Her Name Was Charlotte Brontë

Various

Description

“Her Name Was Charlotte Brontë” is a collection of essays, excerpts and other assorted writings on the subject of Charlotte Brontë, her works and family. With writings from G. K . Chesterton, Virginia Woolf, Mrs Gaskell, Mrs Oliphant and others, this collection will appeal to lovers of English literature and those with a particular interest in it's history. Contents include the following chapters: "Charlotte and Emily Brontë By Millicent Fawcett, 1889”, “Charlotte Brontë from Women of History By Mrs Gaskell, 1890”, “Charlotte Brontë from Studies in Early Victorian Literature By Frederic Harrison, 1895”, “Charlotte Brontë From Stories of Achievement By Asa Don Dickinson 1895”, "Haworth By Virginia Woolf, 1904", "Charlotte Brontë From Varied Types by G. K. Chesterton, 1905" and others. Charlotte Brontë (1816 – 31 March 1855) was an English novelist and poet, and the oldest sister in the world-famous trio of literary sisters. Along with her sisters, her novels have become classics of English literature still read and enjoyed by people of all ages the world over. Many vintage books such as this are increasingly scarce and expensive. It is with this in mind that we are republishing this classic volume now in an affordable, modern, high-quality edition for the enjoyment of readers now and for years to come.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Women
• Condado de Yorkshire (Reino Unido)
• Brontë family
• History
• Jane Eyre
• Yorkshire

Informations

• Publié par: Read Books Ltd.
• Date de parution: 22 novembre 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781528785105
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

HER NAME WAS CHARLOTTE BRONTË
A COLLECTION OF ESSAYS, EXCERPTS AND WRITINGS ON THE FAMOUS FEMALE AUTHOR
By
VIRGINIA WOOLF, MRS GASKELL, G. K. CHESTERTON, MRS OLIPHANT AND OTHERS




Copyright © 2019 Read & Co. Books
This edition is published by Read & Co. Books, an imprint of Read Books Ltd.
This book is copyright and may not be reproduced or copied in any way without the express permission of the publisher in writing.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
www.readandcobooks.co.uk


Contents
CHARLOTTE BRONTË By Hattie Tyng Griswold
CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË By Millicent Fawcett
CHARLOTTE BRONTË (1816 - 1855) By Mrs Gaskell
CHARLOTTE BRONTË By Frederic Harrison
CHARLOTTE BRONTË (1816 - 1855) THE COUNTRY PARSON'S DAUGHTER By Asa Don Dickinson
THE SISTERS BRONTË By Mrs Oliphant
HAWORTH By Virginia Woolf
CHARLOTTE BRONTË By G.k. Chesterton
CHARLOTTE BRONTË By Elbert Hubbard
“JANE EYRE” AND “WUTHERING HEIGHTS” By Virginia Woolf
CHARLOTTE AND EMILY BRONTË By Alice Meynell
THE CHALLENGE OF THE BRONTËS By Edmund William Gosse
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTICE OF ELLIS AND ACTON BELL By Charlotte Brontë



CHARLOTTE BRONTË
By Hattie Tyng Griswold
In the crowded little churchyard at Haworth, in the wild, bleak Yorkshire region, are eight mounds which mark the extinction of a family whose genius and sorrows have made them known the world over. In the little church there is a mural tablet which tells the names of this illustrious group, and the many visitors to this little out-of-the-way house of worship read with a melancholy interest these sad inscriptions. First we are told of Maria Bronté, the mother, who died in 1821, when only thirty-nine years old, leaving the six children whose names follow, all in the helplessness of early childhood. Next to her come Maria and Elizabeth, both of whom followed her in 1825; then Branwell and Emily, who died in 1848, and Anne, who lived one year longer. But it is to the last of the inscriptions that all eyes are turned with the greatest interest, for there we read—
CHARLOTTE, Wife of the Rev. Arthur Bell Nichols, A. B. and Daughter of the Rev. E. P. Bronté, A. M., Incumbent. She died March 31st, 1855, in the 39th year of her age.
There is no sadder history in all literature than the history of this gifted family and their early doom. A pathos clings about it which is really painful, so few are the gleams of light which are thrown upon the dark picture. From the time when the Rev. Patrick Bronté (himself a gifted but somewhat erratic man) brought his young wife into the solitude of this moorland p arsonage and shut her up in a seclusion from which she was only removed by death, all the way down through the lonely childhood of the little motherless children, and on into their no less lonely and more afflicted womanhood, even to the deaths of all the gifted group, there is a depth of sombre gloom from which the sympathetic heart must turn away with a bitter pain and almost a feeling of hot rebellion against Fate.
The utter loneliness of that part of Yorkshire at the time when Mr. Bronté settled there can hardly be imagined to-day. In winter all communication with the outside world was cut off by almost impassable mud or entirely impassable snow. Travellers whom actual necessity compelled to start forth were often snowed in for a week or ten days within a few miles of home, and nobody thought of stirring from that shelter except through the pressure of absolute necessity. Isolated as were the little hill villages like Haworth, they were in the world, compared with the loneliness of the gray ancestral houses to be seen here and there in the dense hollows of the moors.
The inhabitants of this rough country were themselves of wild, turbulent nature, much given to deadly feuds and really dangerous in their enmities. Their amusements were all of the lowest order, and hard riding and deep drinking were the characteristics of all the male population, while cock-fighting and bull-baiting were thought refined amusements for both sexes.
The ministers were not much above their flocks in general culture, and the incumbents of Haworth had been noted for their eccentricities for generations. Many of them attended the horse-racings and the games of football which were played on Sunday afternoons, and took as deep a part as any of the flock in the drunken carouse which always followed a funeral. Mr. Bronté was a very different man from his predecessors, but was many years in subduing his congregation to an even nominal observance of common moralities. He was, however, a man of high spirit and imperious will, a nd, bending himself to the task with all his powers, made a decided impression upon the life around him. The gentle mother soon passed away, and Mr. Bronté became a stern and silent man who kept his children at a distance from himself and allowed them little intercourse with the outside world. They were allowed to walk out on the wild heathery moors, but not down in the village street; and they acquired a passionate love of those purple moors, which remained with them through life. When angry, Mr. Bronté would say nothing, but they could hear him out at the door firing pistol-shots in quick succession as a relief to his feelings. The children were unnaturally quiet and well-behaved. The old nurse says:—
"You would never have known there was a child in the house, they were such noiseless, good little creatures. I used to think them spiritless, they were so different from any children I had ever seen."
They used to read the newspapers, write little stories, and act plays, and at one time conducted a magazine of their own. Like all imaginative children, they played in stories, each one taking part in the stirring romances they invented. They were great believers in the supernatural, too, and the denizens of the adjoining churchyard played quite a prominent part in their childish lives. This churchyard, which was so near the parsonage, added much to the gloom and unhealthiness of the old manse, and many people have attributed the ill health of all the girls to its close proximity. It was depressing, to say the least, to such imaginative children as those of Mr. Bronté.
It was not long after the mother's death that the two older girls, Maria and Elizabeth, were taken to a school at Cowan's Bridge, a small hamlet in the north of England, and the younger children were left more lonely than ever. This school, which had been selected on account of its cheapness, had been established for the daughters of clergymen, and the entire expenses were fourteen pounds a year. Cowan's Bridge is prettily situ ated, just where the Leck-fells sweep into the plain; and by the course of the beck, alders and willows and hazel bushes grow. This little shallow, sparkling stream runs through long green pastures, and has many little falls over beds of gray rocks. The school-house had been made from an old bobbin-mill, and the situation proved to be remarkably unhealthy. This is the school so realistically described by Charlotte in "Jane Eyre." "Helen Burns" is an exact transcript of Maria Bronté, and every scene is a literal description of events which took place at this school. The whole thing was burned into Charlotte's memory so indelibly that she reproduced it with photographic exactness. Emily and Charlotte had followed the other sisters there, after a year or two, so that all of them suffered to a greater or less extent from the privations and abuses they underwent in that female Dotheboys Hall. The eldest sister died, and the second became very ill; yet still Mr. Bronté, who believed in the hardening process for children, kept them there until the health of each one failed in turn, and they were permanently injured by their privations. The food, which would perhaps have been wholesome enough if properly cooked, was ruined by a dirty and careless woman, who served it up in such disgusting messes that many a time the fastidious little Brontés could not eat a mouthful, though faint with hunger. There was always the most delicate cleanliness in the frugal Bronté household, and the children had early learned to be dainty in such matters. Their fare at home was of the simplest nature, but always well cooked; and they simply fasted themselves ill at Cowan's Bridge because they could not eat what was set before them.
There was another trial of health to the girls, and that was being obliged in all kinds of weather to attend church, which was two miles away. The road was a very bleak and unsheltered one, where cutting winds blew in winter and where the snows were often deep. The church was never warmed, as there was no provision made for any heating apparatus; and when the ill-f ed and half-clothed girls had reached its shelter, they were often in actual chills from the exposure, and could not hope to gain any additional warmth there. Colds were taken in this way, from which the girls never recovered. They also suffered from cold in the school itself, and from the tyranny of one of the teachers, whom Charlotte has mercilessly depicted as Miss Scatcherd in "Jane Eyre." To the day of Miss Bronté's death, she would blaze with indignation at any mention of this school; and who can wonder?
After the death of the second daughter, Elizabeth, Charlotte and Emily were taken from Cowan's Bridge, and spent some time at another school, where they