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Updated: June 5, 2025
The attempt to secure pupils at Haworth failed. At this time the conduct of the now dissipated brother Branwell conduct bordering on insanity caused the family the most terrible anxiety; their father was nearly blind with cataract, and Charlotte herself lived under the dread of blindness.
Charlotte, Anne, and I, shall be all merrily seated in our own sitting-room in some pleasant and flourishing seminary, having just gathered in for the midsummer holiday. Our debts will be paid off and we shall have cash in hand to a considerable amount. Papa, Aunt, and Branwell, will either have been or be coming to visit us."
She had been learning by heart a "pretty little hymn" of Mr. Bronte's composing; and reading Lord Lyttelton's "Advice to a Lady," on which she makes some pertinent and just remarks, showing that she thought as well as read. And so Maria Branwell fades out of sight; we have no more direct intercourse with her; we hear of her as Mrs.
Her tender conscience drew an unspeakable torment from the spectacle of her brother's degradation. For it was on Anne, who had no genius to sustain her, that poor Branwell, with the burden of his destiny, weighed most hard. It was Anne at Thorp Green who had the first terrible misgivings, the intolerable premonitions.
There is another scrap of paper in this all but illegible handwriting, written about this time, and which gives some idea of the sources of their opinions. . . . "Papa and Branwell are gone for the newspaper, the Leeds Intelligencer, a most excellent Tory newspaper, edited by Mr. Wood, and the proprietor, Mr. Henneman. We take two, and see three, newspapers a week.
I remember I lingered somewhat long over the schooldays at Cowan Bridge and that I found the Brussels period dull; M. Héger struck me as a tiresome pedant, and I wondered how Charlotte could ever have put up with him. There was a great deal about Branwell that I could not understand at all, and so forgot. And I skipped all the London part, and Charlotte's literary letters.
If this should not prove the prelude to something worse I shall think little of it, as it is the first disastrous circumstance which has occurred since I left my home." The last of these letters is dated December the 5th. Miss Branwell and her cousin intended to set about making the wedding-cake in the following week, so the marriage could not be far off.
'And I would choose the Isle of Wight. "Emily. 'The Isle of Arran for me. "Anne. 'And mine shall be Guernsey. "We then chose who should be chief men in our islands. Branwell chose John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr. Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir Henry Halford.
Here, at Thornton, Charlotte Bronte was born, on the 21st of April, 1816. Fast on her heels followed Patrick Branwell, Emily Jane, and Anne. After the birth of this last daughter, Mrs. Bronte's health began to decline. It is hard work to provide for the little tender wants of many young children where the means are but limited.
In the Brontës it emerges at five different levels, rising from abortive struggle to supreme achievement from Mr. Brontë to his son Branwell, from Branwell to Anne, from Anne to Charlotte, and from Charlotte to Emily. And Maria, who died, was an infant prodigy. And Mr. Brontë is important because he was the tool used by their destiny to keep Charlotte and Emily in Haworth.
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