In the crowded little churchyard at Haworth, in the wild, bleak
Yorkshire region, are eight mounds which mark the extinction of a family
whose genius and sorrows have made them known the world over. In the
little church there is a mural tablet which tells the names of this
illustrious group, and the many visitors to this little out-of-the-way
house of worship read with a melancholy interest these sad inscriptions.
First we are told of Maria Bronte, the mother, who died in 1821, when
only thirty-nine years old, leaving the six children whose names follow,
all in the helplessness of early childhood. Next to her come Maria and
Elizabeth, both of whom followed her in 1825; then Branwell and Emily,
who died in 1848, and Anne, who lived one year longer. But it is to the
last of the inscriptions that all eyes are turned with the greatest
interest, for there we read--
CHARLOTTE,
WIFE OF THE REV. ARTHUR BELL NICHOLS, A. B.
AND DAUGHTER OF THE REV. E. P. BRONTE, A. M., INCUMBENT.
SHE DIED MARCH 31ST, 1855, IN THE 39TH YEAR OF HER AGE.
There is no sadder history in all literature than the history of this
gifted family and their early doom. A pathos clings about it which is
really painful, so few are the gleams of light which are thrown upon the
dark picture. From the time when the Rev. Patrick Bronte (himself a
gifted but somewhat erratic man) brought his young wife into the
solitude of this moorland parsonage and shut her up in a seclusion from
which she was only removed by death, all the way down through the lonely
childhood of the little motherless children, and on into their no less
lonely and more afflicted womanhood, even to the deaths of all the
gifted group, there is a depth of sombre gloom from which the
sympathetic heart must turn away with a bitter pain and almost a feeling
of hot rebellion against Fate.
The utter loneliness of that part of Yorkshire at the time when Mr.
Bronte settled there can hardly be imagined to-day. In winter all
communication with the outside world was cut off by almost impassable
mud or entirely impassable snow. Travellers whom actual necessity
compelled to start forth were often snowed in for a week or ten days
within a few miles of home, and nobody thought of stirring from that
shelter except through the pressure of absolute necessity. Isolated as
were the little hill villages like Haworth, they were in the world,
compared with the loneliness of the gray ancestral houses to be seen
here and there in the dense hollows of the moors.
The inhabitants of this rough country were themselves of wild, turbulent
nature, much given to deadly feuds and really dangerous in their
enmities. Their amusements were all of the lowest order, and hard riding
and deep drinking were the characteristics of all the male population,
while cock-fighting and bull-baiting were thought refined amusements for
both sexes.
The ministers were not much above their flocks in general culture, and
the incumbents of Haworth had been noted for their eccentricities for
generations. Many of them attended the horse-racings and the games of
football which were played on Sunday afternoons, and took as deep a
part as any of the flock in the drunken carouse which always followed a
funeral. Mr. Bronte was a very different man from his predecessors, but
was many years in subduing his congregation to an even nominal
observance of common moralities. He was, however, a man of high spirit
and imperious will, and, bending himself to the task with all his
powers, made a decided impression upon the life around him. The gentle
mother soon passed away, and Mr. Bronte became a stern and silent man
who kept his children at a distance from himself and allowed them little
intercourse with the outside world. They were allowed to walk out on the
wild heathery moors, but not down in the village street; and they
acquired a passionate love of those purple moors, which remained with
them through life. When angry, Mr. Bronte would say nothing, but they
could hear him out at the door firing pistol-shots in quick succession
as a relief to his feelings. The children were unnaturally quiet and
well-behaved. The old nurse says:--
"You would never have known there was a child in the house, they
were such noiseless, good little creatures. I used to think them
spiritless, they were so different from any children I had ever
seen."
They used to read the newspapers, write little stories, and act plays,
and at one time conducted a magazine of their own. Like all imaginative
children, they played in stories, each one taking part in the stirring
romances they invented. They were great believers in the supernatural,
too, and the denizens of the adjoining churchyard played quite a
prominent part in their childish lives. This churchyard, which was so
near the parsonage, added much to the gloom and unhealthiness of the old
manse, and many people have attributed the ill health of all the girls
to its close proximity. It was depressing, to say the least, to such
imaginative children as those of Mr. Bronte.
It was not long after the mother's death that the two older girls, Maria
and Elizabeth, were taken to a school at Cowan's Bridge, a small hamlet
in the north of England, and the younger children were left more lonely
than ever. This school, which had been selected on account of its
cheapness, had been established for the daughters of clergymen, and the
entire expenses were fourteen pounds a year. Cowan's Bridge is prettily
situated, just where the Leck-fells sweep into the plain; and by the
course of the beck, alders and willows and hazel bushes grow. This
little shallow, sparkling stream runs through long green pastures, and
has many little falls over beds of gray rocks. The school-house had been
made from an old bobbin-mill, and the situation proved to be remarkably
unhealthy. This is the school so realistically described by Charlotte in
"Jane Eyre." "Helen Burns" is an exact transcript of Maria Bronte, and
every scene is a literal description of events which took place at this
school. The whole thing was burned into Charlotte's memory so indelibly
that she reproduced it with photographic exactness. Emily and Charlotte
had followed the other sisters there, after a year or two, so that all
of them suffered to a greater or less extent from the privations and
abuses they underwent in that female Dotheboys Hall. The eldest sister
died, and the second became very ill; yet still Mr. Bronte, who believed
in the hardening process for children, kept them there until the health
of each one failed in turn, and they were permanently injured by their
privations. The food, which would perhaps have been wholesome enough if
properly cooked, was ruined by a dirty and careless woman, who served it
up in such disgusting messes that many a time the fastidious little
Brontes could not eat a mouthful, though faint with hunger. There was
always the most delicate cleanliness in the frugal Bronte household, and
the children had early learned to be dainty in such matters. Their fare
at home was of the simplest nature, but always well cooked; and they
simply fasted themselves ill at Cowan's Bridge because they could not
eat what was set before them.
There was another trial of health to the girls, and that was being
obliged in all kinds of weather to attend church, which was two miles
away. The road was a very bleak and unsheltered one, where cutting winds
blew in winter and where the snows were often deep. The church was never
warmed, as there was no provision made for any heating apparatus; and
when the ill-fed and half-clothed girls had reached its shelter, they
were often in actual chills from the exposure, and could not hope to
gain any additional warmth there. Colds were taken in this way, from
which the girls never recovered. They also suffered from cold in the
school itself, and from the tyranny of one of the teachers, whom
Charlotte has mercilessly depicted as Miss Scatcherd in "Jane Eyre." To
the day of Miss Bronte's death, she would blaze with indignation at any
mention of this school; and who can wonder?
After the death of the second daughter, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily
were taken from Cowan's Bridge, and spent some time at another school,
where they were much happier, and where they made a few life-long
friends, particularly Miss Woolner, the principal. One of her
schoolmates gives this description of Charlotte's arrival at the
school:--
"I first saw her coming out of a covered cart, in very
old-fashioned clothes, and looking very cold and miserable. When
she appeared in the school-room her dress was changed, but just as
old. She looked a little old woman, so short-sighted that she
always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her head from
side to side to catch a sight of it. She was very shy and nervous,
and spoke with a strong Irish accent. When a book was given her she
dropped her head over it till her nose nearly touched it; and when
she was told to hold her head up, up went the book after it, still
close to her nose, so that it was not possible to help laughing."
She was a close student here, and a favorite with the girls, whom she
would frighten half out of their senses by her wonderful stories. So
great was their effect at times, that her listeners were thrown into
real hysterics. After leaving this school, Charlotte returned home, and
began keeping house and teaching her sisters. Here several quiet years
were passed, busy but monotonous. The girls spent their time in study,
in household tasks, walking, and drawing, of which they were very fond.
They also read very thoroughly the few books which were accessible to
them. At nineteen Charlotte went as a teacher to Miss Woolner's school,
where she was very happy, and remained until her health failed. It was a
nervous trouble, which seemed at one time like a complete breaking down,
but from which she gradually recovered after her return home. Emily now
took her turn in teaching, going to a school at Halifax, where she came
near literally dying from homesickness. Emily could never live away from
Haworth and her moors; and in this school she labored incessantly from
six in the morning till eleven at night, with only one half-hour for
exercise between. To a free, wild, untamable spirit like Emily's, this
was indeed slavery. She returned home after a time, and Charlotte again
went out to teach. They felt the necessity of earning money, as their
father's stipend was small, and he was both liberal and charitable,--and
there was their brother Branwell to be provided for. Of this brother we
have not before spoken; but he occupied an important place in their home
and in their lives. He had been the pride and the hope of the family
from early youth. He was possessed of brilliant talents, and was full of
noble impulses, but was very fond of pleasure, and soon formed irregular
habits, which were the ruin of his life and the source of unmeasured
grief to his whole family. They had desired to send him to study at the
Royal Academy, as he had the family's fondness for drawing, and they
fancied he would develop great talent as an artist. Had his habits been
good, their hopes might have been realized; but he fell so early into
profligacy, that the idea of becoming an artist was given up, and he
took a place as a private tutor. He had formed his intemperate habits
when a mere boy, at the public house in Haworth village, where he was
esteemed royal company,--as no doubt he was, with his brilliant
conversational powers,--and was often sent for to entertain chance
guests, in whom he delighted, as they could tell him so much of that
distant world beyond the confining hills, for which he yearned. The
pity of it was infinite; for had he been kept in regular courses for a
few years longer, his own ambition and love of the good opinion of
others might have restrained him altogether from excess. As it was,
before his judgment was matured or he had any real knowledge of the
fatal effect of the habits he was forming, he was firmly fixed in the
chains of a degrading habit from which death alone could free him. His
struggles with this fatal fascination, and his sufferings, were cruel in
the extreme, and inflicted pangs bitterer than death on all who loved
him. He was rather weak of will, and had been allowed to grow up
self-indulgent, through the over-fondness of his family, who were almost
ascetic in their own habits, but could deny him nothing. He had great
power of attracting people and of attaching them to him,--a power almost
wanting in other members of the family, and which might have been of
great advantage to him through life, had he started on the right course.
As it was, it only helped to drag him down. He had enough of Irish blood
in him to make his manners frank and genial, with a kind of natural
gallantry about them. He was generally esteemed handsome. His forehead
was massive, his eyes good, his mouth pleasant though somewhat coarse,
his hair and complexion sandy. Mrs. Gaskell, in her life of Charlotte
Bronte, thus tells of the second great grief he caused his family:--
"Branwell, I have mentioned, had obtained a situation as a private
tutor. Full of available talent, a brilliant talker, a good writer,
apt at drawing, ready of appreciation, and with a not unhandsome
person, he took the fancy of a married woman twenty years older
than himself. It is no excuse for him to say that she began the
first advances, and 'made love' to him. She was so bold and
hardened that she did it in the very presence of her children, fast
approaching maturity; and they would threaten her that if she did
not grant them such and such indulgences, they would tell their
bed-ridden father how she went on with Mr. Bronte. He was so
beguiled by this mature and wicked woman that he went home for his
holiday 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 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 behavior. They
began to lose all hope in his future career. He was no longer the
family pride; an indistinct dread was creeping over their minds
that he might turn out the family disgrace.
"After a time the husband of the woman with whom he had intrigued,
died. Branwell had been looking forward to this 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 imagined
the time had come when they might look forward to being married,
and might 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. Her husband had made a
will, in which he left her his property solely on the condition
that she should never see Branwell Bronte again. At the very time
the will was read, she did not know but that he might be on his way
to her, having heard of her husband's death. She despatched a
servant in hot haste to Haworth. He stopped at the Black Bull, and
a messenger was sent to the parsonage for Branwell. He came down to
the little inn, and was shut up with the man some time. Then the
groom went away, and Branwell was left in the room alone. More than
an hour elapsed before sign or sound was heard; then those outside
heard a noise like the bleating of a calf, and on opening the door
he was found in a kind of fit, succeeding to the stupor of grief
which he had fallen into on hearing that he was forbidden by his
paramour ever to see her again, as, if he did, she would forfeit
her fortune. . . . Let her live and flourish. He died, his pockets
filled with her letters, which he carried about his person
perpetually in order that he might read them as often as he
pleased. He lies dead, and his doom is only known to God's mercy."
But he did not die at once. He lived as an abiding care and sorrow and
disgrace to his family for three years. He began taking opium, and drank
more than ever. "For some time before his death he had attacks of
delirium tremens, of the most frightful character; he slept in his
father's room, and he would sometimes declare that either he or his
father would be dead before morning." The trembling sisters, sick with
fright, watched the night through before the door, in such agony as only
loving hearts can feel at the ruin of a loved one. The scenes at the old
manse at this time would serve to answer the question so often asked,
Where did three lonely women like the Bronte sisters ever form their
conceptions of such characters as they depicted? How their pure
imaginations could conceive of such beings as Heathcote and the Tenant
of Wildfell Hall may perhaps be guessed by those who learn what sort of
a man Branwell Bronte had grown to be. But the long agony was over at
last, and Branwell found his rest; and the sisters, although they could
not but feel the relief of his death, mourned for him with passionate
sorrow.
Let us turn to pleasanter glimpses of the life at Haworth, some of them
preceding the events of which we have been writing. Charlotte had spent
a year or two in Brussels, teaching in a school there, and gaining some
of those experiences which she afterwards embodied in her novels. Then
she had returned home, and the sisters had talked of establishing a
school. None of the famous books had yet been written. To show some of
Charlotte's ideas at this time, one or two extracts from her letters may
be of interest. She writes in 1840:--
"Do not be over-persuaded to marry a man you can never respect,--I
do not say _love_; because I think if you can respect a person
before marriage, moderate love at least will come after; and as to
intense _passion_, I am convinced that that is no desirable
feeling. In the first place it seldom or never meets with a
requital; and in the second place, if it did, the feeling would be
only temporary; it would last the honeymoon, and then perhaps give
place to disgust. Certainly this would be the case on the man's
part; and on the woman's--God help her if she be left to love
passionately and alone.
"I am tolerably well convinced that I shall never marry at all.
Reason tells me so, and I am not so utterly the slave of feeling
but that I can _occasionally_ hear her voice."
This does not sound much like the woman who could write of Jane Eyre and
Rochester; but there were depths of passion in the little woman,
probably unsuspected by herself.