The Life of Charlotte Bronte, Volume 1

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THE LIFE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTE--VOLUME 1


CHAPTER I


The Leeds and Skipton railway runs along a deep valley of the Aire; a
slow and sluggish stream, compared to the neighbouring river of Wharfe.
Keighley station is on this line of railway, about a quarter of a mile
from the town of the same name. The number of inhabitants and the
importance of Keighley have been very greatly increased during the last
twenty years, owing to the rapidly extended market for worsted
manufactures, a branch of industry that mainly employs the factory
population of this part of Yorkshire, which has Bradford for its centre
and metropolis.

Keighley is in process of transformation from a populous, old-fashioned
village, into a still more populous and flourishing town. It is evident
to the stranger, that as the gable-ended houses, which obtrude themselves
corner-wise on the widening street, fall vacant, they are pulled down to
allow of greater space for traffic, and a more modern style of
architecture. The quaint and narrow shop-windows of fifty years ago, are
giving way to large panes and plate-glass. Nearly every dwelling seems
devoted to some branch of commerce. In passing hastily through the town,
one hardly perceives where the necessary lawyer and doctor can live, so
little appearance is there of any dwellings of the professional middle-
class, such as abound in our old cathedral towns. In fact, nothing can
be more opposed than the state of society, the modes of thinking, the
standards of reference on all points of morality, manners, and even
politics and religion, in such a new manufacturing place as Keighley in
the north, and any stately, sleepy, picturesque cathedral town in the
south. Yet the aspect of Keighley promises well for future stateliness,
if not picturesqueness. Grey stone abounds; and the rows of houses built
of it have a kind of solid grandeur connected with their uniform and
enduring lines. The frame-work of the doors, and the lintels of the
windows, even in the smallest dwellings, are made of blocks of stone.
There is no painted wood to require continual beautifying, or else
present a shabby aspect; and the stone is kept scrupulously clean by the
notable Yorkshire housewives. Such glimpses into the interior as a
passer-by obtains, reveal a rough abundance of the means of living, and
diligent and active habits in the women. But the voices of the people
are hard, and their tones discordant, promising little of the musical
taste that distinguishes the district, and which has already furnished a
Carrodus to the musical world. The names over the shops (of which the
one just given is a sample) seem strange even to an inhabitant of the
neighbouring county, and have a peculiar smack and flavour of the place.

The town of Keighley never quite melts into country on the road to
Haworth, although the houses become more sparse as the traveller journeys
upwards to the grey round hills that seem to bound his journey in a
westerly direction. First come some villas; just sufficiently retired
from the road to show that they can scarcely belong to any one liable to
be summoned in a hurry, at the call of suffering or danger, from his
comfortable fireside; the lawyer, the doctor, and the clergyman, live at
hand, and hardly in the suburbs, with a screen of shrubs for concealment.

In a town one does not look for vivid colouring; what there may be of
this is furnished by the wares in the shops, not by foliage or
atmospheric effects; but in the country some brilliancy and vividness
seems to be instinctively expected, and there is consequently a slight
feeling of disappointment at the grey neutral tint of every object, near
or far off, on the way from Keighley to Haworth. The distance is about
four miles; and, as I have said, what with villas, great worsted
factories, rows of workmen's houses, with here and there an old-fashioned
farmhouse and out-buildings, it can hardly be called "country" any part
of the way. For two miles the road passes over tolerably level ground,
distant hills on the left, a "beck" flowing through meadows on the right,
and furnishing water power, at certain points, to the factories built on
its banks. The air is dim and lightless with the smoke from all these
habitations and places of business. The soil in the valley (or "bottom,"
to use the local term) is rich; but, as the road begins to ascend, the
vegetation becomes poorer; it does not flourish, it merely exists; and,
instead of trees, there are only bushes and shrubs about the dwellings.
Stone dykes are everywhere used in place of hedges; and what crops there
are, on the patches of arable land, consist of pale, hungry-looking, grey
green oats. 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 moors--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.

For a short distance the road appears to turn away from Haworth, as it
winds round the base of the shoulder of a hill; but then it crosses a
bridge over the "beck," and the ascent through the village begins. The
flag-stones with which it is paved are placed end-ways, in order to give
a better hold to the horses' feet; and, even with this help, they seem to
be in constant danger of slipping backwards. The old stone houses are
high compared to the width of the street, which makes an abrupt turn
before reaching the more level ground at the head of the village, so that
the steep aspect of the place, in one part, is almost like that of a
wall. But this surmounted, the church lies a little off the main road on
the left; a hundred yards, or so, and the driver relaxes his care, and
the horse breathes more easily, as they pass into the quite little by-
street that leads to Haworth Parsonage. The churchyard is on one side of
this lane, the school-house and the sexton's dwelling (where the curates
formerly lodged) on the other.

The parsonage stands at right angles to the road, facing down upon the
church; so that, in fact, parsonage, church, and belfried school-house,
form three sides of an irregular oblong, of which the fourth is open to
the fields and moors that lie beyond. The area of this oblong is filled
up by a crowded churchyard, and a small garden or court in front of the
clergyman's house. As the entrance to this from the road is at the side,
the path goes round the corner into the little plot of ground. Underneath
the windows is a narrow flower-border, carefully tended in days of yore,
although only the most hardy plants could be made to grow there. Within
the stone wall, which keeps out the surrounding churchyard, are bushes of
elder and lilac; the rest of the ground is occupied by a square grass-
plot and a gravel walk. The house is of grey stone, two stories high,
heavily roofed with flags, in order to resist the winds that might strip
off a lighter covering. It appears to have been built about a hundred
years ago, and to consist of four rooms on each story; the two windows on
the right (as the visitor stands with his back to the church, ready to
enter in at the front door) belonging to Mr. Bronte's study, the two on
the left to the family sitting-room. Everything about the place tells of
the most dainty order, the most exquisite cleanliness. The door-steps
are spotless; the small old-fashioned window-panes glitter like looking-
glass. Inside and outside of that house cleanliness goes up into its
essence, purity.

The little church lies, as I mentioned, above most of the houses in the
village; and the graveyard rises above the church, and is terribly full
of upright tombstones. The chapel or church claims greater antiquity
than any other in that part of the kingdom; but there is no appearance of
this in the external aspect of the present edifice, unless it be in the
two eastern windows, which remain unmodernized, and in the lower part of
the steeple. Inside, the character of the pillars shows that they were
constructed before the reign of Henry VII. It is probable that there
existed on this ground, a "field-kirk," or oratory, in the earliest
times; and, from the Archbishop's registry at York, it is ascertained
that there was a chapel at Haworth in 1317. The inhabitants refer
inquirers concerning the date to the following inscription on a stone in
the church tower:--

"Hic fecit Caenobium Monachorum Auteste fundator. A. D.
sexcentissimo."

That is to say, before the preaching of Christianity in Northumbria.
Whitaker says that this mistake originated in the illiterate copying out,
by some modern stone-cutter, of an inscription in the character of Henry
the Eighth's time on an adjoining stone:--

"Orate pro bono statu Eutest Tod."

"Now every antiquary knows that the formula of prayer 'bono statu'
always refers to the living. I suspect this singular Christian name
has been mistaken by the stone-cutter for Austet, a contraction of
Eustatius, but the word Tod, which has been mis-read for the Arabic
figures 600, is perfectly fair and legible. On the presumption of
this foolish claim to antiquity, the people would needs set up for
independence, and contest the right of the Vicar of Bradford to
nominate a curate at Haworth."

I have given this extract, in order to explain the imaginary groundwork
of a commotion which took place in Haworth about five and thirty years
ago, to which I shall have occasion to allude again more particularly.

The interior of the church is commonplace; it is neither old enough nor
modern enough to compel notice. The pews are of black oak, with high
divisions; and the names of those to whom they belong are painted in
white letters on the doors. There are neither brasses, nor altar-tombs,
nor monuments, but there is a mural tablet on the right-hand side of the
communion-table, bearing the following inscription:--

HERE
LIE THE REMAINS OF
MARIA BRONTE, WIFE
OF THE
REV. P. BRONTE, A.B., MINISTER OF HAWORTH.
HER SOUL
DEPARTED TO THE SAVIOUR, SEPT. 15TH, 1821,
IN THE 39TH YEAR OF HER AGE.

"Be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of Man
cometh." MATTHEW xxiv. 44.

ALSO HERE LIE THE REMAINS OF
MARIA BRONTE, DAUGHTER OF THE AFORESAID;
SHE DIED ON THE
6TH OF MAY, 1825, IN THE 12TH YEAR OF HER AGE;
AND OF
ELIZABETH BRONTE, HER SISTER,
WHO DIED JUNE 15TH, 1825, IN THE 11TH YEAR OF HER AGE.

"Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little
children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven."--MATTHEW
xviii. 3.

HERE ALSO LIE THE REMAINS OF
PATRICK BRANWELL BRONTE,
WHO DIED SEPT. 24TH, 1848, AGED 30 YEARS;
AND OF
EMILY JANE BRONTE,
WHO DIED DEC. 19TH, 1848, AGED 29 YEARS,
SON AND DAUGHTER OF THE
REV. P. BRONTE, INCUMBENT.

THIS STONE IS ALSO DEDICATED TO THE
MEMORY OF ANNE BRONTE, {1}
YOUNGEST DAUGHTER OF THE REV. P. BRONTE, A.B.
SHE DIED, AGED 27 YEARS, MAY 28TH, 1849,
AND WAS BURIED AT THE OLD CHURCH, SCARBORO.'

At the upper part of this tablet ample space is allowed between the lines
of the inscription; when the first memorials were written down, the
survivors, in their fond affection, thought little of the margin and
verge they were leaving for those who were still living. But as one dead
member of the household follows another fast to the grave, the lines are
pressed together, and the letters become small and cramped. After the
record of Anne's death, there is room for no other.

But one more of that generation--the last of that nursery of six little
motherless children--was yet to follow, before the survivor, the
childless and widowed father, found his rest. On another tablet, below
the first, the following record has been added to that mournful list:--

ADJOINING LIE THE REMAINS OF
CHARLOTTE, WIFE
OF THE
REV. ARTHUR BELL NICHOLLS, A.B.,
AND DAUGHTER OF THE REV. P. BRONTE, A.B., INCUMBENT
SHE DIED MARCH 31ST, 1855, IN THE 39TH
YEAR OF HER AGE. {2}

This tablet, which corrects the error in the former tablet as to the age
of Anne Bronte, bears the following inscription in Roman letters; the
initials, however, being in old English.




CHAPTER II


For a right understanding of the life of my dear friend, Charlotte
Bronte, it appears to me more necessary in her case than in most others,
that the reader should be made acquainted with the peculiar forms of
population and society amidst which her earliest years were passed, and
from which both her own and her sisters' first impressions of human life
must have been received. I shall endeavour, therefore, before proceeding
further with my work, to present some idea of the character of the people
of Haworth, and the surrounding districts.

Even an inhabitant of the neighbouring county of Lancaster is struck by
the peculiar force of character which the Yorkshiremen display. This
makes them interesting as a race; while, at the same time, as
individuals, the remarkable degree of self-sufficiency they possess gives
them an air of independence rather apt to repel a stranger. I use this
expression "self-sufficiency" in the largest sense. Conscious of the
strong sagacity and the dogged power of will which seem almost the
birthright of the natives of the West Riding, each man relies upon
himself, and seeks no help at the hands of his neighbour. From rarely
requiring the assistance of others, he comes to doubt the power of
bestowing it: from the general success of his efforts, he grows to depend
upon them, and to over-esteem his own energy and power. He belongs to
that keen, yet short-sighted class, who consider suspicion of all whose
honesty is not proved as a sign of wisdom. The practical qualities of a
man are held in great respect; but the want of faith in strangers and
untried modes of action, extends itself even to the manner in which the
virtues are regarded; and if they produce no immediate and tangible
result, they are rather put aside as unfit for this busy, striving world;
especially if they are more of a passive than an active character. The
affections are strong and their foundations lie deep: but they are
not--such affections seldom are--wide-spreading; nor do they show
themselves on the surface. Indeed, there is little display of any of the
amenities of life among this wild, rough population. Their accost is
curt; their accent and tone of speech blunt and harsh. Something of this
may, probably, be attributed to the freedom of mountain air and of
isolated hill-side life; something be derived from their rough Norse
ancestry. They have a quick perception of character, and a keen sense of
humour; the dwellers among them must be prepared for certain
uncomplimentary, though most likely true, observations, pithily
expressed. Their feelings are not easily roused, but their duration is
lasting. Hence there is much close friendship and faithful service; and
for a correct exemplification of the form in which the latter frequently
appears, I need only refer the reader of "Wuthering Heights" to the
character of "Joseph."

From the same cause come also enduring grudges, in some cases amounting
to hatred, which occasionally has been bequeathed from generation to
generation. I remember Miss Bronte once telling me that it was a saying
round about Haworth, "Keep a stone in thy pocket seven year; turn it, and
keep it seven year longer, that it may be ever ready to thine hand when
thine enemy draws near."

The West Riding men are sleuth-hounds in pursuit of money. Miss Bronte
related to my husband a curious instance illustrative of this eager
desire for riches. A man that she knew, who was a small manufacturer,
had engaged in many local speculations which had always turned out well,
and thereby rendered him a person of some wealth. He was rather past
middle age, when he bethought him of insuring his life; and he had only
just taken out his policy, when he fell ill of an acute disease which was
certain to end fatally in a very few days. The doctor,
half-hesitatingly, revealed to him his hopeless state. "By jingo!" cried
he, rousing up at once into the old energy, "I shall _do_ the insurance
company! I always was a lucky fellow!"

These men are keen and shrewd; faithful and persevering in following out
a good purpose, fell in tracking an evil one. They are not emotional;
they are not easily made into either friends or enemies; but once lovers
or haters, it is difficult to change their feeling. They are a powerful
race both in mind and body, both for good and for evil.

The woollen manufacture was introduced into this district in the days of
Edward III. It is traditionally said that a colony of Flemings came over
and settled in the West Riding to teach the inhabitants what to do with
their wool. The mixture of agricultural with manufacturing labour that
ensued and prevailed in the West Riding up to a very recent period,
sounds pleasant enough at this distance of time, when the classical
impression is left, and the details forgotten, or only brought to light
by those who explore the few remote parts of England where the custom
still lingers. The idea of the mistress and her maidens spinning at the
great wheels while the master was abroad ploughing his fields, or seeing
after his flocks on the purple moors, is very poetical to look back upon;
but when such life actually touches on our own days, and we can hear
particulars from the lips of those now living, there come out details of
coarseness--of the uncouthness of the rustic mingled with the sharpness
of the tradesman--of irregularity and fierce lawlessness--that rather mar
the vision of pastoral innocence and simplicity. Still, as it is the
exceptional and exaggerated characteristics of any period that leave the
most vivid memory behind them, it would be wrong, and in my opinion
faithless, to conclude that such and such forms of society and modes of
living were not best for the period when they prevailed, although the
abuses they may have led into, and the gradual progress of the world,
have made it well that such ways and manners should pass away for ever,
and as preposterous to attempt to return to them, as it would be for a
man to return to the clothes of his childhood.

The patent granted to Alderman Cockayne, and the further restrictions
imposed by James I. on the export of undyed woollen cloths (met by a
prohibition on the part of the States of Holland of the import of English-
dyed cloths), injured the trade of the West Riding manufacturers
considerably. Their independence of character, their dislike of
authority, and their strong powers of thought, predisposed them to
rebellion against the religious dictation of such men as Laud, and the
arbitrary rule of the Stuarts; and the injury done by James and Charles
to the trade by which they gained their bread, made the great majority of
them Commonwealth men. I shall have occasion afterwards to give one or
two instances of the warm feelings and extensive knowledge on subjects of
both home and foreign politics existing at the present day in the
villages lying west and east of the mountainous ridge that separates
Yorkshire and Lancashire; the inhabitants of which are of the same race
and possess the same quality of character.

The descendants of many who served under Cromwell at Dunbar, live on the
same lands as their ancestors occupied then; and perhaps there is no part
of England where the traditional and fond recollections of the
Commonwealth have lingered so long as in that inhabited by the woollen
manufacturing population of the West Riding, who had the restrictions
taken off their trade by the Protector's admirable commercial policy. I
have it on good authority that, not thirty years ago, the phrase, "in
Oliver's days," was in common use to denote a time of unusual prosperity.
The class of Christian names prevalent in a district is one indication of
the direction in which its tide of hero-worship sets. Grave enthusiasts
in politics or religion perceive not the ludicrous side of those which
they give to their children; and some are to be found, still in their
infancy, not a dozen miles from Haworth, that will have to go through
life as Lamartine, Kossuth, and Dembinsky. And so there is a testimony
to what I have said, of the traditional feeling of the district, in the
fact that the Old Testament names in general use among the Puritans are
yet the prevalent appellations in most Yorkshire families of middle or
humble rank, whatever their religious persuasion may be. There are
numerous records, too, that show the kindly way in which the ejected
ministers were received by the gentry, as well as by the poorer part of
the inhabitants, during the persecuting days of Charles II. These little
facts all testify to the old hereditary spirit of independence, ready
ever to resist authority which was conceived to be unjustly exercised,
that distinguishes the people of the West Riding to the present day.

The parish of Halifax touches that of Bradford, in which the chapelry of
Haworth is included; and the nature of the ground in the two parishes is
much the of the same wild and hilly description. The abundance of coal,
and the number of mountain streams in the district, make it highly
favourable to manufactures; and accordingly, as I stated, the inhabitants
have for centuries been engaged in making cloth, as well as in
agricultural pursuits. But the intercourse of trade failed, for a long
time, to bring amenity and civilization into these outlying hamlets, or
widely scattered dwellings. Mr. Hunter, in his "Life of Oliver Heywood,"
quotes a sentence out of a memorial of one James Rither, living in the
reign of Elizabeth, which is partially true to this day:--

"They have no superior to court, no civilities to practise: a sour and
sturdy humour is the consequence, so that a stranger is shocked by a tone
of defiance in every voice, and an air of fierceness in every
countenance."

Even now, a stranger can hardly ask a question without receiving some
crusty reply, if, indeed, he receive any at all. Sometimes the sour
rudeness amounts to positive insult. Yet, if the "foreigner" takes all
this churlishness good-humouredly, or as a matter of course, and makes
good any claim upon their latent kindliness and hospitality, they are
faithful and generous, and thoroughly to be relied upon. As a slight
illustration of the roughness that pervades all classes in these out-of-
the-way villages, I may relate a little adventure which happened to my
husband and myself, three years ago, at Addingham--

From Penigent to Pendle Hill,
From Linton to Long-_Addingham_
And all that Craven coasts did tell, &c.--

one of the places that sent forth its fighting men to the famous old
battle of Flodden Field, and a village not many miles from Haworth.

We were driving along the street, when one of those ne'er-do-weel lads
who seem to have a kind of magnetic power for misfortunes, having jumped
into the stream that runs through the place, just where all the broken
glass and bottles are thrown, staggered naked and nearly covered with
blood into a cottage before us. Besides receiving another bad cut in the
arm, he had completely laid open the artery, and was in a fair way of
bleeding to death--which, one of his relations comforted him by saying,
would be likely to "save a deal o' trouble."

When my husband had checked the effusion of blood with a strap that one
of the bystanders unbuckled from his leg, he asked if a surgeon had been
sent for.

"Yoi," was the answer; "but we dunna think he'll come."

"Why not?"

"He's owd, yo seen, and asthmatic, and it's up-hill."

My husband taking a boy for his guide, drove as fast as he could to the
surgeon's house, which was about three-quarters of a mile off, and met
the aunt of the wounded lad leaving it.

"Is he coming?" inquired my husband.

"Well, he didna' say he wouldna' come."

"But, tell him the lad may bleed to death."

"I did."

"And what did he say?"

"Why, only, 'D-n him; what do I care?'"

It ended, however, in his sending one of his sons, who, though not
brought up to "the surgering trade," was able to do what was necessary in
the way of bandages and plasters. The excuse made for the surgeon was,
that "he was near eighty, and getting a bit doited, and had had a matter
o' twenty childer."

Among the most unmoved of the lookers-on was the brother of the boy so
badly hurt; and while he was lying in a pool of blood on the flag floor,
and crying out how much his arm was "warching," his stoical relation
stood coolly smoking his bit of black pipe, and uttered not a single word
of either sympathy or sorrow.