CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII 1 CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER COFFEE CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement The Project Gutenberg eBook, Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement K. Shorter This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle Author: Clement K. Shorter Release Date: August 8, 2006 [eBook #19011] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) ***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER CIRCLE*** Transcribed from the 1896 Hodder and Stoughton edition by Les Bowler. CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER CIRCLE BY CLEMENT K. SHORTER LONDON HODDER AND STOUGHTON 27 PATERNOSTER ROW 1896 [Picture: CHARLOTTE BRONTE] PREFACE It is claimed for the following book of some five hundred pages that the larger part of it is an addition of entirely new material to the romantic story of the Brontes. For this result, but very small credit is due to me; and my very hearty acknowledgments must be made, in the first place, to the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, for whose generous surrender of personal inclination I must ever be grateful. It has been with extreme unwillingness that Mr. Nicholls has broken the silence of forty years, and he would not even now have consented to the publication of certain letters concerning his marriage, had he not been aware that these letters were already privately printed and in the hands of not less than eight or ten people. To Miss Ellen Nussey of Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement 2 Gomersall, I have also to render thanks for having placed the many letters in her possession at my disposal, and for having furnished a great deal of interesting information. Without the letters from Charlotte Bronte to Mr. W. S. Williams, which were kindly lent to me by his son and daughter, Mr. and Mrs. Thornton Williams, my book would have been the poorer. Sir Wemyss Reid, Mr. J. J. Stead, of Heckmondwike, Mr. Butler Wood, of Bradford, Mr. W. W. Yates, of Dewsbury, Mr. Erskine Stuart, Mr. Buxton Forman, and Mr. Thomas J. Wise are among the many Bronte specialists who have helped me with advice or with the loan of material. Mr. Wise, in particular, has lent me many valuable manuscripts. Finally, I have to thank my friend Dr. Robertson Nicoll for the kindly pressure which has practically compelled me to prepare this little volume amid a multitude of journalistic duties. CLEMENT K. SHORTER. 198 STRAND, LONDON, September 1st, 1896. CONTENTS PRELIMINARY Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement 3 CHAPTER I PATRICK BRONTE AND MARIA HIS WIFE CHAPTER I 4 CHAPTER II CHILDHOOD CHAPTER II 5 CHAPTER III SCHOOL AND GOVERNESS LIFE CHAPTER III 6 CHAPTER IV PENSIONNAT HEGER, BRUSSELS CHAPTER IV 7 CHAPTER V PATRICK BRANWELL BRONTE CHAPTER V 8 CHAPTER VI EMILY JANE BRONTE CHAPTER VI 9 CHAPTER VII ANNE BRONTE CHAPTER VII 10 [...]... papers to which I have referred, are all that remain to us as a memento of Mrs Bronte, apart from the children that she bore to her husband The miniatures, which are in the possession of Miss Branwell, of Penzance, are of Mr and Mrs Thomas Branwell Charlotte Bronte' s maternal grandfather and grandmother and of Mrs Bronte and her sister Elizabeth Branwell as children To return, however, to our bundle of... WHITFIELD, CITY ROAD 1803 PRICE BOUND 1s The book was evidently brought by Mrs Bronte from Penzance, and given by her to her husband or left among her effects The poor little woman had been in her grave for five or six years when it came into the hands of one of her daughters, as we learn from Charlotte' s hand-writing on the fly-leaf:-'C Bronte' s book This book was given to me in July 1826 It is not certainly... written by my dear wife, and is for insertion in one of the periodical publications Keep it as a CHAPTER I 35 memorial of her. ' There is no reason to suppose that the MS was ever published; there is no reason why any editor should have wished to publish it It abounds in the obvious At the same time, one notes that from both father and mother alike Charlotte Bronte and her sisters inherited some measure... careful inquiry, and that he and other eminent lawyers came to the conclusion that it was one long tissue of lies or hallucinations The subject is sufficiently sordid, and indeed almost redundant in any biography of the Brontes; but it is of moment, because Charlotte Bronte and her sisters were so thoroughly persuaded that a woman was at the bottom of their brother's ruin; and this belief Charlotte impressed... Thornton 1816 Charlotte Bronte born at Thornton 21 April 1816 Patrick Branwell Bronte born 1817 Emily Jane Bronte born 1818 'The Maid of Killarney' published 1818 Anne Bronte born 1819 Removal to Incumbency of Haworth February 1820 Mrs Bronte died 15 September 1821 Maria and Elizabeth Bronte at Cowan Bridge July 1824 Charlotte and Emily ,, ,, September 1824 Leave Cowan Bridge 1825 Maria Bronte died 6... heart.' And that clearly Mrs Gaskell succeeded in doing It is quite certain that Charlotte Bronte would not stand on so splendid a pedestal to-day but for the single-minded devotion of her accomplished biographer It has sometimes been implied that the portrait drawn by Mrs Gaskell was far too sombre, that there are passages in Charlotte' s letters which show that ofttimes her heart was merry and her life... its consolation for the trials of the past, she saw her two beloved sisters taken from her And, finally, when at last a good man won her love, there were left to her only nine months of happy married life 'I am not going to die We have been so happy.' These words to her husband on her death-bed are not the least piteously sad in her tragic story That her life was a tragedy, was the opinion of the woman... in my hands They were more varied and more abundant than I could possibly have anticipated They included MSS of childhood, of which so much has been said, and stories of adult life, one fragment indeed being later than the Emma which appeared in the Cornhill Magazine for 1856, with a note by Thackeray Here were the letters Charlotte Bronte had written to her brother and to her sisters during her second... whom the task would fall Among all the friends whom fame had brought to Charlotte, Mrs Gaskell stood prominent for her literary gifts and her large-hearted sympathy She had made the acquaintance of Miss Bronte when the latter was on a visit to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth, in 1850; and a letter from Charlotte to her father, and others to Mr W S Williams, indicate the beginning of a friendship which was... delightful to sit near her in the evenings and hear her converse, myself mute She speaks with what seems to me a wonderful fluency and eloquence Her animal spirits are as unflagging as her intellectual powers I was glad to find her health excellent I believe neither solitude nor loss of friends would break her down I saw some faults in her, but somehow I liked them for the sake of her good points It gave . GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER CIRCLE* ** Transcribed from the 1896 Hodder and Stoughton edition by Les Bowler. CHARLOTTE BRONTE AND HER CIRCLE BY CLEMENT. XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement The Project Gutenberg eBook, Charlotte Bronte and Her Circle, by Clement K. Shorter This