the cabin; and rescued all in it from the destruction so nearly
impending.... From their new position, through the spray and rain they
could see the shore, some hundreds of yards off. Men were seen on the
beach, but there was nothing to indicate that an attempt would be made
to save them. At nine o’clock it was thought that some one of the crew
might possibly reach the shore by swimming, and, once there, make some
effort to send them aid. Two of the sailors succeeded in doing this.
Horace Sumner sprang after them, but sank unable to struggle with
the waves. A last device was that of a plank, with handles of rope
attached, upon which the passengers in turn might seat themselves,
while a sailor, swimming behind, should guide their course. Mrs. Hasty,
young and resolute, led the way in this experiment, the stout mate
helping her, and landing her out of the very jaws of death.... Oh that
Margaret had been willing that the same means should be employed to
bring her and hers to land! Again and again, to the very last moment,
she was urged to try this way of escape, uncertain, but the only
one.... The day wore on; the tide turned. The wreck would not outlast
its return. The commanding officer made one last appeal to Margaret
before leaving his post. To stay, he told her, was certain and speedy
death, as the ship must soon break up. He promised to take her child
with him, and to give Celeste, Ossoli, and herself each the aid of an
able seaman. Margaret still refused to be parted from child or husband.
The crew were then told to “save themselves,” and all but four jumped
overboard.... By three o’clock in the afternoon the breaking-up was
well in progress. Cabin and stern disappeared beneath the waves, and
the forecastle filled with water. The little group now took refuge
on the deck, and stood about the foremast. Three able-bodied seamen
remained with them, and one old sailor homeward-bound for good and all.
The deck now parted from the hull, and rose and fell with the sweep of
the waves. The final crash must come in a few minutes. The steward now
took Angelo in his arms, promising to save him or die. At this very
moment the foremast fell, and with it disappeared the deck and those
who stood on it. The steward and the child were washed ashore soon
after, dead, though not yet cold.... Celeste and Ossoli held for a
moment by the rigging, but were swept off by the next wave. Margaret,
last seen at the foot of the mast, in her white night-dress, with her
long hair hanging about her shoulders, is thought to have sunk at once.
JULIA WARD HOWE: ‘Margaret Fuller.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Miss Martineau’s view of Margaret’s career.]
[Sidenote: Her life in Boston.]
[Sidenote: “The noble last period of her life.”]
How it might have been with her, if she had come to Europe in 1836,
I have often speculated. As it was, her life in Boston was little
short of destructive. I need but refer to the memoir of her. In the
most pedantic age of society in her own country, and in its most
pedantic city, she who was just beginning to rise out of pedantic
habits of thought and speech relapsed most grievously. She was not
only completely spoiled in conversation and manners; she made false
estimates of the objects and interests of human life. She was not
content with pursuing, and inducing others to pursue, a metaphysical
idealism, destructive of all genuine feeling and sound activity.
She mocked at objects and efforts of a higher order than her own,
and despised those who, like myself, could not adopt her scale of
valuation. All this might have been spared, a world of mischief saved,
and a world of good effected, if she had found her heart a dozen years
sooner, and in America instead of Italy. It is the most grievous loss
I have almost ever known in private history--the deferring of Margaret
Fuller’s married life so long. The noble last period of her life is,
happily, on record as well as the earlier. My friendship with her was
in the interval between her first and second stages of pedantry and
forwardness; and I saw her again under all the disadvantages of the
confirmed bad manners and self-delusions which she brought from home.
The ensuing period redeemed all; and I regard her American life as a
reflexion more useful than agreeable, of the prevalent social spirit
of her time and place; and the Italian life as the true revelation of
the tender and high-souled woman, who had till then been as curiously
concealed from herself as from others.
HARRIET MARTINEAU: ‘Autobiography.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Hawthorne’s analysis.]
[Sidenote: “A great humbug.”]
Margaret Fuller was a person anxious to try all things, and fill up her
experience in all directions; she had a strong and coarse nature which
she had done her utmost to refine, with infinite pains; but of course
it could only be superficially changed. The solution of the riddle lies
in this direction, nor does one’s conscience revolt at the idea of thus
solving it, for (at least, this is my own experience) Margaret has not
left in the hearts and minds of those who knew her any deep witness of
her integrity and purity. She was a great humbug--of course, with much
talent and much moral reality, or else she could never have been so
great a humbug. But she had stuck herself full of borrowed qualities,
which she chose to provide herself with, but which had no root in her.
There never was such a tragedy as her whole story. The sadder and
sterner, because so much of the ridiculous was mixed up with it, and
because she could bear any thing better than to be ridiculous. It was
such an awful joke, that she should have resolved--in all sincerity, no
doubt--to make herself the greatest, wisest, best woman of the age. And
to that end she set to work on her strong, heavy, unpliable, and, in
many respects, defective and evil nature, and adorned it with a mosaic
of admirable qualities, such as she chose to possess, putting in here
a splendid talent and there a moral excellence, and polishing each
separate piece, and the whole together, till it seemed to shine afar
and dazzle all who saw it. She took credit to herself for having been
her own Redeemer, if not her own Creator; and indeed she is far more a
work of art than any of Mozier’s statues. But she was not working on an
inanimate substance, like marble or clay; there was something within
her that she could not possibly come at, to re-create or refine it;
and by and by this rude old potency bestirred itself, and undid all
her labor in the twinkling of an eye. On the whole, I do not know but
I like her the better for it; because she proved herself a very woman
after all.
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: _Extract from Roman Journal_, in ‘Nathaniel
Hawthorne and His Wife,’ a Biography, by Julian Hawthorne. Boston:
James R. Osgood & Co., 1885.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: “A strange tragedy.”]
Poor Margaret, that is a strange tragedy that history of hers; and has
many traits of the heroic in it, though it is wild as the prophecy of
a Sibyl. Such a pre-determination to _eat_ this big universe as her
oyster or her egg, and to be absolute empress of all height and glory
in it that her heart could conceive, I have not before seen in any
human soul. Her “mountain _me_” indeed: but her courage, too, is high
and clear, her chivalrous nobleness indeed is great; her veracity, in
its deepest sense, _à toute épreuve_.
THOMAS CARLYLE: _Letter to Emerson_, 7th May, 1852. ‘Correspondence of
T. Carlyle and R. W. Emerson.’
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The quotation is from Margaret’s ‘Summer on the Lakes,’ where this
story is related in the episode of ‘Mariana.’ Mrs. Howe’s condensed
account has been given, though possibly inexact in one particular.
Margaret does not describe the _preceptress_ as having joined in the
practical joke.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË (NICHOLLS).
(CURRER BELL.)
1816-1855.
EMILY BRONTË.
(ELLIS BELL.)
1818-1848.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË (NICHOLLS.)
(CURRER BELL.)
1816-1855.
EMILY BRONTË.
(ELLIS BELL.)
1818-1848.
The story of the Brontës is essentially the story of a family; not of
one member, not even of its two famous members. This has been felt by
the biographers of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, who have pictured for us
the whole group with a vividness which, paradoxical as it may seem, is
more characteristic of fiction than of biography. These lonely lives
were knit fast together; it is hard to separate an individual thread
from the others. At least the story of the family must first be told.
The Reverend Patrick Brontë (formerly Prunty), and Maria Branwell, his
wife, had six children: Maria, Elizabeth, Charlotte (born at Thornton,
in the West Riding, April 21, 1816), Patrick Branwell, Emily (born at
Thornton, in 1818), and Anne. In February, 1820, the Brontës removed to
the famous parsonage of Haworth. In September, 1821, Mrs. Brontë died.
The strange life of the motherless children, under the care of their
aunt, Miss Branwell, is described in the following extracts. In 1824,
the four older girls were sent to the school for clergymen’s daughters,
at Cowan’s Bridge, which Charlotte afterward raised to a bad eminence
in JANE EYRE, under the name of Lowood Institution. A long account
of this shamefully mismanaged school may be found in Miss Robinson’s
‘Emily Brontë.’ Maria and Elizabeth died of consumption in 1825;
their deaths were doubtless hastened by exposure and want of proper
nourishment. In the autumn of the same year Charlotte and Emily were
taken from the Cowan’s Bridge school.
Miss Branwell taught the children at home for some time; in 1831,
Charlotte was again sent to school--this time to Miss Wooler’s, at Roe
Head, on the road from Leeds to Haddersfield. She remained at this
school a year and a half, and on returning taught her sisters what she
had learned. At Roe Head began her life-long friendship with Ellen
Nussey. In 1835, Charlotte went to teach at Miss Wooler’s, and Emily
also went as a pupil to Roe Head, but remained there only three months,
when Anne took her place, afterward becoming a teacher in the school.
All her life Emily was passionately attached to the dreary parsonage
and the lonely moors, and became actually ill when forced to be absent
from home. In September, 1836, she obtained a hard position as teacher
in a large school near Halifax, which she was obliged to leave the
following spring.
In the meantime Miss Wooler had removed to Dewsbury Moor. Anne
Brontë continued teaching in her establishment until December, 1837;
Charlotte, until the following summer, when her health obliged her
to return to Haworth. In 1839 both obtained positions as governess,
Charlotte, however, leaving hers after a short time. Her second and
more agreeable experience of this kind was in 1841, when she taught in
a congenial family from March until Christmas. January, 1842, found all
three sisters at home. It was now determined that Charlotte and Emily
should spend six months in Brussels, at the Pensionnat of Monsieur and
Madame Héger, preparatory to setting up a school for themselves--a plan
which had long been discussed at the parsonage. Miss Branwell advanced
the money for this undertaking, and the two sisters left home in
February.
Their stay in Brussels was prolonged beyond expectation, on the
proposal of Mme. Héger that they should spend the next term with her
as pupil-teachers, Charlotte giving instruction in English, Emily in
music. In October they were recalled to England by the news of Miss
Branwell’s death. Anne being now in an excellent position, Emily
volunteered to remain at home as housekeeper. Charlotte, acting on the
advice of M. Héger, returned to Brussels in January, 1843, to complete
her studies there; paying her way as before by teaching in the school,
and receiving in addition a trifling salary.
About this time Patrick, or Branwell, Brontë, who, during an idle life
about the village, had fallen into evil ways, and had recently been
dismissed in disgrace from his situation as station-master at a small
place on the line of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, obtained
employment as tutor in the house where Anne was governess.
In January, 1844, Charlotte returned to Haworth, and the sisters
endeavored to start the school of which they had long been dreaming.
It was a complete failure. They were unable to secure a single pupil;
and by November the cherished plan was relinquished.
Charlotte and Emily lived down their failure together in the dreary
parsonage. Their father was growing old, was losing his sight. Anne was
out of health; they were troubled about Branwell. At last, in June,
1845, a great blow fell upon them. Their brother had engaged in an
intrigue with his employer’s wife: he was discovered, denounced, sent
home in shame; and from that time forth “thought of little but stunning
or drowning his agony of mind” with drink or opium. The miserable state
of things at Haworth for the next three years is almost inconceivable;
yet it was out of this very field of nettles that the flower of
immortality was plucked.
In May, 1846, a little volume of verse “by Currer, Ellis, and Acton
Bell” was put forth, but failed as the school had failed. Meanwhile,
in the winter of 1845-6 and the following spring, each of the three
sisters had been at work upon a novel. Emily’s was WUTHERING HEIGHTS,
Anne’s, _Agnes Grey_, and Charlotte’s, _The Professor_. They were
despatched to various publishers, at first together, afterwards singly.
In August, 1846, Mr. Brontë underwent an operation for cataract at
Manchester, Charlotte being his companion and nurse. The operation was
successful. At the end of September father and daughter returned to
Haworth. In August, 1847, JANE EYRE was completed and sent to Messrs.
Smith & Elder as the work of “Currer Bell.” It was accepted, and was
published in October. In December another publishing house brought
out WUTHERING HEIGHTS and _Agnes Grey_. JANE EYRE almost immediately
created a great sensation.
In the summer of 1848 a misunderstanding with their respective
publishers led Charlotte and Anne to take a hurried journey to London,
where they astonished Messrs. Smith & Elder with a call. They were very
kindly received, and introduced to the friends of Mr. Smith as “the
Miss Browns.”
In September, 1848, the unhappy Branwell died. Emily never left the
house after the day of his funeral. A troublesome cough developed into
consumption. After months of increasing weakness borne in a spirit
of silent and stubborn resistance, in December, 1848, Emily Brontë
followed her brother. Anne, always delicate, did not linger long behind
them. In the ensuing spring she died at Scarborough, whither Charlotte
and Miss Nussey had brought her but a few days before for the benefit
of the sea air. Charlotte and her father were left alone together.
SHIRLEY, began before Emily’s death, was published in October, 1849;
and toward the end of the year Charlotte visited London. The mask of
“Currer Bell” was dropped, and Miss Brontë made the acquaintance of
Thackeray, Harriet Martineau and others. In June, 1850, she was again
in London. This year she took a flying trip to Scotland. She was Miss
Martineau’s guest at Ambleside in December. In this month appeared the
second edition of WUTHERING HEIGHTS and _Agnes Grey_, which she had
edited, writing a preface, and a biographical notice of Emily and Anne.
In June, 1851, she again visited London. Early in 1853 VILLETTE was
published.
About this time the Reverend Arthur Nicholls, Mr. Brontë’s assistant,
asked Charlotte to be his wife. Her father was bitterly opposed to
the marriage; the daughter obeyed him; and Mr. Nicholls left Haworth.
It was not until 1854 that Mr. Brontë could be induced to give his
consent. On June 29th of this year, Charlotte was married to Mr.
Nicholls. They visited Ireland, and on their return took up a happy and
useful life at Haworth. The future seemed full of promise, the only
cloud upon it being Mr. Nicholls’ lack of sympathy with his wife’s
literary pursuits. But the story so sad till now was to be soon and
sadly ended. On the 31st of March, 1855, Charlotte died at Haworth.
“Alas,” sings Matthew Arnold:[8]
“Early she goes on the path
To the silent country, and leaves
Half her laurels unwon,
Dying too soon!”
But in turning to Emily Brontë, his voice takes the accent of wonder:
“She
(How shall I sing her?) whose soul
Knew no fellow for might,
Passion, vehemence, grief,
Daring, since Byron died.”
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Haworth.]
The village of Haworth stands, steep and gray, on the topmost side of
an abrupt low hill. Such hills, more steep than high, are congregated
round, circle beyond circle, to the utmost limit of the horizon. Not
a wood, not a river. As far as eye can reach these treeless hills,
their sides cut into fields by gray walls of stone with here and there
a gray stone village, and here and there a gray stone mill, present no
other colors than the singular north-country brilliance of the green
grass, and the blackish gray of the stone. Now and then a toppling,
gurgling mill-beck gives life to the scene. But the real life, the only
beauty of the country, is set on the top of all the hills, where moor
joins moor from Yorkshire into Lancashire, a coiled chain of wild,
free places. White with snow in winter, black at midsummer, it is only
when spring dapples the dark heather-stems with the vivid green of the
sprouting whortleberry bushes, only when in early autumn the moors are
one humming mass of fragrant purple, that any beauty of tint lights
up the scene. But there is always a charm in the moors for hardy and
solitary spirits. Between them and heaven nothing dares to interpose.
The shadows of the coursing clouds alter the aspect of the place a
hundred times a day. A hundred little springs and streams well in its
soil, making spots of vivid greenness round their rise. A hundred birds
of every kind are flying and singing there. Larks sing; cuckoos call;
all the tribe of linnets and finches twitter in the bushes; plovers
moan; wild ducks fly past; more melancholy than all, on stormy days,
the white sea-mews cry, blown so far inland by the force of the gales
that sweep irresistibly over the treeless and houseless moors. There
in the spring you may take in your hands the weak, halting fledglings
of the birds; rabbits and game multiply in the hollows. There in the
autumn the crowds of bees, mad in the heather, send the sound of their
humming down the village street. The winds, the clouds, Nature and
life, must be the friends of those who would love the moors.
A. MARY F. ROBINSON: ‘Emily Brontë.’ (_Famous Women Series_). Boston:
Roberts Bros., 1883.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: The Parsonage.]
The parsonage stands at right angles to the road, facing down upon the
church; so that, in fact, parsonage, church, and belfried school-house,
form three sides of an irregular oblong, of which the fourth is open to
the fields and moors that lie beyond. The area of this oblong is filled
up by a crowded church-yard, and a small garden or court in front of
the clergyman’s house. As the entrance to this from the road is at the
side, the path goes round the corner into the little plot of ground.
Underneath the windows is a narrow flower-border, carefully tended in
days of yore, although only the most hardy plants could be made to
grow there. Within the stone-wall, which keeps out the surrounding
church-yard, are bushes of elder and lilac; the rest of the ground is
occupied by a square grass-plot and a gravel walk. The house is of gray
stone, two stories high, heavily roofed with flags, in order to resist
the winds that might strip off a lighter covering. It appears to have
been built about a hundred years ago, and to consist of four rooms
on each story; the two windows on the right (as the visitor stands,
with his back to the church, ready to enter in at the front door),
belonging to Mr. Brontë’s study, the two on the left to the family
sitting-room.... The little church lies, as I mentioned, above most of
the houses in the village; and the graveyard rises above the church,
and is terribly full of upright tombstones.
ELIZABETH C. GASKELL: ‘Life of Charlotte Brontë,’ Smith, Elder & Co.,
London, 1857.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Interior of the parsonage.]
The interior of the now far-famed parsonage lacked drapery of all
kinds. Mr. Brontë’s horror of fire forbade curtains to the windows.
There was not much carpet anywhere except in the sitting-room and on
the study floor. The hall floor and stairs were done with sand-stone,
always beautifully clean, as everything else was about the house; the
walls were not papered, but stained in a pretty dove-colored tint;
hair-seated chairs and mahogany tables, book-shelves in the study, but
not many of these elsewhere.... A little later on, [Miss N. is writing
of 1833], there was the addition of a piano.
ELLEN NUSSEY: Article on Charlotte Brontë, _Scribner’s Monthly_, May,
1871.
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Parentage of the Brontës.]
The children’s father was a nervous, irritable, and violent man,
who endowed them with a nervous organization easily disturbed, and
an indomitable force of volition. The girls, at least, showed both
these characteristics. Patrick Branwell must have been a weaker, more
brilliant, more violent, less tenacious, less upright copy of his
father; and seems to have suffered no modification from the patient
and steadfast moral nature of his mother. She was the model that her
daughters copied, in different degrees, both in character and in
health. Passion and will their father gave them.... On both sides, the
children got a Celtic strain; and this is a matter of significance,
meaning a predisposition to the superstition, imagination, and horror
that is a strand in all their work. Their mother, Maria Branwell, was
of a good, middle-class Cornish family, long established as merchants
in Penzance. Their father was the son of an Irish peasant, Hugh Prunty,
settled in the north of Ireland, but native to the south.
A. M. F. ROBINSON: ‘Emily Brontë.’
* * * * *
[Sidenote: Patrick Brontë’s career.]
[Sidenote: His change of name.]
His talents were early recognized by Mr. Tighe, the rector of
Drumgooland. This gentleman undertook part, at least, of the cost of
his education, which was completed at St. John’s College, Cambridge.
As to the change of name from Prunty to Brontë, many fantastic stories
have been told. Among them is one which represents the Brontës as
having derived their name from that of the Bronterres, an ancient Irish
family with which they were connected. The connection may possibly have
existed, but there is no doubt upon one point. The incumbent of Haworth
in early life bore the name of Prunty, and it was not until very
shortly before he left Ireland for England that he changed it at the
request of his patron, Mr. Tighe, for the more euphonious appellation
of Brontë.
[Sidenote: His character.]