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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.