href="@public@vhost@g@gutenberg@html@files@37844@[email protected]#XIII" class="pginternal" tag="{http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml}a">CHAPTER XIII.

Branwell's Poetical Work‌—‌Sketch of the Materials which he intended to use in the Poem of 'Morley Hall'‌—‌The Poem‌—‌The Subject left Incomplete‌—‌Branwell's Poem, 'The End of All'‌—‌His Letter to Leyland asking an Opinion on his Poem, 'Percy Hall' ‌—‌Observations‌—‌The Poem 242 CHAPTER XIV. Charlotte Corresponds on Literary Subjects‌—‌Novels‌—‌Confession of Authorship‌—‌Branwell's Failing Health‌—‌He Writes to Leyland ‌—‌Branwell and Mr. George Searle Phillips‌—‌Branwell's Intellect Retains its Power‌—‌His Description of 'Professor Leonidas Lyon'‌—‌The latter Gentleman's Account of his Reading of 'Jane Eyre'‌—‌Branwell's Remarks on Charlotte and the Work 264 CHAPTER XV. Branwell's failing Health‌—‌Chronic Bronchitis and Marasmus‌—‌His Death‌—‌Charlotte's allusions to it‌—‌Correction of some Statements relating to it‌—‌Summary of the subsequent History of the Brontë Family 277 CHAPTER XVI. Branwell's Character in his Poetry‌—‌The Pious and Tender Tone of Mind which it Displays‌—‌Branwell's Tendency to Dwell on the Past rather than on the Future‌—‌Illustrated‌—‌The Sad Tone of his Mind‌—‌He is Inclined to be Morbid‌—‌The Way in which Branwell regarded Nature‌—‌Observations on the Character Displayed in his Works 287

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THE BRONTË FAMILY.

 

CHAPTER I.

CHARLOTTE AND EMILY IN BRUSSELS.

The Sojourn in Brussels Resolved upon‌—‌Why Charlotte fixed on Brussels for Higher Education‌—‌Charlotte and Emily take up their Residence with Madame Héger‌—‌A Picture of the Prospect in 'Villette' ‌—‌At the Pensionnat‌—‌Madame Héger‌—‌Monsieur Héger‌—‌Charlotte likes Brussels‌—‌Her Contrast between the Belgians and the English‌—‌Death of Miss Branwell‌—‌Return to Haworth.

It was more than a month before Charlotte received the reply from her Aunt Branwell. Meanwhile she had waited patiently, pending the anxious discussions at the parsonage, and she breathed not a single word of the great project to her friend. It was her way to work in obscurity, and to let her efforts 'be known by their results.' But at last, as I have said, consent was given to her plan; the necessary money was forthcoming; and it only remained for her to make the arrangements for her journey, and Emily had arrangements to make also. There was much of letter-writing to do, letters to Brussels—whither Charlotte would of all cities prefer to go,—and to many other places; and there were clothes to make, and farewells to be said.

It was a great disappointment to Charlotte,—when, having left her situation at Christmas, 1841, she came to Haworth to join the family circle,—that Branwell could not be there, and it troubled him very much too. But the plans were talked over, the letters were written, and Charlotte did not repent her boldness,—nay, she looked forward confidently to the venture. It seems a strange ambitious plan to us, and one showing little knowledge of the world, this of spending six months in Brussels, in that short time to become thoroughly acquainted with French, to be improved in Italian, and get a dash of German; and, so provided with accomplishments, to set up a successful school at Burlington,—for the Dewsbury Moor project had already been relinquished.

Brussels was fixed upon by Charlotte for several reasons: because it was a cheap journey, because education could be had there at any rate as good as at any other place in Europe, and perhaps better; and then, Mary and Martha T——, her friends, were staying at Brussels at the Château de Kokleberg, and Mary, with Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the English chaplain, would find the desired pensionnat. But there was a temporary disappointment: it was reported that the schools in Brussels were not good; and Charlotte immediately set to work to discover another establishment, which was found at Lille—one that Baptist Noel recommended, where the terms were £50 for each pupil. It had been at last arranged that Charlotte and Emily should journey to this place, about the middle of February, 1842, under the escort of Madame Marzials, a lady then in London, when again the plans were changed. Mrs. Jenkins, the chaplain's wife, had discovered, to Charlotte's great delight, the establishment of Madame Héger in the Rue d'Isabelle, at Brussels, which was greatly eulogized, and thither it was finally decided that the two sisters could go.

Charlotte went to Brussels with a stout heart and in perfect confidence, and she left no regrets behind her; but it was not so with Emily. The elder sister was cast in a different mould from the younger; there was a spice of adventure in her composition, and the pleasure, too, of seeing new places was keen. It had been said to her by some inward voice, as to Lucy Snowe, who is the truest portrait of Charlotte, 'Leave this wilderness, and go out hence;' and she answered the query, 'Where?' with a sharp determination; and went out to enter into the spirit of the things she met, wherever her mental constitution would enable her to do so. 'For background,' she says of her journey in 'Villette,' 'spread a sky, solemn and dark blue, and—grand with imperial promise, with tints of enchantment—strode from north to south a God-bent bow, an arch of hope:' but that was to be struck out. 'Cancel that, reader—or rather let it stand, and draw thence a moral—an alliterative, text-hand copy:

'"Day-dreams are delusions of the demon."'

So was Charlotte to be disillusioned. But what a fairyland had she fashioned to herself of that gay Belgian capital, and what painful memories she brought thence! For, according to Mr. Wemyss Reid,—and doubtless he is right—her stay in Brussels with Emily, and afterwards alone, was the turning-point in Charlotte's career, and the record of it in 'Villette' was wrung from her as her heart's blood, amid paroxysms of positive anguish. But of these things she knew nothing in the January of 1842; then the future slept in sunny calm, so sunny, indeed, that to part from Haworth, and those she knew there, her father and her brother and sister, gave her scarcely a pang; and afterwards, so far as one can trace, from her letters, and from 'Villette,' which expresses even more, the troubles of the parsonage were never acute troubles to her. Her joys and troubles abroad were in fact her own, and they were borne and suffered alone.

But, with Emily, Haworth was no wilderness, a paradise rather, and with bitter pain she left the moors that the coming summer should cover with purple billows. For Emily Brontë was inspired far more than her sister with the influences of locality and of her home. Amidst the distant Yorkshire hills dwelt, too, her father, with Branwell and Anne, whom she loved more than all else in the world; and many an hour, sitting in the bare rooms of the pensionnat, she pondered on their hopes and their sorrows. We cannot say