Brontës
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100. These form the so-called ‘Roe Head Journal’ but the term is misleading and inappropriate implying a consistent set of dated entries in a bound volume. It is actually composed of the autobiographical passages with which Charlotte introduced or ended Angrian fragments written mostly at Roe Head: some are undated or appear to have been written subsequent to the events described, leading to dating inconsistencies. They are listed in Alexander, A Bibliography of the Manuscripts of Charlotte Brontë, 56 and published in Glen, 447–66 but both omit the prose continuation to CB, ‘We wove a web in childhood’ 19 Dec 1835: MS HM 2578 pp.5–6, Huntington [VN CB, 169–70] in which Charlotte’s Angrian musings are rudely ended by Miss Lister, see above, p.276–7.
101. CB ‘All this day I have been in a dream’, 11 Aug–14 Oct 1836: MS Bon 98(8) pp.1–2, BPM [JB, BLL, 38–9].
102. Ibid., p.2[Glen, 453].
103. CB, ‘I’m just going to write because I cannot help it’, [c.Oct 1836]: MS Bon 98(7) p.1, BPM [Glen, 456].
104. Ibid.
105. CB ‘All this day I have been in a dream’, 11 Aug–14 Oct 1836: MS Bon 98(8) pp.1–2, BPM [Glen, 455].
CHAPTER TEN: LOSING BATTLES
1. E. Metcalfe to the Bible Society, London, 23 July 1836: MS in archives of Bible Society, ULC. Moses Saunders and other Baptists had apparently withdrawn their membership of the Society: contrary to the Society’s rules, Saunders later purchased ‘certain dissenting publications of a controversial nature’ for the library but was forced to remove them by the committee: LI, 15 Apr 1837 p.5.
2. BO, 7 July 1836 p.181; 24 Nov 1836 p.341.
3. Ibid., 29 Sept 1836 p.272.
4. PB, LM, 5 Nov 1836 p.6 [LRPB, 108–9].
5. ’Z’, LM, 17 Dec 1836 p.8. Winterbotham’s letter trying to raise support for a Bradford Anti-Church Rates Society is in BO, 15 Dec 1836 p.366.
6. William Hodgson, LM, 31 Dec 1836 p.7.
7. William Hodgson, LI, 31 Dec 1836 p.8.
8. CB to EN, 29 Dec 1836: MS BS 40.4 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 158–9]. The weather was particularly severe this winter: four inches of snow had already fallen by 28 October (BO, 2 Nov 1837 p.317) and in her letter Charlotte refers to the moors being ‘blockaded with snow’.
9. ECG, Life, 130–1; CB to EN, 29 Dec 1836: MS BS 40.4 p.1 crossed, BPM [LCB, i, 159].
10. AB, Verses by Lady Geralda, Dec 1836: MS n.l., transcript in Symington Collection, Texas [Chitham, 49–51].
11. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians III and IV], 6Dec 1836–7 Jan 1837: MSS in BPM, Brotherton and Berg [Neufeldt, ii, 646–51; iii, 1ff].
12. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians III(d)], 19 Sept–11 Nov 1837: MS p.15, Brotherton [Neufeldt, ii, 617–8].
13. ’I wonder if Branwell has really killed the Duchess – Is she dead, or is she buried is she alone in the cold earth on this dreary night’: CB, ‘I’m just going to write because I cannot help it’ [RHJ], [Oct 1836]: MS Bon 98(7) p.1, BPM [Glen, 456].
14. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians III(d)], 19 Sept–11 Nov 1837: MS p.2in private hands. [Neufeldt, ii, 624]. I am grateful to Roger Barrett for sending me photocopies of his ms and allowing me to quote from it.
15. CB, [The Return of Zamorna], Dec 1836–Jan 1837: MS in Law [M&U, ii, 284–5].
16. Ibid., 282–314.
17. CB, ‘Well the day’s toils are over with success’, 9 Jan 1837: MS Bon 100, BPM [VN CB, 209–20]; PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV(e)], [Summer 1837]: MS BS 111 pp.3–10, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 108–13]. Charlotte, however, continued to feature Mary in her stories.
18. CB, The Wood, Dec 1836–Jan 1837: MS n.l. [VN CB, 295–8]; ‘Well the day’s toils are over with success’, 9Jan 1837: MS Bon 100, BPM [VN CB, 209–20]; ‘Lady-bird! lady-bird! Fly away home’, [Jan 1837]: MSS in Berg and Bon 127 pp.10–10v, BPM [VN CB, 221–6]; ‘I never sought my mother’s face’, n.d.: MS Bon 105, BPM [VN CB, 226–7]; ‘On the bright scene around them spread’ and ‘few have felt the avenging steel’, 17 Jan 1837: pencilled inside front cover of Charlotte’s copy of Mr Porny, Grammatical Exercises, English and French (London, 1810): HAOBP:bb47, BPM [VN CB, 227–8].
19. Robert Southey to Caroline Bowles [L&L, ii, 156]. For Charlotte’s letter to Hartley Coleridge see below, pp.395–6.
20. Robert Southey to CB, 12 Mar 1837: MS BS ix, S pp.1–3, BPM [LCB, i, 166–7].
21. CB, Shirley, 390.
22. CB to Robert Southey, 16 Mar 1837: MS BS 40.25, BPM [LCB, i, 168–9].
23. CB, note on letter wrapper from Robert Southey, 21 Apr 1837: MS BS 14.5, BPM [LCB, i, 170 n.].
24. PBB to Editor of Blackwood’s Magazine, 4 Jan 1837: MS BS 135 pp.2, 3, BPM [BST:1:81:20–1].
25. PBB to William Wordsworth, 10 Jan 1837: MS pp.1–2, Wordsworth Trust [LCB, i, 160–1].
26. PBB, The Struggles of flesh with Spirit Scene I – Infancy, n.d.: MS accompanying PBB to William Wordsworth, 10 Jan 1837: MS, Wordsworth Trust [LCB, i, 160–1]. This version is substantially the same as one Branwell composed in 5days, 8–13 August 1836: the first draft dates from early January 1836: see VN PBB, 120–6, 398–404. Like ‘Misery – Scene 1st’ which Branwell had sent to Blackwood’s Magazine on 8Apr 1836, the poem was part of a longer scheme depicting the life of Alexander Percy.
27. Robert Southey to Caroline Bowles [L&L, ii, 156].
28. PBB, untitled notebook, 9Mar 1837–12 May 1838: MS BS 125, BPM [VN PBB, xii-xiv].
29. Emily’s earliest extant dated poems are ‘Will the day be bright or cloudy?’, 12 July 1836 and ‘High waveing heather, ‘neath stormy blasts bending’, 13 Dec 1836 [Roper, 31–2]. Thereafter she seems to have written and preserved poems almost monthly. For Anne’s earliest extant poem see above, n.10.
30. LI, 21 Jan 1837 p.7. Although Patrick’s authorship cannot be proved beyond doubt, the sentiments are in in keeping and the piece is signed ‘P.B. Near Keighley, Jan. 4th, 1837’. ‘P.B.’ later submitted another poem, ‘A solemn political hymn’ to be sung to the tune of Auld Lang Syne, which urged the Church to withstand her attackers: LI, 3 Feb 1838 p.7.
31. PBB, Minute Book of Haworth Operative Conservative Society, 27 Jan–12 Feb 1837: MS BS 125 pp.81–3and BS 146.5, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 21–2]. Branwell recorded the minutes of meetings on 27 January and 12 February but by 9 March he had converted it into a copybook for his own poems. Provision for the purchase of a book for minutes was made at the initial meeting, so Branwell must have transferred his minutes to the new book by the middle of February. Branwell began his poems at the other end of the book and upside down to the minutes he had already taken.
32. The Times, 27 Feb 1837 p.6.
33. Ibid., LI, 25 Feb 1837 p.8. Abraham Wildman supported a meeting in Keighley to petition Parliament to pass the Reform Bill in 1831; led a march of Keighley work-men to York where he addressed a meeting in favour of the Ten Hours Bill in 1832 and both chaired and addressed numerous meetings in Keighley for the same cause in 1833–5: he was known locally, like his friends Richard Oastler and George Bull, as the ‘factory child’s friend’: LI, 17 Mar 1831 p.3; 26 Apr 1832 pp.2–3; 3 Aug 1833 p.3; 7Mar 1835 p.3; LM, 21 Mar 1835 p.7. Archibald Leighton lived at no.40 Main Street: though married he had no children and must have been better off than most wool-combers as he employed a household servant: Haworth Census, 1841.
34. LI, 20 May 1837 p.7.
35. BO, 2 Mar 1837 p.37. As a Whig paper the Bradford Observer was in favour of abolition and therefore supported the meeting. The Tory Leeds Intelligencer carried a witty but hostile report which may possibly have been written by Branwell.
36. BO, 2Mar 1837 p.37; LI, 4 Mar 1837 p.8. Despite extensive searches I have been unable to identify any pieces which Branwell may have submitted earlier to the Leeds Intelligencer: I wonder if the correspondent who names Branwell confused him with Hodgson, who had written a provocative letter to the paper on 28 February, through it was not published until 9March 1837: see below, p.310.
37. BO, 2Mar 1837 p.37.
38. Ibid., 9Mar 1837 p.45.
39
. William Hodgson, LI, 4 Mar 1837 p.7. Hodgson’s baptismal figures for 26–8 February are supported by the baptismal registers. At the end of December 1837 Moses Saunders performed the first Baptist ‘wedding ceremony’ in Haworth, the couple having to wait till the arrival of the Keighley Registrar, Thomas Umpleby, before they could be legally married. Patrick, delightfully described as looking ‘as prim as a shrimp’, is also said to have attended: HG, 9Jan 1838 p.2.
40. PBB, Declaration to the Rate Payers of Haworth, Mar 1837: MS BS 147, BPM; LI, 25 Mar 1837 p.5.
41. Ibid., 1 Apr 1837 p.5.
42. BO, 20 Apr 1837 p.93; 25 May 1837 p.133.
43. Ibid., 20 Apr 1837 p.93.
44. PB, LI, 22 Apr 1837 [LRPB, 110–11].
45. A Requisition to the Revd William Hodson, Assistant Minister of Haworth, Yorkshire, 30 Apr 1837: MS n.l. [Shorter, ‘New Light on the Brontës’, BST:1:8:18]; Burials, Haworth.
46. BO, 20 July 1837 p.197.
47. PB to Mrs Taylor, 19 July 1837: MS RMP 746(c), WYAS, Calderdale [LRPB, 113].
48. [Benjamin Binns], BO, 17 Feb 1894 p.6.
49. Edward Harrison to Revd A Wilkes, 26 Nov 1879: MS BS ix, H, BPM [BST:12:63:203] quoting Mr Midgley; [Benjamin Binns], BO, 17 Feb 1894 p.6.
50. CB, ‘My Compliments to the weather’ [RHJ], [c.Mar 1837]: MS Bon 98(6) p.3, BPM [Glen, 459].
51. EJB/AB, Diary Paper, 26 June 1837: MS BS 105, BPM [JB BLL, 53–4].
52. Ibid.
53. This has not prevented attempts to do so, most notably by Ratchford, in both Gondal’s Queen and her introductions to C.W. Hatfield (ed.), The Complete Poems of Emily Jane Brontë (New York, 1941). While doing sterling detective work, Ratchford made a number of assumptions and presents the reconstruction as much more concrete than it actually is. Her work should be read in conjunction with W.D. Paden, An Investigation of Gondal (New York, 1958).
54. Rev. J. Goldsmith, A Grammar of General Geography (London, 1823); HAOBP:bb217, 170, 183, 159, 168, 187, 188, BPM [JB ST no.45].
55. See, for example, AB, ‘Fair was the evening and brightly the sun’, 1July 1837: MS n.l. transcript in Symington Colln, Texas, and ‘That wind is from the North, I know it well’, 26 Jan 1838: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.1–3, PM [Chitham, 52–9, 63–4]; EJB, ‘There shines the moon, at noon of night –’, 6 Mar 1837: MS Add 43483 pp.1–2, BL [Roper, 32–4].
56. EJB, ‘A sudden chasm of ghastly light’, 14 Oct 1837: MS n.l., and ‘Awake! Awake! how loud the stormy morning’, [Dec 1837], MS Bon 127 p.8, BPM [Roper, 42–3, 51]. Another, earlier battle is referred to in EJB, ‘The battle had passed from the height’, Aug 1837: MS Bon 127 p.21, BPM [Roper, 41–2].
57. EJB, ‘There shines the moon, at noon of night –’, 6Mar 1837: MS Add 43483 pp.1–2, BL [Roper, 33]. See also EJB, ‘O mother I am not regreting’, 14 Dec 1837: MS Bon 127 p.13, BPM [Roper, 47–9].
58. Though the diary paper clearly says ‘Agustus Almeda’ this appears to be a case of Emily’s slip-shod writing. Augusta Almeda, as ‘A.G.A.’, is author and subject of many of her poems including ‘There shines the moon, at noon of night –’, 6Mar 1837: MS Add 43483 pp.1–2, BL, ‘Lord of Elbë, on Elbë hill’, 19 Aug 1837: MS Bon 127 p.8, BPM and ‘O transient voyager of heaven!’, Dec 1837: MS in Berg [Roper, 32–4, 40, 49–50].
59. See, for example, AB, ‘That wind is from the North, I know it well’, 26 Jan 1838: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.1–3, PM [Chitham, 63–4]; EJB, ‘The linnet in the rocky dells’, 1 May 1844: MS Add 43483 p.45, BL [Roper, 152–3].
60. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV(l)], 30 Dec 1837: MS Bon 149(7) p.21, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 186].
61. Ibid.
62. CB, Tales of the Islanders, vol i, 30 June 1829: MS p.3, Berg [CA, i, 22]. Lists of Gondal names are to be found on EJB, ‘It was night and on the mountains’, [July 1843]: MS Bon 127 p.11, BPM; AB, ‘A prisoner in a dungeon deep’, [c.1844]: MS Bon 132, BPM; EJB, list of Gondal characters, n.d.: MS in Texas.
63. David Moir (1798–1851) contributed poems and ballads regularly to Blackwood’s Magazine between 1820 and 1844. Among his earliest published pieces are those most similar to Emily’s: see, for example, his ‘Hymn to the Moon’ which begins ‘How lovely is this silent scene!/ How beautiful, fair lamp of Night,/ On stirless woods, and lakes serene,/ Thou sheddest forth thy holy light;’ (BM, vi (1820), 681) and from ‘Ballad Stanzas’: ‘I ponder on the time, when ours/ It was in bliss to meet,/ When future years seem’d strewn with flowers,/ And grief itself grew sweet –/ When fondly, wildly, I press’d thy hand,/ And gazed in thine eyes of blue,/ Till Earth became an enchanted land,/ Which sorrow never knew …’ (ibid., xxiv (1828), 498). As well as celebrating Walter Scott’s home at Abbotsford, Delta wrote several poems about Douglas who became a Gondal character: see, for example, ‘Sonnets on the Scenery of the Tweed’, ibid. (1829), 185–6and ‘The Burial of Douglas’, ibid., xxv (1829), 105.
64. See, for example, AB, ‘Fair was the evening and brightly the sun’, 1July 1837: MS n.l. transcript in Symington Colln, Texas [Chitham, 52–9, 63–4]; EJB, ‘Now trust a breast that trusts in you’, Nov 1837: MS Bon 127 p.17, BPM [Roper, 45].
65. AB, ‘That wind is from the North, I know it well’, 26 Jan 1838: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.1–3, PM [Chitham, 63–4]; Emily wrote a similar poem in which Augusta Almeda finds comfort in the appearance of a wreath of snow while in prison: EJB, ‘O transient voyager of heaven!’, Dec 1837: MS in Berg [Roper, 49–50].
66. See, for example, above, pp.267.
67. EJB, ‘I’ll come when thou art sadest’, [Nov 1837]: MS Bon 127 p.7, BPM [Roper, 202]. Charlotte later declared that her imagination had been her saviour in the dark months after her sisters’ deaths: ‘I am thankful to God who gave me the faculty – and it is for me a part of my religion to defend this gift and to profit by its possession’: CB to WSW, 21 Sept 1849: MS Gr. F9 p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 261].
68. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV(g)], July–Sept 1837: MS Ashley 187 p.2r, BL [Neufeldt, iii, 133].
69. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV(j)], 31 Oct 1837: MSS Bon 150 p.2 and Bon 149 pp.7–8, 3–4, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 160–8].
70. Ibid. [Neufeldt, iii, 167]; PBB, ‘Cease, Mourner, cease thy sorrowing for the Dead’, c.31 Oct 1837: MS Bon 149(4), BPM [VN PBB, 459–60]. Branwell later revised the poem several times and published a version of it in BO, 12 May 1842 p.4 and HG, 14 May 1842 p.6.
71. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV(i)], 20 Oct 1837: MS Bon 149(5), BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 147].
72. Ibid. [Neufeldt, iii, 150].
73. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians IV(l)], 30 Dec 1837: MS Bon 149(7) p.21, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 187].
74. PBB, And the Weary are at Rest, n.d.: MS part in Berg, part at Princeton [Neufeldt, 420–66].
75. CB, [Julia], 29 June 1837: MS in Texas [WG FN, 87–121]. On 21 July Charlotte completed a second story beginning ‘A day or two ago, in clearing out an old rubbish drawer’, the ms of which is now lost: CA EW, 256.
76. VN CB, xxxviii.
77. CB, ‘My Compliments to the weather’ [RHJ], [Feb–Mar 1837]: MS Bon 98(6) pp.1–3, 6–7, BPM [Glen, 457–65].
78. The poem was originally 2separate pieces composed 3 days apart: CB, ‘The room is quiet thoughts alone’, 15 May 1837: MS Bon 94(1), BPM and ‘Tis not the air I wished to play’, 12 May 1837: MS Bon 98(1) p.4, BPM [VN CB, 446–9, 308–10]. In the second ms Charlotte altered ‘spirit to ‘spring’ and added an alternative last line ‘Beneath the strain of care’.
79. CB to EN, [4 Jan 1838]: MS Bon 163 pp.1–3, BPM [LCB, i, 173–4].
80. ECG, Life, 131. WG AB, 98 places the incident before June 1837 when she believed the school relocated from Roe Head but Edward Chitham and Tom Winnifrith, Brontë Facts and Brontë Problems (London, 1983), 32 argues convincingly that the move took place early in 1838. James La Trobe (see below, n.81) said his visits took place at Roe Head and Charlotte’s letter to Ellen describing the incident is postmarked 5 January 1838, so December 1837 seems to be the cor-rect date.
81. Scruton EN, 27 quotin
g James La Trobe, who was minister of the Moravian chapel at Well House, Mirfield (1836–41) and later became a bishop. His father was headmaster of Fulneck School at Pudsey, a Moravian establishment which is still active today, and also ran his own school at Well House for children of all religious denominations: Pobjoy, A History of Mirfield, 76; White, ii, 396–7.
82. Scruton EN, 27 quoting La Trobe.
83. WG AB, 28–39; EN, Reminiscences [LCB, i, 597].
84. Elizabeth Branwell attended Thornton Church when Patrick was minister there, was observed always going to and from Haworth church alone and requested burial next to her sister in the Brontë family vault there: Firth, 28 July 1816; Elizabeth Branwell, Last Will and Testament, 30 Apr 1833: copy in MSS Copy Docs., BPM [L&L, i, 276–7].
85. Scruton EN, 27 quoting La Trobe.
86. LCB, i, 109 n.6; CB to EN, 26 Sept 1837: MS Bon 161 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, i, 152].
87. CB to EN, 10 Nov 1834: MS MA 2696 R-V p.3, PM [LCB, i, 133].
88. CB to EN, 16 Feb 1850: MS BS Gr. E17 p.3, BPM [LCB, ii, 347]. John Firth Franks later said that ‘Aunt’ Atkinson told him ‘that Charlotte B had shocked all her friends by a novel called Jane Eyre, in which she had slandered Canon Carus Wilson’: John Firth Franks to George Moore Smith, n.d.: MS 58 Cvi, University of Sheffield.
89. See below, p.331. I am grateful to Margaret Smith for drawing my attention to Henry Nussey’s curacy at Dewsbury. The only exception to the hardliners in this area was William Margetson Heald, vicar of Birstall 1836–75, who took over the incumbency from his father of the same name. Heald snr, who had entered holy orders late, having first trained as a physician, retired in 1836 after a stroke and died in January 1837. Heald jnr, who was also Chaplain of Trinity College, Cambridge 1830–44, had been his father’s curate in Birstall 1826–9. Both were Cambridge graduates: Venn, iii, 309. Charlotte’s liking for Heald jnr is evident from his sympathetic portrayal as Revd Cyril Hall in Shirley – the only clergyman to emerge unscathed in the book.
90. CB to EN, 10 May 1836: MS HM 24411 p.3, Huntington [LCB, i, 144].