"Decidedly I find it does not agree with me to prosecute the search
for the picturesque in a carriage. A wagon, a spring-cart, even a
post-chaise might do; but a carriage upsets everything. I longed to
slip out unseen, and to run away by myself in amongst the hills and
dales. Erratic and vagrant instincts tormented me; and these I was
obliged to control, or rather suppress, for fear of growing in any
degree enthusiastic, and thus drawing attention to 'the lioness,'
the authoress."
The fact of her having sprung into sudden fame immediately after she was
known as the author of "Jane Eyre"--the most wonderful book of her
day--was a matter of great surprise to her, and would doubtless have
afforded her very keen pleasure, only that she was so overburdened with
home cares and sorrows at that time. Even the sweetness of her literary
triumph was embittered by the sadness of the home life. "Jane Eyre" had
been written during their worst trials with Branwell, and "Shirley" just
after his death and during the illness of Emily and Anne, both works
being the product of the very darkest hours of her darkened life. If
these works are morbid and unhealthy, as has been asserted, is it any
wonder, when we consider what must have been the state of her mind while
writing them? She was most devotedly attached to her sisters; indeed,
her very life may be said to have been bound up in theirs; and it was
peculiarly hard for her to lose them just when success appeared to be at
hand, and they might have looked forward to something of happiness
during the remainder of their lives. Charlotte gives her own affecting
account of Emily's death, which throws some light upon the character of
that remarkable woman, as remarkable perhaps as Charlotte herself,
although she did not live to do any work as lasting as that of her elder
sister. She says:--
"But a great change approached. Affliction came in that shape which
to anticipate is dread; to look back on, grief. In the very heat
and burden of the day the laborers failed over their work. My
sister Emily first declined. . . . Never in all her life had she
lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not linger
now. She sank rapidly. She made haste to leave us. Day by day, when
I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with an
anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing like it; but indeed
I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man,
simpler than a child, her nature stood alone. The awful point was
that, while full of ruth for others, on herself she had no pity;
the spirit was inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling hands,
the unnerved limbs, the fading eyes, the same service was exacted
as they had rendered in health. To stand by and witness this, and
not dare to remonstrate, was a pain no words can render."
Emily never left the house after Branwell's death. She made no
complaint, but her friends could see that she was deadly ill. Yet she
would have no doctor, and insisted upon going on with her work as usual.
This she did until she was actually dying. Branwell had insisted upon
standing up to die; and poor Emily had scarcely consented to lie down,
when she was gone. Their will-power in their last agonies was something
almost fearful to contemplate. As the old bereaved father and Charlotte
and Anne followed the coffin to the grave, Emily's old, fierce, faithful
bull-dog, to which she had been so much attached, came out and walked
beside them. When they returned he lay down by Emily's door, and howled
pitifully for many days. Charlotte recurred to this death-scene
continually. In one letter she says:--
"I cannot forget Emily's death-day; it becomes a more fixed, a
darker, a more frequently recurring idea in my mind than ever. It
was very terrible. She was torn, conscious, panting, reluctant,
though resolute, out of a happy life. But it will not do to dwell
on these things."
Anne Bronte did not long survive her sister, and Charlotte was now alone
except that she had the care of her aged father, who was feeble and
nearly blind. The awful loneliness of the old house almost crazed her,
but she went faithfully to work, and bore up with unheard of fortitude.
Two or three solitary years went by, when Mr. Nichols, her father's
curate, renewed his suit to Miss Bronte. Mrs. Gaskell tells us that he
was one who had known her intimately for years, and was not a man to be
attracted by any kind of literary fame. He was a grave, reserved,
conscientious man, with strong religious feeling. In silence he had
watched and loved her long.