Delphi Complete Works of the Brontes

by Bronte Sisters

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 Château 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 Brontë 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 Héger wrote to console Mr. Brontë 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 à la fois un reste d’ignorance et un reste plus gênant encore de timidité.’ Charlotte was beginning to give French lessons, and to gain ‘cette assurance, cet aplomb si nécessaire dans l’enseignement.’ It was this kind letter from Monsieur Héger that afterwards induced Mr. Brontë to allow Charlotte to return to Brussels.

  CHAPTER II.

  OTHER POEMS.

  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.

  During the absence of his sisters Charlotte and Emily in Brussels, and while Anne was away as a governess, Branwell no doubt felt lonely at the parsonage at Haworth; but he appears to have sought consolation from his troubles in the soothing influences of music and poetry. He knew that these employments softened many of the difficulties that beset the road of human life, and that they introduced men into a purer and nobler sphere than that which is called reality. He felt that they led ‘the spirit on, in an ecstasy of admiration, of sweet sorrow, or of unearthly joy, to the music of harmonious, and not wholly intelligible words, raising in the mind beauteous and transcendent images.’ Whatever may have been said as to Branwell’s proneness to self-indulgence, and his enjoyment of society, even that of ‘The Bull,’ and of the corrupt of Haworth, none of his alleged depravity and coarseness of disposition disfigured his verses, however deficient his early effusions may have been in the higher excellencies of the Muse. From the general tenor of his writings, which is religious and sometimes philosophical, he seems, under his misfortunes, which were ever with him in one shape or another, to have sought consolation in the shadowed paths of poetry and reflection.

  Some lights now and then diversify the general gloom of his stanzas; but, even then, an air of sadness still pervades them. More I shall find to say on the special features of Branwell’s poems in the later pages of the present work.

  He wrote the following verses in 1842:

  THE EPICUREAN’S SONG.

  ‘The visits of Sorrow

  Say, why should we mourn?

  Since the sun of to-morrow

  May shine on its urn;

  And all that we think such pain

  Will have departed, — then

  Bear for a moment what cannot return;

  ‘For past time has taken

  Each hour that it gave,

  And they never awaken

  From yesterday’s grave;

  So surely we may defy

  Shadows, like memory,

  Feeble and fleeting as midsummer wave.

  ‘From the depths where they’re falling

  Nor pleasure, nor pain,

  Despite our recalling,

  Can reach us again;

  Though we brood over them,

  Nought can recover them,

  Where they are laid, they must ever remain.

  ‘So seize we the present,

  And gather its flowers,

  For, — mournful or pleasant, —

  ‘Tis all that is ours;

  While daylight we’re wasting,

  The evening is hasting,

  And night follows fast on vanishing hours.

  ‘Yes, — and we, when night comes,

  Whatever betide,

  Must die as our fate dooms,

  And sleep by their side;

  For change is the only thing

  Always continuing;

  And it sweeps creation away with its tide.’

  Here Branwell, writing, contrary to his custom, in a gay mood, forgets the failures of the past, diverting his mind from them by seeking serenity in the diversions which now and then lighten his path. He is perfectly conscious of the fleeting nature of earthly things; and, with that natural and felicitous faculty of versification with which his images and figures are invariably described, he invests the Epicurean with the hopes of the Optimist, or with the indifference of the Stoic to the shadows which ever and anon dim the pleasures of human existence. There is nothing assuredly in this lyric of the ‘pulpit twang,’ to which Miss Robinson refers, nor is it a ‘weak and characterless effusion.’

  To the year 1842 belongs the following song which in feeling reminds one of Burns’ ‘Auld Lang Syne.’ The subject, however, is distinct, and is pervaded by a profound sentiment of enduring affection, and is expressive of the deepest feeling in reference to it.

  SONG.

  ‘Should life’s first feelings be forgot,

  As Time leaves years behind?

  Should man’s for ever changing lot

  Work changes in the mind?

  ‘Should space, that severs heart from heart,

  The heart’s best thoughts destroy?

  Should years, that bid our youth depart,

  Bid youthful memories die?

  ‘Oh! say not that these coming years

  Will warmer friendships bring;

  For friendship’s joys, and hopes, and fears,

  From deeper fountains spring.

  ‘Its feelings to the heart belong;

  Its sign — the glistening eye,

  While new affections on the tongue,

  Arise and live and die.

  ‘So, passing crowds may smiles awake

  The passing hour to cheer;

  But only old acquaintance’ sake

  Can ever form a tear.’

  Leyland was himself a poet, as I have said, and a literary critic of ability and judgment. Branwell submitted some poems to him for opinion, and he advised his friend to publish them with his name appended, rather than under the pseudonym of ‘Northangerland,’ for he considered them creditable to his genius. But Branwell, on July 12th, 1842, writing to Leyland, asking some technical questions, says, in a postscript, ‘Northangerland has so long wrought on in secret and silence that he dare not take your kind encouragement in the light which vanity would prompt him to do.’

  On August 10th, 1842, he wrote to Leyland in reference to a monument, which that sculptor had recently put up at Haworth, and he concluded by saying:

  ‘When you see Mr. Constable — to whom I shall write directly, — be kind enough to tell him that — owing to my absence from home when it arrived, and to the carelessness of those who neglected to give it me on my return, — I have only now received his note. Its injunctions shall be gladly attended to; but he would better please me by refraining from any slurs on the fair fame of Charles Freeman or Benjamin Caunt, Esquires.’

  Branwell did not lose his early interest in the ‘noble science,’ but continued it with a half-serious constancy. Constable and Leyland regarded the pugilistic encoun
ters of the ‘Ring’ as brutal and degrading, but Branwell always professed to defend its champions with energy and zeal; and in this letter he playfully alludes to two of them. Among his literary labours of the year 1842 is the following poem. It is entitled:

  NOAH’S WARNING OVER METHUSALEH’S GRAVE.

  ‘Brothers and men! one moment stay

  Beside your latest patriarch’s grave,

  While God’s just vengeance yet delay,

  While God’s blest mercy yet can save.

  ‘Will you compel my tongue to say,

  That underneath this nameless sod

  Your hands, with mine, have laid to-day

  The last on earth who walked with God?

  ‘Shall the pale corpse, whose hoary hairs

  Are just surrendered to decay,

  Dissolve the chain which bound our years

  To hundred ages passed away?

  ‘Shall six-score years of warnings dread

  Die like a whisper on the wind?

  Shall the dark doom above your head,

  Its blinded victims darker find?

  ‘Shall storms from heaven without the world,

  Find wilder storms from hell within?

  Shall long-stored, late-come wrath be hurled;

  Or, — will you, can you turn from sin?

  ‘Have patience, if too plain I speak,

  For time, my sons, is hastening by;

  Forgive me if my accents break:

  Shall I be saved and Nature die?

  ‘Forgive that pause: — one look to Heaven

  Too plainly tells me, he is gone,

  Who long with me in vain had striven

  For earth and for its peace alone.

  ‘He’s gone! — my Father — full of days, —

  From life which left no joy for him;

  Born in creation’s earliest blaze;

  Dying — himself, its latest beam.

  ‘But he is gone! and, oh, behold,

  Shown in his death, God’s latest sign!

  Than which more plainly never told

  An Angel’s presence His design.

  ‘By it, the evening beams withdrawn

  Before a starless night descend;

  By it, the last blest spirit born

  From this beginning of an end;

  ‘By all the strife of civil war

  That beams within yon fated town;

  By all the heart’s worst passions there,

  That call so loud for vengeance down;

  ‘By that vast wall of cloudy gloom,

  Piled boding round the firmament;

  By all its presages of doom,

  Children of men — Repent! Repent!’

  This poem has also the impress of sadness, but the onward sweep and dignity of its verse are not ruffled by the turbulent undercurrents of Branwell’s mood. The idea of the piece is well borne out in majestic and suitable language, though some instances of that incoherence and indefiniteness which, at intervals, distinguish the earlier poems of his sisters, may be noticed in it.

  In the latter part of the year 1842 the state of Miss Branwell’s health became a cause of anxiety to the Brontë family. Acquainted as they had been, in years gone by, with sickness and death, they sorrowed, in anticipation of the inevitable loss of the lady, who had been for long years as a mother to them. Under the shadow which spread over their home, Branwell wrote to his friend — Mr. Grundy — referring to it, saying that he was attending the death-bed of his aunt who had been for twenty years as his mother. In another letter to Mr. Grundy, of the 29th of October, Branwell thus alludes in affectionate terms to her death:

  ‘I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two nights witnessing such agonizing suffering as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure; and I have now lost the pride and director of all the happy days connected with my childhood. I have suffered such sorrow since I last saw you at Haworth, that I should not now care if I were fighting in India or — — , since, when the mind is depressed, danger is the most effectual cure. But you don’t like croaking, I know well, only I request you to understand from my two notes that I have not forgotten you, but myself.’

  Charlotte and Emily hurried home from Brussels on the death of their aunt, as is stated in the last chapter, to find her already interred.

  Mrs. Gaskell, alluding to the death of Miss Branwell, has given the following version of that lady’s will. She says:

  ‘The small property which she (Miss Branwell) had accumulated, by dint of personal frugality and self-denial, was bequeathed to her nieces. Branwell, her darling, was to have had his share; but his reckless expenditure had distressed the good old lady, and his name was omitted in her will.’

  Miss Robinson, implicitly, and without reflection, following this author, says:

  ‘Miss Branwell’s will had to be made known. The little property that she had saved out of her frugal income was all left to her three nieces. Branwell had been her darling, the only son, called by her name; but his disgrace had wounded her too deeply. He was not even mentioned in her will.’

  Miss Elizabeth Branwell had made her will in the year 1833 (when her nephew was about fifteen years of age), by which she left the following items to the children of Mr. Brontë: —

  To Charlotte, an Indian Workbox.

  To Emily Jane, a Workbox with China top, and an Ivory Fan.

  To Branwell, a Japanese Dressing-case.

  To Anne, her Watch, Eye Glass, and Chain.

  Amongst these three nieces, her rings, silver spoons, books, clothes, &c., were to be divided as their father should think proper. Her money, arising from various sources, she left in trust for the benefit of her nieces, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, and Elizabeth Jane, the daughter of her sister, Jane Kingston, to be equally divided among them, when the youngest should have attained the age of twenty-one years. But, if these died, all was to go to her niece, Anne Kingston, and if she died, the accumulated money was to be divided between the children of her ‘dear brother and sisters.’ Had Branwell, who was one of these ‘children,’ survived his own sisters, and the cousin referred to in the will, he would have been one, if not the sole, recipient of the accumulated money in question. This contingency was present to Miss Branwell’s mind when she made the bequest, and it was never either altered or revoked.

  It is amazing that so much ignorance should have been displayed on a subject so easily capable of being correctly stated; but it is lamentable that this ignorance should have led the biographers of the Brontës, by erroneous statements, to inflict additional and unmerited injury on Branwell.

  CHAPTER III.

  A MISPLACED ATTACHMENT.

  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.

  The death of Miss Branwell had brought Charlotte and Emily home from Brussels; and Anne, from her situation, was present on the sad occasion. When the Christmas holidays came round, the sisters were all at home again. Branwell was with them; which was always a pleasure at that time, and Charlotte’s friend, ‘E,’ came to see her. Having overcome the first pang of grief on the death of their aunt, they enjoyed their Christmas very much together. Branwell was cheerful and even merry; and in Charlotte’s next letter, written in a happy mood to her friend, who had just left them, he sent a playful message. ‘Branwell wants to know,’ says Charlotte, ‘why you carefully excluded all mention of him, when you particularly send your regards to every other member of the family. He desires to know in what he has offended you? Or whether it is considered improper for a young lady to mention the gentlemen of a house?’ While they were together, plans for the future were ta
lked over with eagerness and hope. Charlotte had accepted the proposal of Monsieur Héger that she should return to Brussels for another year, when she would have completed her knowledge of French and be fully qualified to commence a school on a footing which was yet impossible. Emily was to remain at home now to attend to her father’s house, and Anne was to return to her situation as governess.

  Branwell also found occupation as tutor in the same family where Anne had been for some time employed. He commenced his duties, in his new position, after the Christmas holidays of the year 1842. On his arrival at the house of his employer, he was introduced to the members of the family; and it is not too much to say that his new friends were more than satisfied with his graceful manners, his wit, and the extent of his information. Here Branwell felt himself happy; for, contrary to his expectation, he had found, to his mind, a pleasant pasture, with comparative ease, where he had only looked for the usual drudgery of a tutor’s work. His family were contented that he was thus respectably and hopefully employed. The gentleman, who had engaged Branwell as tutor to his son, was a man of some literary attainments; he was fond of rural sports, and had an urbane disposition, and quick perceptions. His wife was a lady of lofty bearing, of graceful manners, and kindly condescension; and, although approaching middle age at the time, was possessed of great personal attractions.

  If the Brontës were glad at Branwell’s appointment, the family he had entered were equally gratified that they had obtained a teacher whose talents they considered to be equalled only by his virtues. The time of his master, who was a clergyman, was often taken up with the duties and engagements of his position, and his lady was generally occupied with the cares of home and the enjoyments of fashionable country life. Branwell was not, therefore, too much harassed in the discharge of his duties; and he found, in the family in which he was placed, none of the rigid formality which might have rendered his position irksome. His occupation was varied by many rambles in the neighbourhood with his pupil; and, in the evening, after the duties of the day were discharged, when he retired to the farmstead where he lived, his time was entirely at his own disposal.