Brontës

by Juliet Barker

  91. CB to EN, [? Oct 1836]: MS HM 24383 p.3, Huntington [LCB, i, 153].

  92. CB to EN, 4July 1834: MS HM 24408 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 130]; CB to EN, 1Jan 1833: MS BS 40 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, i, 121] where Charlotte wrote ‘You very kindly caution me against being tempted by the fondness of my Sisters to consider myself of too much importance.’

  93. CB to EN, [Oct/Nov 1836]: MS HM 24413 pp.2–3, Huntington [LCB, i, 154]. See also CB to EN, 20 Feb 1837: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 164] where Charlotte ‘prayed fervently to be enabled to resign myself to every decree of God’s will’.

  94. CB to EN, 29 Dec 1836: MS BS 40.4 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 159].

  95. CB to EN, 20 Feb 1837: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 164].

  96. CB to EN, 5–6 Dec 1836: MS Bon 162 pp.2, 3, 2 crossed, BPM [LCB, i, 156]. The word ‘your’ was deleted by Ellen, which suggests to me that she was sensitive to the accusation that she had ever held Calvinist beliefs. There would have been no need to eradicate it if it had simply been a casual reference, meaning ‘the ones you have just mentioned’, as argued by Tom Winnifrith, ‘Charlotte Brontë and Calvinism’, Notes & Queries, new series, 17, 215 (Jan 1970), 17–18.

  97. PB to J.C. Franks, 10 Jan 1839: MS 188 p.1, BPM [LRPB, 118].

  98. Registers of All Saints’ Church, Dewsbury. Nussey’s journal suggests that he was worthy but rather dull and not very bright. Like his sister he seems to have been prone to much searching of his conscience and self-criticism. There are many passages of self-examination which are similar in tone and content to Charlotte’s outpourings of this time, though they are less vehemently expressed. This seems to me to confirm that he and his sister were partially responsible for Charlotte’s religious crisis. See Henry Nussey, Journal, 1830–2, 1838–9: MS Egerton 3268A, BL.

  99. CB to EN, [Oct/Nov 1836]: MS HM 24413 p.3, Huntington [LCB, i, 154].

  100. Scruton EN, 27 quoting La Trobe.

  101. AB to Revd David Thom, 30 Dec 1848: MS at Princeton. See below, pp.685.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: SLAVERY

  Title: referring to Emily’s teaching duties at Law Hill: ‘This is slavery.’: CB to EN, 2 Oct 1838: MS BS 40.3 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, i, 182].

  1. CB, [Mina Laury II], 17 Jan 1838: MS p.14, Princeton [WG FN, 143].

  2. CB, [Return of Zamorna], c.24 Dec 1836–Jan 1837: MS in Law [M&U, ii, 282–314]. Though Mary Percy is now alive again, the story is not a reversion to earlier times but is set in contemporary Angria and takes into account, for instance, Northangerland’s dying state introduced in Branwell’s latest mss.

  3. CB, ‘There’s no use in weeping’, 29 Jan 1838: MS Bon 113(10), BPM [VN CB, 477–9].

  4. BO, 2Nov 1837 p.317; 25 Jan 1838 p.9.

  5. CB to EN, [5 May 1838]: MS Bon 164 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 177].

  6. ECG, Life, 131 n. Gaskell removed this phrase in her third edition of 1857.

  7. CB to EN, [5May 1838]: MS Bon 164 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 177].

  8. CB to MW, [Nov/Dec 1846]: MS FM 3 p.2., Fitzwilliam [LCB, i, 505]. Charlotte later made strenuous efforts to help a friend who was suffering from ‘religious hypochondria’: Margaret Smith, ‘The Letters of Charlotte Brontë: Some New Insights into her Life and Writing’, BST Brontë Society – Gaskell Society Joint Conference 1990: Conference Papers (Keighley, 1991), 59. Several of Charlotte’s fictional characters suffered from hypochondria. See, for example, Lucy Snowe during the Long Vacation in CB, Villette, 196–8.

  9. CB to EN, 9 June 1838: MS BS 40.45 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 178–9].

  10. Walter Scott, The Vision of Don Roderick; Rokeby (Edinburgh, 1811–13) inscribed by Margaret Wooler on flyleaf ‘Presented to Miss Brontë with the Love and best wishes of a sincere friend – Heald’s House. May 23rd. 1838 –’. The book had evidently been a gift to Miss Wooler as the flyleaf has been glued to another page on which is written ‘Decr 18[21? or 31?] Presented to Miss Wooler as a token of respect from A Friend’: HAOBP:bb214, BPM.

  11. CB to EN, 9June 1838: MS BS 40.45 pp.3–4, BPM [LCB, i, 179].

  12. Ibid., pp.2–3[LCB, i, 179].

  13. AB, ‘Methought I saw him but I knew him not’, 24 Jan 1838, and ‘That wind is from the North, I know it well’, 26 Jan 1838 [MS MA 2696 R-V, pp.3–5, 1–3, PM [Chitham, 62, 63–4]; EJB, ‘Weaned from life and torn away’ and ‘Iernës eyes were glazed and dim’, Feb 1838: MSS in Berg [Roper, 52, 214]; EJB, ‘But the hearts that once adored me’, [Feb 1838]: MS in Texas [Roper, 219]; EJB, fragmentary translations of Aeneid and notes on Greek tragedy’, 13 Mar 1838: MSS at KSC.

  14. PBB, THE LIFE OF WARNER HOWARD WARNER ESQR, Feb 1838: MS Bon 152(1) p.2, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 209].

  15. See below, p.566. There is a memorial to Haworth Currer (1690–1744) in St Andrew’s Church, Kildwick, some 9miles from Haworth, between Keighley and Skipton, from which Branwell may have taken the name.

  16. PBB, a continuation of THE LIFE OF WARNER HOWARD WARNER ESQR, 8 Mar 1838: MS Bon 152(1) p.7, BPM [Neufeldt, iii, 213–4].

  17. CB, [Stancliffe’s Hotel], 28 June 1838: MS Bon 14 pp.3, 4–5, BPM [Glen, 71–4].

  18. Gaskell, thinking Charlotte’s description of taking opium in Villette, 562ff had to be drawn from personal experience, was surprised when Charlotte denied ever having knowingly taken the drug and said she had merely imagined its effects: ECG, Life, 441. The Villette experience, incidentally, leads to a heightened awareness and almost com-pulsive physical activity which is totally at odds with this description. CA EW, 173 argues that Charlotte was drawing on Branwell’s experience of the drug, having been introduced to it by his artist friends in Bradford as a comforter for his ‘little success and little money’ as a portrait painter there. This is not possible as Branwell did not even go to Bradford till July: see below, p.340. See also below, p.366 for Branwell’s taking opium for medicinal puposes.

  19. CB, [The Duke of Zamora], 21 July 1838: MS in Law [Glen, 161–3].

  20. PB to John Driver Esq., 23 Feb 1838: MS BS 185.5, BPM [JB BLL, 57–8].

  21. Haworth Church Hymnsheets for after-noon and evening services, 22 July 1838: MS BS x, H, BPM. William Hodgson, Patrick’s former curate, gave the evening sermon for the same cause. Branwell dated the first draft of one of his best and longest poems, Sir Henry Tunstall, ‘Bradford, July 31st 1838’: PBB, ‘Tis only Afternoon, yet mid-nights gloom’, 31 July 1838: MS Ashley 176, BL [VN PBB, 463–73]. The MS binding attributes the poem to Emily, a mistake followed by WG EB, 84 who believed Emily had transcribed the poem for Branwell; it is clear from the hand that Branwell wrote and transcribed it himself.

  22. BO, 2 Jan 1340 p.2; 2June 1836 p.140. Kirby was a wholesaler of beer, not a beer-seller which was then the poorest form of public-house. One of his little daughters became a particular favourite of Branwell’s and, at his request, was allowed to dine with him in his private sitting-room: Leyland, i, 175.

  23. PBB, portraits in oils of Mr and Mrs Kirby and Margaret Hartley, n.d.: HAOBP:P.Br B23, B24 and B25, BPM [A&S nos.257, 258 and 254]. The portraits of Morgan and Heap, mentioned by Leyland, i, 175 are lost. A watercolour portrait of Morgan inscribed on the reverse by Patrick ‘Portrait, of the Revd Wm Morgan – Price 10s.6d– By a profess’d Artist’ is HAOBP:P.Br. B12, BPM. The painting is attributed to Branwell but stylistically is unlike any of his other por-traits, all of which are in oils. Morgan also appears to be quite a young man, suggesting it may date from the Wellington period rather than the 1830s when he was already in his 50s.

  24. CB to EN, 24 Aug [1838]: MS HM 24415 pp.1–2, Huntington [LCB, i, 180].

  25. Ibid., p.3[LCB, i, 181]; BO, 9 Aug 1838 p.3; 23 Aug 1838 p.3. Richard Oastler and Fergus O’Connor addressed the protest rally. Eighteen months after writing this letter, Charlotte received shocking news: ‘Anne C[ook], it seems, is dead; when I saw her last, she was a young, beautiful, and happy girl; and now “life’s fitful fever” is over with her, and she “sleeps well.” I shall never see her again. It is a sorrowful thought; for she was a warm-hearted, affectionate being, and I cared for her. Wherever I see
k for her now in this world, she cannot be found, no more than a flower or a leaf, which withered twenty years ago. A bereavement of this kind gives one a glimpse of the feeling those must have, who have seen all drop round them – friend after friend – and are left to end their pilgrimage alone. But tears are fruitless, and I try not to repine.’: CB to EN, 12 Jan 1840: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 208].

  26. HG, 20 Oct 1838 p.3reviewed the concert in glowing terms: ‘The best description which could be given of the band, taking it as a whole, is that their performances are as those of one man and that man a Thalberg or a Paganini!’ Strauss and his orchestra later gave a grand concert in the New Assembly Rooms which was also rapturously received: ibid., 20 Oct 1838 p.2; 27 Oct 1838 p.3. Law Hill was built in the 1770s by Jack Sharp who had been adopted by his uncle and attempted the ruin and degradation of any member of the family who opposed him. The story may have influenced Emily’s novel but the identification of High Sunderland Hall, near Law Hill, as the ‘original’ of Wuthering Heights because it had a similar carved gateway, ignores the other features of the hall which do not accord with the fictional farm. The idea that the half-timbered Shibden Hall, in the valley below, is the model for Thrushcross Grange is even more ludicrous. The links were suggested as early as 1893 by Thomas Keyworth (see below n.27), were vocifer-ously championed by the Halifax authoress, Phyllis Bentley, in her many books of the Brontës and still have advocates in WG EB, 75–80; Chitham, A Life of Emily Brontë, 104–9, 113, 119–21.

  27. Thomas Keyworth, ‘A New Identification of Wuthering Heights’, The Bookman (Mar 1893), 183; White, i, 407; White, Directory of the … West Riding of Yorkshire (1843), 441. WG EB, 71–2believed that it was the Brooke connection which secured Emily the post but she mistakenly thought that Emily went to Law Hill in September 1837 when Maria Patchett got married. She also suggested that there was a possible contact through Branwell who, according to Leyland, i, 154 (who was himself following the notoriously unreliable Grundy, 76), was an usher in a Halifax school in autumn 1837. This is intrinsically unlikely. Ushers were extremely ill-paid, low-grade, unqualified teachers: socially and academically such a post was far beneath Branwell’s notice and in any case, he was then looking for a ‘respectable situation’: see above, p.399. The likeliest reason for Emily’s getting the post was that, like Jane Eyre, she answered an advertisement in a local newspaper such as ‘WANTED, in a Ladies’ Boarding School, a YOUNG FEMALE as TEACHER, competent to assist in all the useful branches of Education. None need apply but such as are decidedly pious, & can give satisfactory references. Letters (Post-paid) to Y.Z. Mr Hartley’s, Stationer, Halifax.’: LM, 11 Aug 1838 p.5.

  28. Chadwick, 124, 127, 128; Keyworth, ‘A New Identification of Wuthering Heights’, 183.

  29. CB to EN, 2 Oct [1838]: MS BS 40.3 pp.2–3, BPM [LCB, i, 182]. Charlotte care-lessly dated the letter 1836 but it is postmarked ‘Oct. 61838’: Jennifer A. Cox, ‘Emily at Law Hill, 1838: Corroborative Evidence’, BST:18:94:267–70. See also Chitham and Winnifrith, Brontë Facts and Brontë Problems, 28–9.

  30. Census Returns for Southowram, 1841: Microfilm, Halifax; Chadwick, 126. Miss Patchett is described as ‘schoolmistress’; the 2teachers in 1841 were Charlotte Hartley (30) and Jane Aspden (25). One male and 3 female servants also lived in the house which was a working farm.

  31. Chadwick, 123–4 quoting a former pupil, Mrs Watkinson of Huddersfield.

  32. EJB, ‘Light up thy halls! ‘Tis closing day;’, 1 Nov 1838: MS Add 43483 pp.24–6, BL [Roper, 64–6].

  33. EJB, ‘A little while, a little while’, 4Dec 1838: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems, 1934, 303–4; Roper, 69–70]. When Charlotte published this poem she made some emendations which I have not included in my transcript.

  34. EJB, ‘Loud without the wind was roaring’, 11 Nov 1838: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems, 1934, 302; Roper, 68]. Though the sentiments might seem appropriately autobiographical for Emily at Law Hill, the references at the end to ‘the loved and the loving’ meeting ‘on the mountain’ again suggest a Gondal setting.

  35. EJB, ‘The bluebell is the sweetest flower’, 18 Dec 1838: MS in Law [facsimile in Poems, 1934, 305–6; Roper, 71–2]. It is clear from Emily’s description of the ‘slight and stately stem,/ The blossom’s silvery blue’ that she meant a harebell, which flowers in July–September around Haworth, rather than the bluebell, with its rows of dark blue, bell-shaped flowers growing off a single coarse stem, which is a spring flower. Interestingly, though Emily later correctly referred to it as a harebell in her evocative description of the graves of Edgar, Cathy and Heathcliff at the end of Wuthering Heights, 338, Anne also called it a bluebell in her poem ‘A fine and subtle spirit dwells’, 22 Aug 1840: MS 2696 R-V pp.15–18, PM [JB SP, 84–5, 133–4].

  36. LI, 28 July 1838 p.8. For the vestry meeting at which the church rate was adjourned then defeated in a poll see: BO, 5 Apr 1838 p.3, 12 Apr 1838 p.3. It is probable that this rate was levied for Bradford rather than Haworth: after the meeting a deputation from Haworth called on the vicar, Henry Heap, and offered to match by voluntary subscription the largest sum he had ever received as dues from the chapelry: ibid. For the other prosecutions see ibid., 1Nov 1838 p.3; 25 Nov 1838 p.3.

  37. PB to John Milligan, 9Oct 1838: MS BS 187, BPM [LRPB, 117]. Milligan was apprenticed to the Keighley surgeon Mr Mitchell, when he won a prize presented in 1831 by the Keighley Mechanics’ Institute for an essay on ‘Cleanliness, Temperance and Moral Improvement, as conducive to happiness’: LM, 9Apr 1831 p.3. One of the first to recognize the appalling state of sanitary conditions in large towns he instigated an investigation into Keighley’s public health and won the gold medal of the Medical Society of London for his essay ‘On the Influence of Civilisation on Health and Disease’: BO, 7 Aug 1845 p.7; 25 Mar 1847 p.8; 22 Feb 1849 p.8.

  38. PB to James Clarke Franks, 10 Jan 1839: MS BS 188 pp.1–2, BPM [LRPB, 118].

  39. BO, 24 Jan 1839 p.2. Heap was only 49; he died the same day as his youngest daughter, Anna Maria, aged 7, and they had a joint funeral: LI, 19 Jan 1839 p.8. Like Patrick, Heap had been a sizar at St John’s College, Cambridge, though he matriculated in 1814, 8 years after Patrick left: Venn, iii, 310.

  40. LI, 14 Feb 1839 p.2. It was even announced that after the death of ‘the present incumbent’ of Haworth, it was expected that the chapelry would be sub-divided into 2separate district parishes, Haworth-cum-Stanbury and Oxenhope-cum-Near Oxenhope: LM, 6 Apr 1839 p.5; 21 Feb 1839 p.2; HG, 23 Feb 1839 p.3. Wilson shared the hard-line attitude towards church rates and dues of the eventual appointee, Dr Scoresby, dismissing ‘poor Heap’ as ‘a cipher … in all his doings’: William Carus Wilson to Dr Scoresby, 11 May 1840: MS in unsorted bundle, 1840, Whitby.

  41. CB to EN, 24 Aug [1838]: MS HM 24415 p.4, Huntington [LCB, i, 181].

  42. Ibid., pp.1–2[LCB, i, 180].

  43. CB to EN, 20 Jan 1839: MS BS 40.5 pp.1–2, 3, BPM [LCB, i, 184].

  44. Ibid., p.2[LCB, i, 184].

  45. CB, [Henry Hastings], 24 Feb–26 Mar 1839: MS in Widener Coll, Harvard [WG FN, 177–270]. The second volume of this ms is missing; only the first and third are preserved at Harvard. There is no evidence for Gérin’s repeated assertion (ibid., 173–5) that Hastings is a portrait of a debauched Branwell now being loyally supported by his loving sister.

  46. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians V(c)], 15 Dec 1838–Apr 1839: MS MA 2696 R-V, PM [Neufeldt, iii, 246ff, esp 246–59]. Several sections appear to be missing from this ms though each chapter is obviously part of the same story. Those relating Hastings’ assas-sination attempt were all written before 21 February and therefore just predate Charlotte’s third volume which is concerned with its aftermath.

  47. CB, [Henry Hastings], 24 Feb–26 Mar 1839: MS in Widener Coll, Harvard [Glen, 239, 207]. Elizabeth Hastings’ name may have been suggested to Charlotte by a tablet erected in 1745 in Mirfield Church where she attended Revd Edward Carter’s services. The plaque, which is still on the wall of the old church’s ruined tower, records
a list of ‘Pious and Charitable Benefactors’ including Lady Elizabeth Hastings (1682–1739), a well-known north-ern philanthropist who founded scholarships to Bradford Grammar School and Queen’s College, Oxford: she left £2 for a monthly sacrament at Mirfield.

  48. Ibid., 263.

  49. Ibid., 287–8.

  50. Ibid., 288.

  51. Ibid., 304–5.

  52. Henry Nussey, Journal, 26 Feb 1839: MS Egerton 3268A p.62, BL [LCB, i, 186 n.1].

  53. CB to EN, 12 Mar 1839: MS Gr. E2 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 187]. Nussey, like many cler-gymen, supplemented his income by taking pupils.

  54. CB to EN, 26 Sept 1836: MS Bon 161 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 152].

  55. CB to EN, 12 Mar 1839: MS Gr. E2 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 187].

  56. CB to Henry Nussey, 5 Mar 1839: MS in private hands [LCB, i, 185]. I am grateful to William Self for permission to quote from this ms and to Margaret Smith for allowing me to use her transcript.

  57. CB to EN, 12 Mar 1839: MS Gr. E2 p.3, BPM [LCB, i, 187].

  58. Henry Nussey, Journal, 9 Mar 1839: MS Egerton 3268A p.64v, BL [LCB, i, 186 n.1]. Like his fictional counterpart, Nussey also had plans to be a missionary which Charlotte rather unkindly mocked: CB to EN, [?late June 1843]: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.2–3, PM [LCB, i, 325].

  59. PBB, [Angria and the Angrians V(d)], 21–23 Feb 1839 [Neufeldt, iii, 259–70]. This chapter follows one begun on 4 February but there is no indication whether this was written in Haworth or Bradford.

  60. R. Bentley (ed.), Q. Horatius Flaccus … opera (Amsterdam, 1728): HAOBP:bb208 pp.112, 143, BPM. See below, p.388.

  61. PBB to J.H. Thompson, 17 May 1839: MS BS 136 p.1, BPM [Leyland, i, 176].

  62. Leyland, ii, 175; White, Directory of the …West Riding of Yorkshire (1843), 459. The list ranged from eminent artists such as Wilson Anderson to ‘house-and sign-painters’ but many portrait painters, including the Brontës’ tutor John Bradley (A&S, 23), did this as a side-line.

  63. LM, 1 Sept 1838 pp.4, 5; 27 Oct 1838 p.4; LI, 1Sept 1838 pp.5, 8.