this work. But, before we conclude it, it will be well to sum up, in
+a slight sketch, a few of the most characteristic features of his
+writings, and, in so doing, we shall arrive at a correct estimate of
+his disposition and of his poetry together.
+
+The first thing, then, that strikes one in Branwell's verse, beginning
+at its youthful period, is the tone of piety that distinguishes it.
+The simple stanzas which he sent to Wordsworth, even, however
+worthless as poetry, are valuable, because they show us the early bent
+of his mind; and the beautiful lines which he wrote a year later, in
+1838, where he first manifests that consciousness of the vanity of
+earthly things, which his sister Anne also versified, tell us of the
+hope of a heavenly future, which is contrasted, in its serenity, with
+the evils of mortal life. The poem entitled 'Caroline's Prayer,' and
+the one 'On Caroline' also, simple though they are, are evidence of
+a devotional turn of mind; and mark again, in the longer poem of
+'Caroline,' how Harriet finds divine consolation in the calm of Nature:
+
+    'Quiet airs of sacred gladness
+      Breathing through these woodlands wild,
+    O'er the whirl of mortal madness
+      Spread the slumbers of a child;'
+
+and how tenderly she remembers the pious lessons which her dead sister
+had drawn from the sufferings of the Saviour of man, a recollection,
+let it be remembered, which Branwell himself preserved. A little later,
+we find Branwell occupied upon a long poem, of which we possess only
+a fragment, wholly sacred in its character, and moral in its
+purpose,--'Noah's Warning over Methusaleh's Grave.' Here Noah, before
+the universal Deluge, in the presence even of the cloudy wall 'piled
+boding round the firmament,' harangues the people, bidding them
+withdraw from sin, ere it be too late. It is true, however, that in the
+later poems, when Branwell's mind is cast into its deepest gloom, this
+disposition is not so prominent, and, perhaps, can be gathered only
+from an abundance of tender touches, which could proceed from nothing
+but a devotional spirit; and thus we may infer that, though he might
+have lost some of his early piety, he never lost the effect of it.
+There is, besides, throughout Branwell's work, the evidence of a justly
+balanced morality, in that he nowhere exalts depraved passions, or
+manifests impiety, or, more than all, corrupts his readers with the
+painting of sensuous ideas, or the description of sensuous incidents.
+And I would ask the reader, in connection with this admirable
+characteristic of his poetry, to remember that he has never been
+charged with indulgence of the kind that has lured away too many men
+of genius and mental power.
+
+The next thing that strikes me in Branwell's poetry is the strong love
+that he manifests for the past, which he seems to value more than the
+present, and whose pleasures he deems sweeter and purer than any the
+future can have in store. This tone of thought could be very well
+understood if we had regard to circumstances of the later period of his
+life, when despair had cut off hope; but it is just as prominent in the
+earliest poems he wrote. It would seem that, to the pensive mind of
+Branwell, all the thoughts of childhood, all the joys of youth and its
+affections, became, as years passed on, hallowed and exalted in the
+golden halo of recollection. There were places in the sanctity of the
+past where the roses of Bendemeer grew, unchanging ever; places to
+which he turned for the joys of memory, when solitude inclined him to
+reflection. These pleasures of memory were often of a pensive order,
+for they were connected with sorrowful events, or they were joys turned
+sorrowful, as joys will turn, when they have been long enough departed.
+In Branwell's letter to Wordsworth, and in his other letters, he
+expresses plenty of honest ambition, and talks bravely of work in the
+future; and he spoke in the same way also. But I have received from his
+poems the impression that this ambition grew from the requirements of
+circumstances, and from literary emulation; that, in fact, the
+constitution of Branwell's mind was of the gentle reflective nature to
+which the pleasures of ambition appear hollow and insufficient in
+themselves. At least it is clear that he dwelt with more satisfaction
+on the past than on the future. So far, indeed, as his poetry is
+concerned, we saw, in 'The End of All,' that it was only when loss made
+the past too painful for thought, that he turned to the stony joys of
+solitary ambition and personal fame. This seems to me to be a very
+tender trait in his character, however little it might fit him to fight
+the battle of life with those who looked for the joys of the future,
+rather than turned to pleasures they could actually taste no more.
+
+In Branwell's thoughtful moods, it required but the woodland sunshine,
+perhaps, or the sound of the distant bells, to bring back memories to
+him, as they brought back to Harriet, in the poem of 'Caroline,' many a
+scene of bygone days, opening the fount of tears, and waking memory to
+the thought
+
+    'Of visions sleeping--not forgot.'
+
+Thus, under the pensive influence, there passed over her
+
+    'That swell of thought, which seems to fill
+      The bursting heart, the gushing eye,
+    While fades all _present_ good or ill
+      Before the shades of things gone by.'
+
+It called up in her, also, the hours when Caroline, too, listening to
+the wild storms of winter, had filled the nights with pictures and
+feelings
+
+    'From far-off memories brought.'
+
+These treasures of memory, to which Branwell refers in many of his
+poems, were to him of a sacred nature, and might not be profaned. He
+tells us, indeed, in one of his sonnets, that the tears of affection
+are dried up by the growth of honours, and by the interests and
+pursuits of life, which
+
+    'Dim or destroy those holy thoughts which cling
+    Round where the forms we loved lie slumbering.'
+
+For the past was thus hallowed by Branwell, because in it lay his
+earliest affections, and his most poignant sorrows. I have had
+occasion, in speaking of several of the poems in this volume, to point
+out the love which he shows for his dead sisters, Maria and Elizabeth,
+and how he mourned them up to the last year of his life. For his
+disposition was of a deeply affectionate order. He has, indeed, painted
+for us too vividly, in both the poems of 'Caroline' and 'Percy Hall,'
+the pangs of separation, and the cheerless void that remains when the
+loved one has departed, to leave us any doubt as to the sensitiveness
+of his nature.
+
+It will not have escaped the reader's attention that Branwell's muse
+sings often morbidly enough, and that,--like some spirit that cannot
+forsake the scene of its mortal sorrows, and haunts the place of its
+affliction--he dwells frequently upon details of a painful kind, that
+others would gladly have relegated to oblivion. In the poem of
+'Caroline,' the picture of his mother, clad in black, is still before
+his eyes; he remembers even the grave-clothes of his sister in her
+coffin, and
+
+    'Her _too_ bright cheek all faded now;'
+
+the closing of the coffin lid, and the lowering of it into its narrow
+bed are yet before his eyes; and painfully he remembers his feeling at
+the grave-side:
+
+    'And wild my sob, when hollow rung
+    The first cold clod above her flung.'
+
+Later, though he was occupied with different subjects, Branwell could
+not entirely free himself from a morbid and painful analysis of the
+physical effects of the disease he dreaded so much; and very
+beautifully does he suggest the picture of consumptive decline and
+early decay.
+
+This tone of thought, and the many misfortunes and gloomy forebodings
+that attended Branwell's later years, had a natural effect in giving
+a mournful cast to almost every emanation of his muse; and we find,
+in effect, throughout the poems here collected, that, save in one
+instance--'The Epicurean's Song'--which we feel to be the production
+of a moment of elation, there is scarcely a line that does not breathe
+a consciousness of sad regret, or of cruel and bitter sorrow.
+
+He was filled with the sense of the futility of human joy, and the
+abiding presence of woe:
+
+    'No! joy _itself_ is but a shade,
+      So well may its remembrance die,
+    But cares, Life's conquerors, never fade,
+      So strong is their reality.'
+
+These sorrows, as years went by, grew so terrible in their crushing
+weight, that the mind could barely withstand them, and Branwell felt,
+in that period when his cry was for peace in death, that, when the
+light of life is gone,
+
+    'There come no sorrows crowding on,
+      And powerless lies Despair.'
+
+With Branwell, indeed, as with Mary in his poem of 'Percy Hall,'
+'thought felt irksome to the heated brain.'
+
+It was then that oblivion became to him a coveted relief from
+immediate woe, and that he envied the dreamless head of the wandering,
+water-borne corpse, whose rolling bed seemed calmer than the turmoil
+of the world.
+
+This figure of the body rocked by the waves of ocean, brings me to a
+consideration of the way in which Branwell regarded Nature, which had
+something very noteworthy in it. It was always remarked by his friends
+that the young poet was a great observer, and took an especial pleasure
+in the works of Nature. It is, therefore, somewhat surprising, at first
+sight, that, in his poems, he does not dwell upon them descriptively or
+in a marked manner, and that we have to infer, from certain suggestive
+touches and pictures--which do, indeed, speak more plainly than words
+could--that he observed them at all. But we learn that the works of
+Nature had for Branwell a deeper significance than for most people,
+that he conceived they had some mysterious sympathy or unspeakable
+connection with human affections, and were, in a manner, the expression
+or immediate reflection of the Deity. Wordsworth, Southey, and
+Coleridge had already looked upon Nature somewhat in this wise; but it
+would be a mistake to suppose that Branwell imitated them: his thoughts
+flow too swiftly and impetuously to admit of such a conclusion. It is
+possible that, if his life had passed calmly, he might have dwelt upon
+the simple beauties of Nature, and found in them a homely harmony with
+familiar ideas; Charlotte and Anne in their poetry scarcely get beyond
+this; but it was different with Emily and Branwell. Emily, with her
+reserved, passionate nature, had a sympathetic spell in the solitary
+moorland; and Branwell, labouring with his sorrows, found, in the
+wildest storms, a being with whom he must battle, or saw, in the mighty
+mountains, an image of unbroken strength and everlasting fortitude,
+such a power as he must strive after and make his own. But, in
+Branwell's earlier poems, this influence is not so marked, and his muse
+is simply attuned to the saddened thoughts in which Nature
+participates. Thus Wordsworth had sung:
+
+    'Fancy, who leads the pastimes of the glad,
+    Full oft is pleased a wayward dart to throw;
+    Sending sad shadows after things not sad,
+    Peopling the harmless fields with signs of woe:
+    Beneath her sway, a simple forest cry
+    Becomes an echo of man's misery.'
+
+And thus we see, in Branwell's 'Caroline,' how, even in its calmness,
+the beautifully suggested picture of eve--when the sunlight slants, and
+the waters cease their motion, and the calm and hush tell of rest from
+labour--is made to harmonize with the plaintive thoughts of Harriet.
+But then comes the more significant question:
+
+    'Why is such a silence given
+      To this summer day's decay,
+    Does our earth feel aught of Heaven,
+      Can the voice of Nature pray?'
+
+What, in short, is the harmonious and sympathetic spell that breathes
+through Nature?
+
+The wild places of the earth, mountains and moorlands, where the storms
+raged, and the great winds blew, were nearest akin to the Titanic
+genius of Branwell and Emily. Thus, in the sonnet, the everlasting
+majesty of Black Comb was held up by Branwell as an example to man, and
+as a contrast to human feebleness; and later, when his woe was most
+acute, he was drawn into a 'communion of vague unity' with Penmaenmawr,
+comparing the living, beating heart of man with the stony hill, and
+begging,
+
+    'Let me, like it, arise o'er mortal care,
+    All woes sustain, yet never know despair,
+    Unshrinking face the griefs I now deplore,
+    And stand through storm and shine like moveless Penmaenmawr.'
+
+And, lastly, in the 'Epistle from a Father to a Child in her Grave,' we
+find him comparing himself with one in the midst of wild mountains:
+
+    'I, thy life's source, was like a wanderer breasting
+    Keen mountain winds, and on a summit resting,
+    Whose rough rocks rise above the grassy mead,
+    With sleet and north winds howling overhead.'
+
+It will be seen from this short inquiry that the poetry of Branwell
+Bronte was entirely introspective, having, almost to the last line,
+some direct reference to his own thoughts or feelings; and that it
+may thus be read as an actual part of the story of his life. The
+disposition it reveals, though often hidden, as the readers of this
+book know, through the effects of folly and indulgence, was one of a
+singularly gentle, affectionate, and sympathetic character; passionate
+and unstable, it is true, but a disposition, nevertheless, that has
+been frequently misunderstood, and not seldom wronged. One of the aims
+of this book has been to set Patrick Branwell Bronte right with the
+public; an attempt, not to clear him from follies and weaknesses that
+really were his--which the public, but for the mistakes of biographers,
+would never have known--but to show that, at any rate, his nature was
+one rather to be admired than condemned. It has aimed also, by the
+publication of his poetical writings, to demonstrate that his genius is
+not unworthy to be ranked with that which made his sisters famous. Yet
+it may, perhaps, be held that the poems here published contain more of
+rich promise than of real fulfilment, rather the earnest of literary
+success than the actual accomplishment of it. But, in reading the
+poetry of Branwell Bronte, which is so uniformly sad, it may be well to
+remember what Mr. Swinburne has said, in speaking of Mr. Browning, that
+'to do justice to any book which deserves any other sort of justice
+than that of the fire or waste-paper basket, it is necessary to read it
+in a fit frame of mind.'
+
+
+THE END.
+
+LONDON: PRINTED BY DUNCAN MACDONALD, BLENHEIM HOUSE
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Bronte Family, Vol. 2 of 2, by
+Francis A. Leyland
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