Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes Charlotte, Emily, Anne Brontë (Illustrated) (537 page)

Charlotte returned to her situation, and she tells her friend, in a letter dated August the 7th, 1841, that she ‘felt herself’ again. Mr. and Mrs. —
 
— were from home, and she takes the opportunity of saying that to be solitary there was to her the happiest part of her time. She enters into particulars of the household: the children were under decent control, and the servants were observant and attentive to her; she says of herself, moreover, that the absence of the master and mistress relieved her from the duty of always putting on the appearance of being cheerful and conversable.

Her friends, Martha and Mary T —
 
— , were enjoying great advantages on the Continent, where they had gone to stay a month with their brother. Charlotte had had a long letter from Mary, and a packet enclosing a handsome black silk scarf, and a pair of beautiful kid gloves bought in Brussels as a present. She was pleased with them, and that she had been remembered so far off, amidst the excitement of ‘one of the most splendid capitals of Europe.’ Mary’s letters spoke of ‘some of the pictures and cathedrals she had seen — pictures the most exquisite, cathedrals the most venerable.’ Something swelled to the throat of Charlotte as she read this account. She was seized with a ‘vehement impatience of restraint and steady work; such a strong wish for wings — wings such as wealth can furnish; such an urgent thirst to see, to know, to learn; something internal seemed to expand bodily for a minute.’ She was tantalized for a time by the consciousness of faculties unexercised; then all collapsed. She considered these emotions, momentary as they were, rebellious and absurd, and they were speedily quelled by the resolute spirit they had disturbed. She hoped they would not revive, as they had been acutely painful. The school project, instead of at all fading, was gaining strength, and the three sisters kept it in view as the pole-star round which all their other schemes, as of lesser importance, revolved. To this they looked in their despondency. Charlotte was haunted, sometimes, and dismayed, at the conviction that she had no natural knack for her occupation. She says that, if teaching only were requisite, all would be smooth and easy; and she adds, ‘but it is the living in other people’s houses — the estrangement from one’s real character — the adoption of a cold, rigid, apathetic exterior, that is painful.’

It appears that Miss Wooler was about this time intending to give up her school at Dewsbury Moor, and had offered it to the Misses Brontë. One or two disadvantages had to be set against the favourable terms on which they might have the school. The situation could not commend itself to Charlotte, anxious as she was concerning Anne’s health; the number of pupils had also diminished, and it would be necessary to offer special advantages in the way of education before they could hope to have a prosperous establishment — so their friends argued. But Charlotte had resolved to take the school. The sisters, however, could not feel confident that their qualifications were such as would render success certain. Hence, a suggestion that was made to Charlotte which would provide her with the necessary powers, was at once taken up with all the energy of her nature; she thus writes to her aunt, on whom all must depend:

‘September 29th, 1841.

‘Dear Aunt,

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

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

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

Charlotte had some time to wait for an answer, but it came at last; her enthusiasm had carried the day. The answer was favourable: she and Emily were to go to Brussels.

At times, during his stay with the railway company, Branwell would drive over from Luddenden Foot to visit his family at the Haworth parsonage, having hired a gig for the purpose. Mr. Grundy sometimes accompanied him, and they would escape to the moors together, or pay curious visits to the old fortune-teller, with the curates. Then, says his friend, he was ‘at his best, and would be eloquent and amusing, though, on returning sometimes, he would burst into tears, and swear he meant to mend.’ This last statement is favourable to Branwell’s calm judgment upon himself. Few — and Branwell was one of the last — drift deliberately into wrong-doing. He was, like most other men, often placed under influences which a habit of attention and self-control would have enabled him to resist. He knew, perhaps, in a desultory way, what he ought to do, and what he ought not; but, owing to his inattention to consequences, he might, now and then, go wrong, sometimes yielding to whatever illusion was paramount within, acting in concert with whatever was most alluring without; yet he could draw his mental forces together, and review his past actions with keen and painful accuracy. Hence he was not destitute of the faculty of analyzing his acts in the light of their moral quality, and, when his sober judgment enabled him to see them in their true bearing, he exhibited a due contrition.

On Branwell’s visits home, he learned much of the exertions, the projects, and the resolves of his sisters. He was aware of their aims, and how important were the steps being taken to qualify them the better for teaching others, more especially in perfecting their knowledge of the French language and of music. He also knew of the ultimate hope of his sisters — that, were the future secure, they would have leisure to realize their early dream of one day becoming authors, never relinquished, even when distance divided, and when absorbing tasks occupied them. He had the highest appreciation of their genius; and, although he had his times of hilarity, indulgence, and enjoyment, he was certainly never forgetful of his own hopes and aspirations in the same direction.

CHAPTER XVIII.

BRANWELL’S POETRY, 1842.

Situation of Luddenden Foot — Branwell visits Manchester — The Sultry Summer — He visits the Picturesque Places adjacent — His impromptu Verses to Mr. Grundy — He leaves the Railway Company — Miss Robinson’s unjust Comments — His three Sonnets — His poem ‘The Afghan War’ — Branwell’s letter to Mr. Grundy — His Self-depreciation.

Luddenden Foot — the second place of Branwell Brontë’s appointment as clerk in charge on the Leeds and Manchester Railway — was a village about equi-distant between Sowerby Bridge and Mytholmroyd, situated in a fertile and moderately-wooded valley, on the left bank of the Calder as it descends from its source in Cliviger Dean. The cultivated hills rise to a considerable height on both sides of the river, and are very romantic in character. Among the manufacturers and gentry of the neighbourhood, Branwell found few to welcome him, and from these he turned to the artists and literary men he had previously known at Halifax.

But Branwell, in addition, made excursions up the valley (Mr. W —
 
— , his fellow-assistant, acting for him in his absence) in the direction of Hebden Bridge, Heptonstall, the Ridge, Todmorden, and the heights of Wadsworth. There were, indeed, many places of marvellous beauty and interest near, that have long been the theme of artists and poets, with which he did not fail to make himself acquainted.

The huge, rounded hills, which border this valley, are intersected in places by lovely cloughs and glens, whose peat-stained streams rush over their rocky beds, from the elevated grouse-moors around, to pour their waters into the Calder. From Luddenden Dean, between the townships of Warley and Midgley, a brook makes its way to Luddenden Foot, through a glen on whose verdant slopes stand several ancient houses of architectural and historic interest. Among these are Ewood Hall, where Bishop Farrer was born, and Kershaw House, a beautiful Jacobean mansion. Crag Valley, which descends to the Calder on the opposite bank, a mile or more from Luddenden Foot, is deeper and more thickly wooded. On one hand lies Sowerby — with Haugh End, the birthplace of Archbishop Tillotson — and, on the other, Erringden, which was a royal deer-park in the days of the Plantagenets. But the loveliest of the valleys through which the confluent streams of the Calder run, is that of Hebden, a romantic glen, winding between the wooded and precipitous slopes of Heptonstall — crowned with the ancient and now ruined church of St. Thomas à Becket — and of Wadsworth, with its narrow dell of Crimsworth, which gave Charlotte Brontë a name for the hero of the earliest of her novels. Between these solemn heights the stream flows beneath the huge crags of Hardcastle, and roars over many a rocky obstruction in its channel before it reaches the Calder at Hebden Bridge. This was a district to which picnic-parties from Haworth often came, there being a direct road over the hills.

Branwell also visited Manchester on one occasion; and, on his return, he gave an account to a young clergyman, then living in the neighbourhood of Mytholmroyd, who sometimes went to his wooden shanty at Luddenden Foot to hear his conversation, of how he had been impressed with the architecture of the parish church at Manchester, as he stood under the arched portal, and beheld the long lines of pillars and arches, and the fretted roof, the lightsome details of which had charmed him. He went forward on that occasion to the choir of the church, and saw the Lady Chapel — which still retained its beautiful screen, with its Perpendicular tracery and shafts of that period — occupied by the gravedigger’s implements, which reminded him of the ‘Worshipful Master of the Lodge of the Three Graces,’ consisting of crowbar, mattock, spade, barrow, planks and ropes; for the Lady Chapel had been made a convenient receptacle for these dismal chattels.

The summer of 1841 was a somewhat monotonous time for Branwell and his friend at the quiet station. Here, in the intervals of the trains, scarcely anything was heard except the occasional hum of a bee or a wasp, or the drone of a blue-bottle, while the almost vertical rays of a summer sun darted down on the roof of the wooden hut, and made the place unendurable. It was in moments of weary lassitude, or in hours of drowsy leisure, that Branwell whiled away the time by sketching carelessly on the margins of the books — for the amusement of himself and his friend — free-hand portraits of characters of the neighbourhood, and of the celebrated pugilists of the day.

But about Hebden Bridge there were people known to Branwell, and he did not fail to visit them. His sister, Charlotte, in after-years, sometimes came to Hanging Royd, Hebden Bridge, the house of my late friend, the Rev. Sutcliffe Sowden, then incumbent of Mytholm — the gentleman who afterwards performed the marriage ceremony between the gifted lady and Mr. Nicholls. The friendship of the latter and Mr. Sowden dated from earlier years, and to them Branwell was known when he was at Luddenden Foot. He had, indeed, sometimes clerical visitors at his ‘wooden shanty’ to hear his conversation. Mr. Sowden was an enthusiastic lover of scenery, and the sphere of his duties abounded in moors, wilds, crags, rivers, brooks, and dells, which he often visited. Branwell’s tastes accorded with his, but these attractions clearly drew Branwell’s attention, too often and too far, from the imperative duties of his situation, comparatively light though they were. As might be expected, therefore, the work of this talented but changeful young man was found unsatisfactory, and explanations were demanded. About the time of the close of his twelve months’ official duties at Luddenden Foot, an examination of his books was made, and they were found to be confused and incomplete. The irregularity and the defects of his returns had also been remarked, and an inquiry was set on foot respecting them. The officials, in looking over the books, discovered the pen-and-ink sketches on the margins of the pages, which I have already mentioned; and these were taken as conclusive evidence of carelessness and indifference on the part of the unfortunate Branwell in the performance of his duties and the keeping of his accounts.

He had been made aware, by unwelcome inquiries and remonstrances, that his position with the railway company was precarious, and he was filled with apprehension as to the ultimate consequences. He was requested finally to appear at the audit of the company, and his friend W —
 
— accompanied him.

It was at the Christmas of 1841, that the Brontës expected to meet at home together, in anticipation of Charlotte and Emily’s journey to Brussels; but Charlotte had not found her brother there in the January of 1842, for she writes on the 20th of that month and year: ‘I have been every week, since I came home, expecting to see Branwell, and he has never been able to get over yet. We fully expect him, however, next Saturday.’
 
 
Branwell certainly returned home, but only when it had been intimated to him that his services were no longer required by the railway company. How far he had felt the duties of his post irksome, and the power of perseverance required inconsistent with his tastes and pursuits, does not appear, though the inference that they were so will scarcely be doubted. But the humiliation and sorrow he felt on the loss of his employment plunged him, for a time, into despair; and the natural gloom of his disposition, caused him to magnify the common pleasures and enjoyments of his leisure hours into crimes and omissions of duty of no ordinary magnitude. But the erroneous recollections of Mr. Grundy, respecting the situation of the station at Luddenden Foot, and its supposed deleterious influence on Branwell’s manners and obligations, may justify a doubt as to the particular accuracy of many of his reminiscences of his friend.

The following incident of Branwell’s stay at that place, which Mr. Grundy gives, may be regarded as affording a valuable contribution to his writings; for, although impromptu, the verses show that he could, even on unexpected occasions, bring into play his innate faculty of verse with no mean grasp of his subject, and a certain harmony of rhythmical expression.

Mr. Grundy says, ‘On one occasion he (Branwell) thought I was disposed to treat him distantly at a party, and he retired in great dudgeon. When I arrived at my lodgings the same evening, I found the following, necessarily an impromptu: —

‘“The man who will not know another,

Whose heart can never sympathize,

Who loves not comrade, friend, or brother,

Unhonoured lives — unnoticed dies:

His frozen eye, his bloodless heart,

Nature, repugnant, bids depart.

‘“O, Grundy! born for nobler aim,

Be thine the task to shun such shame;

And henceforth never think that he

Who gives his hand in courtesy

To one who kindly feels to him,

His gentle birth or name can dim.

‘“However mean a man may be,

Know man
is
man as well as thee;

However high thy gentle line,

Know he who writes can rank with thine;

And though his frame be worn and dead,

Some light still glitters round his head.

‘“Yes! though his tottering limbs seem old,

His heart and blood are not yet cold.

Ah, Grundy! shun his evil ways,

His restless nights, his troubled days;

But never slight his mind, which flies,

Instinct with noble sympathies,

Afar from spleen and treachery,

To thought, to kindness, and to thee.

‘“P. B. Brontë.”‘
 
 

Branwell’s extreme sensibility caused him, indeed, to exaggerate both the lights and the shadows of his existence. He was gleeful, as I found, full of fun, jest, and anecdote, in social circles, or where literature and art were the theme; and then, almost involuntarily, would rise to his feet, and, with a beaming countenance, treat the subject with a vivid flow of imagination, displaying the rich stores of his information with wondrous and enthralling eloquence. But, under disappointment or misfortune, he fell a prey to gloomy thoughts, and reached a state often near akin to despair. It was at such moments that he usually took up his pen to express, in poetry, the fulness of his feelings and the depth of his sorrow; and it is to this fact that the pathetic sadness of most of his writings is due. I have had occasion already to speak of the melancholy tone which characterized also the minds of his sisters.

The worth of Branwell’s poetic genius about this time, — the year of 1842, — has been unfairly commented upon. Miss Robinson, questioning the judgment of the Brontë sisters, undertakes to doubt if Branwell’s mental gifts were any better than his moral qualities, and says: ‘It is doubtful, judging from Branwell’s letters and his verses, whether anything much better than his father’s “Cottage in the Wood” would have resulted from his following the advice of James Montgomery. Fluent ease, often on the verge of twaddle, with here and there a bright felicitous touch, with here and there a smack of the conventional hymn-book and pulpit twang — such weak and characterless effusions are all that is left of the passion-ridden pseudo-genius of Haworth.’
 
 

Miss Robinson’s ignorance of Branwell’s more matured poems and writings has caused her, in company with others, to fall into very grave errors regarding him; and she, — with extreme bitterness, it must be said, — has embellished her biography of Emily with elaborate censures of his misdeeds, and with accounts of his imputed glaring inferiority to his sisters in intellectual power. It is pitiable, indeed, that Miss Robinson, — and not she alone, — in the want of Branwell’s true life and remains, with nothing to set against the primary errors of Mrs. Gaskell, — should have joined the hue and cry against him, and have essayed, almost as of set purpose, to write down the gifted brother of the author whose life she was giving to the world.

In 1842 Branwell began to feel more perceptibly the development of his intellectual powers, and to discern more clearly his natural ability to define, in poetic and felicitous language, his thoughts, feelings, and emotions. While under the depression and gloom consequent upon his disgrace, and the recent loss of his employment, he wrote the three following sonnets. The profound depth of feeling, expressed with mournful voice, which pervades them, the full consciousness of woe by which they are informed, leave nothing wanting in their expression of pathetic beauty; and they are distinguished by much sweetness of diction. These sonnets favourably show the poetical genius of Branwell. His soul is carried beyond his frail mortality; but sadness and sorrow, enshrouding his imagination, bind it to the precincts of the tomb. Here, with pessimistic and gloomy philosophy, he bids us, impressed with the slender sum of human happiness, to recognize the constant recurrence of the misery to which we are born, and to discern how little there is beneficent in nature or mankind.