Literature.

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XIV, Issue 1059, 21 August 1857, Page 4

Literature.

The Life of Charlotte Bronte By Mrs. Gaskell. Two vols. Smith, Elder, and Co. A sadder book than this it has never been our lot to read It is the desolate record of a brilliant but desolate career— the sternly truthful history of the lifebattle of a woman of genius against the taint of hereditary disease, the pressure of narrow circumstances, and the blight of family sorrows. The first thirty years ol Charlotte Bronte's life were spent in obscure Strug les tor bread— the bitter bread of dependence— doubly bitter to a sensitive nature like heTS ; and when at last the world did unexpected and sudden homage to hei genius, the acknowledgment came too late— it came when the iron oi solitude and sorrow had eaten deep into her soul, when the premature death of her dearest had leit her to the brilliant mockery of fame without symoathy, and the intense solitude of a home without companionship. Henceforth we venture to pi edict that few figures in the annuls of literature will stand out more clear and distinct than that of this frail and sensitive woman of genius, " shy and silent from the long habit of intense solitude " who *' while the nations were piaising her far off," still sate companionless in that dull gray paisonage among the rain blackened tombstones of Haworth churchyard, with the wild sweeps of bleak Yorkshire moorland spreading interminably above and around it. There are some graves over which a cairn is a fitter monument than a mausoleum. There is the inspiration of a kindred genius m the rugged tiuthfulness with which Mrs. Gaskell has told the story of Charlotte Bronte. Thoroughly well aud artistically has the work been accomplished ; an informing method presides over the whole; the illustrations are selected with admirable judgment ; there is no feebleness or redundancy ; every circumstance has a direct beanng on the main object of painting, vigmously and accurately, a real picture of the woman as she was. The courage of the book is extraordinary : the defects of the living are not spared ) in one instance the vices of the living are held up to the reprobation of the world with a boldness entirely unu sual in modern literature. It may be a question indeed whether, in this respect, Mrs. Gaskell has not transcended the limits' of true taste and discretion It should never be forgotten that no one-sided version of Any story can be safely trusted, and that while the writer of a a univei sally read book (as this will be) has all the cultivated world for audience, the incriminated person has no coirosponding means of palliation and defence. This is, however, not a defect of which in this age we are much disposed to complain. Freedom of speech is not the evil under which this generation peculiarly suffers, and it ought never to be forgotten that if the indignant exposure of vice is not necessarily a virtue, yet the tame toleration of it is necessarily the In a powerful opening chapter Mrs. Gasgell draws with a few bold strokes a vigorous sketch of the West Riding country and the West Riding people. She then passes to the early life and character of the Rev Charles Bronte, the father of Charlotte, and evidently the parent stock of much that was daring and eccentric m the c.c. nius of the daughter. He «vas a self-raised man. His father appears to have been a small farmer in the south of Ireland, and Charles was one of ten children. At sixteen he began to keep school ; a little later became tutor in a gentleman's family, and at five-and-twenty entered St. John's Colie&e, Cambridge. After leaving the University he went at once into Yorkshire, and settled as a curate at Hartshead, where, in 1812. he married Miss Branwell, a lady from Penzance, then on a visit to a relative in the north. A family came in rapid succession— Mary, Elizabeth, Charlotte (bom April 21, 1S16) Emily (Ellis Bell). Anne (Acton Bell), and one son. Patrick Branwell. Ir. February, 1820, Mr. Bronte, with his delicate wife and young family, removed to Haworth. the place where he, the sole survivor of his race, still dwells and where his celebrated daughter principally resided to the day ot her death. "Theie are those yet alive," says Mrs Gaskell, " who remember seven heavily-laden carts lumbering slowly up the long stone street, bearing the ' new paison's' household goods to his future abode"— a wild place and a wild population, of which every one who would form a right notion of the educational influences that acted on Charlotte Bronte would do well to get some adequate picture The following are two of the most graphic we can find : the first by Mr. Gaskell, and the second by an anonymous visitor to a place which the genius of Miss Bronte had then made famous. The village is about four miles from the populrun West Riding town of Keighley— the point of view in Mrs. Gasgell's sketch is the foot of the ascending road which leads from the town to the village. "Right before the traveller on this road rises Haworth village ; he can see it for two miles before he arrives, for it is situated on the side of a pretty steep hill, with a back ground of dun and purple moors, rising and sweeping away yet higher than the church, which is built at the very summit of the long narrow street. All round the horizon there is this same line of sinuous wave-like hills ; the scoops into which they fall only revealing other hills beyond, of similar colour and shape, crowned with wild, bleak mooTS- grand, from the ideas of solitude and loneliness which they suggest, or oppressive from the feeling which they give of being pent-up by some monotonous and illimitable barrier, according to the mood of mind in which the spectator may be." The other account is pven less favourable. •'Though the weather was drizzly, we resolved to make our long-planned excursion to Haworth ; so we packed ourselves into the buffalo-skin, and that into the gig, and set off about eleven. The rain ceased, and the day was just suited to the scenery — wild and chill — with great masses of cloud glooming over the moors, and here and there a ray of sunshine covertly stealing through, and resting with a dim magical light upon some high bleak village, or darting down into some deep glen, lighting up the tall chimney, or glistening on the windows and wet roof of the mill which lies couching in the bottom. The country got wilder and wilder as we approached Haworth ; for the last four miles we were ascending a huge moor, at the very top of which lies the dreary black-looking village of Haworth. The village-street itself is one of the steepest hills I have ever "seen, and the stones are so horribly jolting that I should have got out and walked with W .if possble, but, having once begun the ascent, to stop was out of the question. At the top was the inn where vre put up, close by the church ; and the clergyman's house, we were told, was at the top of the churchyard. So through that we went— a dreary, dreary place, literally paved with rain-blackened tomb-stones, and all on the slope, for at Haworth there is on the highest height a higher still, and Mr. Bronte's house stands considerably above the church." Such was the place, and such the house, to which the new parson, on that bleak February morning of 1820, brought hia frail wife and his infant children. The climate of the place and the unhealthiness of the situation toon did its work. Mrs. Bronte— described by those -who knew her as "a meek, retiring person, of great amiability and considerable talpnt"— sickened and died in Sept., 1821 She came into this bleak moorland of the north from the mildest region of the extreme •outh-vrest, and had within her, no doubt, the seeds of that fatal malady of which every one of her children ultimately perished. A year after her death, her sister, Miss Branwell, took up her residence at the parsonage ; and there, with hia sister-in-law, his six children, and a faithful old Yorkshire nurse, the widower continued ; to reside. He had always been a sgl;tary man ; he became more so"; he ate alone ? he walked alone ; he saw .no company. Hia notions on many points were peculiar.' During Ilia wife's life he had burnt a silk dress shft bad just purchMtd, deeming such indulgence in-

consistent' with the limits of their narrow meant. He brought up hii children with Spartan hardihood, and on one occasion flung into the fire a little row of dry •hoes which the careful old nurse had prepared for the return of the little ones from the moors. The children j were thrown upon each other for companionship — they had the run of a tairly good library, and early became devourers of books. The intellect of all showed remarkable precocity. The following passage proves at once the singular character of the father and the early development of the children : " When my children were very young, when, as fai as I can remember, the oldest was about ten years of age, and the youngest about four, thinking that thej knew more than I had yet discovered, in order to make them speak with less timidity, I deemed that if they were put under a sort of cover I might gain n>y end ; and happening to have a mask in the house, I told them all to stand and speak boldly from under cover of the mask. •'I began with the youngest (Anne, afterwards Acton Bell), and asked what a child like her most wanted; bhe answered, "Age and experience." I a«.ked the next (Emily, aftei wards Ellis Bell), what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy : she answered, "Reason with him, and when he he won't listen to reason whip him. " I asked Bianwell what was the best way of knowing the difference between the intellects of men and women ; he answered, "By considering the difference between them as to their bodies." I then asked 'harlotte what was the best book in the world ; she answered, "The Bible." And what was the next best; she answered, "The Book of Nature." I thtn asked the next what was the best mode of education tor a woman ; she answered "That which would make her rule her house well." Las'ly, I asked the oldest what was the best mode of spending time; she answered, "Bv laying it out in preparation for a happy e'errnty." I may not have given precisely their words, but I have nearly done so, as they made a deep and lasting impression on my memory. The substance, however, was exactly what I have stated." When a little further advanced, they were in the habit of writing (Charlotte was the principal scribe) " dramas, tales, poems, and romances." They even set up a M.fcJ periodical, which they called the Lntlp Little Migazine. The following extract, written by Charlotte in her 14th year, is cuiious, both as giving an account of the pursuits of these singular children, and as evidence of the early l^abit they had formed of committing their thoughts to writing : THE HISTORY OF THE YEAR 1829. " Once Papa lent my sister Maria a book. It was an old geography book ; she wrote on its blank leaf. ' Papa lent me this book.' This book is a hundred and twenty years old ; it is at this moment lying before me. While I write this I am in the kitchen of the Parsonage, Haworth ; Tabby, the servant, is washing up the breakfast things, and Anne, my youngest sister (Maria was my eldest), is kneeling on a chair, looking at some cakes which Tabby has been baking for us. Emily is in the parlour, brushing the carpet. Papa and Branwell aie gone to Keighley. Aunt is up stairs in her room, and I am sitting by the table writing this in the kitchen. Keighley is a small town four miles from here. Papa and Bianwell are gone for the newspaper, the 'Leeds Intelligencer,' a most excellent tory newspaper, edited br Mr. Wood, and the proprietor, Mr Henneman. We take two and see three new spa' ers a week. We take the ' Leedslntelligencer,' tory, and the ' Leeds Mercury,' whig, edited by Mr. Baines, and his brother, son-in-law, and his two sons, Edward and Talbot. We see the 1 John Bull' ; it is a high tory, very violent. Mr^ Drher lends us it as likewise ' Black wood's Magazine,' the most able peridical there is. The editor is Mr. Christopher North, an old man, 74 years of age ; the Ist of April is his birthday ; his company are Timothy Tickler, Morgan O'Doheity, Macrabin Mordecai, Mullion. Warnell. and James Hogg, a man of most extraordinary genius, a Scottish Shepherd. Our plays were established; 'Young Men,' June, 1826; 'Our Fellows,' July, 1827 ; ' Ishndeis," December, 1827. Thooe arc our three great plays, that aie not kept secretEmily's and my best plays were established the Ist of December, 1827 ; the others, Maich, 1528." Before the time at which we have now arrived death had been busy among the children. The two eldest girls had fallen victims to the heieditary malady, accelerated m the case of the eldest by the unhealthiness of the school at Cowan's Biidge, the Lowood of " Jane Eyre." This eldest girl (Maria), the Helen Burns of the story, died soon atter leaving the school, in 1825. Charlotte had been there with her, and it is a singular proof of the intensity of her early impressions that the j Lowood scenes in "'jane Eyre" aie scarcely exnggera- ] tions of what actually passed before the observations of this child of nine years of age. After the sister's death Charlotte went to Mi&s Wooler's school at Roe Head, | where she appears to have sppnt about the happiest pc- ! riod of her life, and in the neighbourhood of which she acquired the local and traditionary knowledge which, she afterwards worked up in " Shirley." After leaving school, the girls for a while remained at home, leading the sort of life described in the following extract : " The three girls used to walk upwards towards the • purple-black' moors, the sweeping surface of which was broken by here and there a stone quany; and if they had strength and time lo go far enough, they reached a waterfall, » here the beck tell over some rocks into the " bottom." They seldom went downwards through the village. They were shy of meeting even familiar faces, and were scrupulous about entering the house of the very poorest uninvited. They were steady teachers at the Sunday-school, a habit which Charlotte kept up very fai hfully, even after she was left alone ; but they never faced their kind voluntarily, and always preferred the solitude and freedom of the moors " The brother had by this time grown up, and is thus described : " In the middle of the summer of 1835, a great family plan was mooted at the parsonage. The question was to what trade or profession should Branwell be brought : up ? He was now nearly eighteen ; it was time to de- ! cide. He was very clever, no doubt; perhaps, co begin with, the greatest genius in this rare family. The sisters hardly recognised their o\\ n, or each other's powers, but they knew his. The father, ignorant of many failings in moral conduct, did proud homage to the great gifts of his son ; for Branw ell's talents were readily and willingly brought out for ihe entertainment of others. Popular admiration -was sweet to him. And this led to his presence being sought at ' arvills' and all the gieat \illage gatherings, for the Yorkshiremen have a keen relish for intellect ; and it likewise procured him the undesirable distinction of having his company recommended by the landlord of the Black Bull to any chance traveller who might happen to feel solitary or dull over his liquor. 'Do you want some one to help you with your bottle, sir ? If you do, I'll send up ior Patrick" (so the villagers called him till the day of his death). And while the messenger went, the landlord entertained his guest with accounts of the wonderful talents of the boy, whose precocious cleverness and great conversational powers were the pride of the village." Of this kind of training no good could come. The result, however, was worse than even the worst foiebodings could have anticipated. It is a long and dreary story— the saddest episode, perhaps, in the whole of this sad life drama. Enough to say, that this lad, so genial and brilliant in 1835 died in 1848, at the age of seven-and-twentv-after having been for y*ars a cleaving cuise to j his family -a degraded bond-slave to the two poisons of , opium and alcohol. . j In 1839, after some months of fruitless literary aspira- | tions and secret correspondence on the chances of literary | success with Wordsworth and Southey, Charlotte Bronte, for the first time, went out as a governess. In this miserable occupation (for such it necessarily was to a shy, intensely silent, and sensitive being) she appears to have spent three most unsatisfactory years. At lergth she came to the conclusion that a greater stock of positive knowledge and accomplishment was absolutely indispensible to any chance of success even in this career, and prevailed on her father and aunt to allow her and her sister Emily to seek on the Continent the means of <-upplying their deficiencies. In February, 1842, Charlotte and Emily Bronte entered the pension of Madame Heger, in the Rue Isabelle, Brussels. This sojourn, which in Charlotte's c»se lasted for two years, supplied the materials for that most powerful of all her wonderful fictions, " Villette. 1 ' The readers of that extraordinary novel will find the greatest interest in retracing, by Mrs. Gaskell's aid, the real events on which the novel is founded, or rather of which it is the narrative and transcript. We must hasten over the remaining stages of the history. Charlotte returned in 1844 to the lonely parsonage among the moors. Its solitude was more oppressive than ever. " There was a lime,'' she writes in 1845, " when Haworth was a very pleasant place to me ;it is not so now. I feel as if we were all buried here. I long to travel, to work, to live a life of action." The brother was mouldering in indolence and debauchery— the sisters were earning precarious biead, in a career for which, with all their genius, they were singularly .unfitted. It is no wonder that they turned again with passionate longing to literature. The story of their first struggles to find a publisher for the " Poems of Ellis, Currer, and Acton Bell," has been often told before, and we shall not repeat it. The poems had only » moderate success. At length, in the summer of 1846, " Jane Eyre " was commenced ; in August, 1847, it was accepted by Messrs. Smith »nd Elder ; in October it was published, and before another month had elapsed it bad taken supreme possession of *he reading world. The glory came at last in a full tide, bat it came too late. The shattered nerves— the morbid timidity, fed by solitude and restraint, had Uon« their work. The power ot enjoying popularity

was gone— the uneventful dulnesi of the home life had been exchanged for a rapid and appalling •ucceision of deaths. Within eighteen months from the publication of " Jane Eyre" the brother and the two sisters wer c swept away, and none remained in that lonely parsonage except the solitary old man and the world-famous daughter. I " Shirley '* was published in October, 1849 ; " Villette, ' not till 1853. The world's applause grew louder and louder ; the mystery of the literary nom-de -guerre was at an end. Miss Bronte was tempted on all sides by all manner of offers to receive the attentions which cultivated people of all kinds were eager to render her. But she could not then recast her life, and with a few brief intervals of visits to her publishers in London and friends elsewhere (which never appear to have been seasnos of pleasure) she dwelt apart under the desolate roof of the grey house on the moors. From the letter which has already supplied us with a description of the village and the house we take this graphic picture of the life of its inmates : " Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Mi«s Bronte, who shook hands wiih us and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at ft picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most ol them e\idently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the pailour again we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte* looked in ; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he fiought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage ; presently emerging again to bring WW — — a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well ! we talked about various things ; the character of the people — sbout her solitude, &c, till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose for she did not return for an age. The old dog had \amshed ; a fat curly-haired dog honored us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the imdbt ot which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring ; and the old gentleman having issued once more from his study to say good-bye, we returned to the inn, and made the best of our way homewards." We need not pursue the siory further. _ After great reluctance, the father's consent was obtained to Charlotte's marriage with the Rev. Mr. Nicholls. Then came nine months of almost unalloyed happiness : — then, on the 31st March, 18-55, in the 39th year of her age, the end. Let those who would know more, who would know all that can be told, and ought to be told, hasten to read this history which a woman of kindred genius has fearlessly and truthfully written of Charlotte Bronte.