Patrick Branwell Brontë

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Patrick Branwell Bronte

Printed tn Great Britain

Patrick Branwell Bronte.

From the medallion by his friend J. B. Leyland, the sculptor.

(Made probably about i^>4i.)

Patrick Branwell Bronte

'By

^Alice Law, F.R.S.L., F.R.Hist.S.

(Author of " Songs of the Uplands" etc.)

London :

A. M. Philpot, Ltd.

69 Great Russell Street, W.C.

To my friend

A.E. M.

in remembrance of

Whitsuntide, 1923

^- ^^

fK ^^f?i^^<^ -'x

^y^'^ii A'-" 1356

I.

1993437

Co:jXT6j^ts

Chapter Page

Introduction - - - 9

I. The Biographers - - - 13

II. Boyhood - - - - 18

III. " I don't know what to do " - 34

IV. " Much Tribulation " - - - 66

V. "Wuthering Heights" — by Emily? 103

VI. "Wuthering Heights " — by Bran-
well ? 141

Appendix

Selections from the Poems of

Branwell Bronte - - 185

ILL USTR.ATIO.?(S

Patrick Branwell Bronte. From a

medallion by his friend, the sculptor
J. B. Leyland - - - Frontispiece

To face page
The Moorland Track, leading to what is now

caUed " The Bronte Waterfall " - 32

Emily Bronte. From the painting by

Patrick Branwell Bronte - - - 40

Haworth Parsonage as it was in the time of

the Brontes 84

" Patrick's Chair." Branwell's favourite

seat in the Black Bull Inn, Haworth - 134

The Withens. The supposed site of

" Wuthering Heights " - - - 148

INTRODUCTION

In common with many other dwellers on the

borders of the West Riding of Yorkshire, within a

radius of some twenty odd miles from Haworth,

I was brought up in the Bronte atmosphere. I

have paid many visits to the little grey parsonage

on the sky-line of the gaunt uplands, and every

pilgrimage has intensified my profound pity for

the unhappy life and blighted ambitions of Patrick

Branwell Bronte, a feeling even predominating

over my admiration for the genius of his sisters.

This feeling might have remained pity, and

nothing more, had it not been at length roused to

something warmer by finding such a torrent of

unmitigated abuse of Charlotte's despised brother

in all the Bronte literature, both present and past,

as made one suspect there must be some source of

irritation against him not immediately manifest

to the general public. Yet the more I pondered

9

10 Introduction

over his case, the more inexphcable it became to
suppose that the youth whom Mrs. Gaskell — a
writer so near to the heart of things through her
friendship with Charlotte — had pronounced to ba
" perhaps, to begin with, the greatest genius in
this rare family", could have passed through nearly
thirty-one years of life without leaving some
work of value behind him. " To begin with " —
the phrase is curious. One realises the suggestion
behind it — that Branwell, both as boy and youth,
gave promise of achievements which he never
performed, and that having wasted and neglected
his powers, he finally lost them. This opened up
the question in my mind — Can genius perish
utterly in a man ? Even though the vessel be
wrecked, will not some spars, some precious cargo
float to land to shew what a rich-laden and goodly
ship has foundered ? What became of Branwell's
undoubted genius ?

In this perplexed state of mind I came across
Mr. Francis A. Leyland's book on " The Bronte
Family", written with especial reference to
Branwell, giving various fragments of Branwell's

Introduction 1 1

work, and, most important of all, quoting his
declaration that he had written a great portion of
" Wuthering Heights."

The " murder " was out, and my suspicions
concerning the marked animus shewn by the
biographers of the Brontes — those of Emily in
particular — towards Branwell, were at once con-
firmed. I began to understand something of the
rage and indignation such an assertion would
rouse in the minds of the staunch supporters of
Emily's authorship, an authorship so confidently
vouched for by Charlotte. I began to realize how
necessary it was for the enthusiastic partizans of
Emily and Charlotte to counter what Mr.
Clement Shorter terms this " preposterous state-
ment " of Branwell's, by endeavouring to shew
him up as a thoroughly unreliable wastrel and liar.
Greatly impressed with Mr. Leyland's very fair
and balanced account of Branwell, I determined to
study the matter more closely, with the result that
I am convinced there is much evidence to sub-
stantiate his claim. To dismiss it as the bio-
graphers of Emily have done, with mere derision

1 2 Introduction

and rancorous contempt, is futile ; abuse is not
argument. It remains, therefore, in the interests
of literary justice that Branwell's claim should be
carefully examined, as I have endeavoured, how
ever inadequately, to examine it in the following
pages, and I venture to submit the accumulated
evidence which has been brought to light since Mr.
Leyland's day to the unbiassed judgment of my
readers.

Where no absolutely direct proof can be adduced,
I have employed conjecture ; but only such con-
jecture as, taken together with all the obvious
points of the case, amounts well nigh to certainty.

Alice Law

THE BIOGRAPHERS

The history of the Bronte family, with one ex-
ception, that of their brother, the subject of this
memoir, har-. been so often told as to call for little
further comment. The story of Patrick Branwell
Bronte, on the other hand, has but cropped up
incidentally in the biographies of his famous
sisters, hurriedly, apologetically thrust in, to
illustrate certain aspects of, or crises in, their Uves.
The reference has been usually brief and damna-
tory, the pitiable narrative being introduced
chiefly as a foil to display how their genius tri-
umphed despite the stumbling block of a brother's
disgrace, strewn in the path of their achievement.
Mrs. Gaskell passes him by with a shudder,
referring to him as one who proved the bane of his
sisters' Uves ; Sir Wemyss Reid, in his monograph
upon Charlotte, refers to him as " this lost and
degraded man " ; Miss Mary Robinson (Madame
Duclaux), in her study of Emily, cannot find

13

14 Patrick Branwell Bronte

words sufficiently scathing to convey her contempt
for Branwell ; and Mr. Swinburne, in his review
of Miss Robinson's work, adds his invective to hers.
Within the last quarter of a century other writers
have gone out of their way to heap contempt and
obloquy upon this unfortunate young man. Mr.
Clement Shorter dismisses his pretensions to
genius in the harshest fashion, and Miss Sinclair,
relying perhaps too much on Mr. Shorter 's judg-
ment, and for a reason which I hope presently to
make plain, acquiesces in, and even emphasizes
the general condemnation. While at first gener-
ously deploring the perpetual digging up of poor
Branwell, Miss Sinclair finally, in her study of
" The Three Brontes", begins to dig as fast as
any one, and to drive as many nails as possible
into the coffin of his reputation.

Indeed, this necessity of repudiating Branwell
has become a kind of obsession among Bronte
writers, so much so that they seem to fear that
unless Branwell is defamed, the sisters cannot
come into their full inheritance of glory.

From what we know of Charlotte, Emily and

Patrick Branwell Bronte 1 5

Anne Bronte, we can guess that they would owe
their biographers scant thanks for such a miserable
tribute to their reputation. Assuredly the lustre
of their renown is brilliant enough, and needs no
such deplorable foil. Yet, so it has been : from
the time of Mrs. Gaskell until now, Branwell
Bronle's failure has been everywhere emphasized
to magnify his sisters' success or to enhance the
pathos of their sufferings, until it is scarcely an
exaggeration to say that his poor Hfe and reputa-
tion have been used, much as were the bodies of
some of the Early Christians — tarred with obloquy
and burned as a torch to throw a more lurid light
on the struggles of his kinsfolk batthng in life's
arena. His own martyrdom, at the hands of Fate
and Family, has passed unheeded.

There is perhaps in the whole history of English
literature — usually so generous to the claims of
genius however handicapped by temperament or
hampered by circumstance — no parallel instance
of any writer of equad ability being subjected to the
indiscriminate abuse heaped on Branwell Bronte.
It is indeed time that all this execration should

16 Patrick Branwell Bronte

cease. Shameful if continued against the most
ordinary human being, it becomes an outrage
against the memory of one who had so little good
fortune in his short lifetime ; who died in his
thirty-first year, a victim to the hereditary disease
which devastated in turn the members of his family;
and who left behind him fragments of art and
literature which indicate the highest promise of
what he might have attained in a more favourable
environment.

Mr. Bronte was the first strongly to resent Mrs.
Gaskell's uncalled-for attacks upon both himself
and his son, and since then there have happily
been a few gallant defenders of Branwell Bronte,
to whose impressions the more weight may be
attached since they either knew him personally
or were in close touch with those who did. The
report they render, taken as a whole, is markedly
in his favour. The writers denouncing him, on
the other hand, are those who have merely judged
him from rumour and hearsay. Their almost
hysterical outbursts against him leave the reader
with the suspicion that they had some particular

Patrick Branwell Bro7ite 17

grudge against him, and, as I hope presently to
shew, they undoubtedly have. The peevishness
of these writers, makes them all, with the notable
exception of Mr. Clement Shorter, strive to give
their readers an impression that Branwell's whole
life was a trial and disgrace to his family ; whereas
we know that only during the last three years,
when he was suffering abnormal strain of physical
and mental anguish, did he become a source of
acute anxiety and distress to his father and
sisters. For at least twenty-seven years he was
the object of pride and dear affection. How he
came to be anything less shall be examined later.
Before entering upon a discussion of Branwell
Bronte's claim to our remembrance, a brief sum-
mary of his life history is necessary. Much
material, previously unknown, has been brought
together by the unremitting industry of his chief
biographer, Mr. Francis A. Leyland, upon which*
I shall not hesitate to draw largely, and base my
own conclusions.

• "The Bronte Family" (Hurst and Blackett)
1886. Henceforth referred to as Leyland.

B

II

BOYHOOD

To begin then, as the children say, at the very
beginning, it is known to all Bronte students that
Patrick Branwell Bronte was born at the Parsonage
House, Haworth, near Keighley, in the West
Riding of Yorkshire, in 1818, the fourth child of
The Reverend Patrick Bronte and Maria, his
wife. He was called Patrick after his father, and
Branwell after his mother's family. His mother
died when he was three years old, and he can
scarcely have had any definite recollection of her.
From his fourth year onward, till he was old
enough to attend the local Grammar School, we
must picture the little Branwell as a fair, bright-
eyed boy, with chestnut hair, sharing the home life
of his five motherless sisters, under the kindly, but
strict tutelage of their aunt. Miss Branwell, who
at the request of her bereaved brother-in-law, had

18

Patrick Branwell Bronte 19

come up from Cornwall to manage his young
family, and to preside over the affairs of his house-
hold.

It has been wisely said that every student of the
Brontes would do well to visit the high moorland
village where they were bred, a tiny rustic hamlet
perched on the top of wild, sweeping, ruthless
uplands, amid the kind of scenery that either
attracts or utterly repels the onlooker. We know
that in the case of one, if not two, of the sisters,
their native moors were so much a part of their
own nature, that they could not be happy else-
where. This was not necessarily their brother's
case, though the wild spirit of the moors un-
doubtedly imbued his mind and heart from life-
long association. As a tiny boy, hand in hand
with his elder sisters, Maria, Elizabeth and
Charlotte, he walked day after day along the roads
leading either to Colne or Keighley, and when he
was old enough to ramble alone or with some
friend of his own age, we may be sure he frequented
every nook and cranny that held Nature's secrets,
and became acquainted with every bird and plant

20 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

to be found in the remotest recesses of that deso-
late region.

It might be supposed that the only boy among
a group of girls would be the especial object of his
father's care and solicitude. It is clear that Mr.
Bronte did his best for his son within the very
narrow limitations of his somewhat stern and
self-centred nature. But his whole system of
training proves beyond the possibility of doubt,
that he was no lover of children. His ideas were
rigid, the little ones were not to come into close
contact with him, he was to be " saved " from
them, not to be disturbed by noise or play. To
make quite sure that his solitude should not be
encroached upon, he took his meals apart, and
further to ensure that his offspring should prove
sufficiently " tame " and docile, we are told that
he kept them on a diet of porridge and potatoes.
They were never allowed meat. Now in the mild
climate of Ireland, where Mr. Bronte had been bred,
and where so large a proportion of the population
are potato-fed, this diet is probably fairly
sustaining, at least when supplemented, as it

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 2 1

usually is, with bacon. But for a bleak, bitter
country like the desolate, high moors of the West
Riding, such fare is quite unsuitable. The delicate
children of the Parsonage needed the best food
and clothing available, to protect them from the
cold of that exposed region. It seems therefore
impossible to exonerate this hard, self-absorbed
parent from the grave accusation of having sub-
jected his precious charges to a regimen and system
of training which their tender bodies were totally
unfitted to bear, and of having thus — unwittingly,
it may be granted — laid them open to the ravages
of that constitutional disease which proved fatal
to them all.

In the case of Branwell, the lack of nitrogenous
food was especially disastrous, as a boy needs
more bone and muscle building, and there can
be little doubt that the Spartan diet upon which
he was reared induced the fragility so eminently
noticeable in his constitution, both as boy and man.
It was probably this lack of stamina and natural
vigour which led him in later years to resort to
stimulants that might spur his flagging energies,

22 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

and which rendered him unequal to the strain of
combating the series of disappointments he eventu-
ally encountered, under which his spirit broke
completely and finally.

From all accounts he was a gentle, affectionate
boy, but abnormally excitable. He was his
aunt's especial favourite, but never taken into
close companionship by his father. The grim
old man did his duty, as he conceived it, by his
son in grounding him well in the rudiments of
learning, and without doubt taught him conscien-
tiously and well. But his grave and reserved
nature made him incapable of winning the boy's
ardent, impulsive heart, and it was probably a
relief to all concerned when Branwell was old
enough to attend the local Grammar School.

It is well known from Mrs. Gaskell's work*
how the children spent the winter evenings before
bedtime. Seated together round the kitchen
fire, they invented tales and little dramas ; all

* " Life of Charlotte Bronte," by Mrs. Gaskell
(Dent). With Preface by Miss May Sinclair, 1908.
Henceforth referred to as " Life."

Patrick Branwell Bronte 23

the children contributed some idea or other to
the plays ; but there is reason to suppose that
Branwell was the leading spirit in their plots and
composition, Charlotte taking the more tedious
task of copj'ing them out and preserving them
in her private library. The names of three are
given by Charlotte as follows : " Our plays were
estabhshed : ' Young Men', June, 1826 ; ' Our
Fellows', July, 1827 ; ' Islanders', December,
1827. These are our three great plays that are
not kept secret."*

The titles of these plays indicate more strongly
than anything the prominent part played by
Branwell in their composition, though from Mrs.
Gaskell's account, one might suppose the whole
juvenile library, of which Charlotte writes, to have
been her own sole creation. Branwell is also known
to have contributed his share to the " Young
Men's Magazine" completed December, 1829, of
which six numbers are included in the " Catalogue
of my Books up to August, 1830". It is more
than probable that in speaking of these as her
♦ " Life," pp. 54-55.

24 Patrick Branwell Bronte

books Charlotte was claiming possession rather
than authorship, for it is known that her brother
and sister Emily were equal contributors with
herself.

The existence of these little compositions
establishes the fact that Branwell, no less than
his sisters, was engaged in romantic literary
composition from the age of nine onwards. It is
said that he was an ardent student and omnivorous
reader of all the books or magazines that came his
way. He studied the classics both with his
father and at the Grammar School, and was a
fairly brilliant scholar. Some of the magazines
of the day, Blackwood's certainly, he saw, and the
local papers ; we also hear of his close acquaintance
with the works of the great writers of the day,
Scott, Southey, Wordsworth, Byron, De Quincey,
Coleridge, Cowper, Burns, Christopher North, and
many more, as well as with the classics of the
Augustan Age and the great Elizabethans. It is
remarkable, too, that, spirited boy as he was,
his favourite poets were Wordsworth and Cowper :
he was particularly fond of quoting the latter's

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 26

poem, " The Castaway". A description given by
Charlotte of one of her characters, Victor
Crimsworth, in his boyhood, is said by those who
knew, to have borne a close resemblance to Branwell
as they remembered him. " Victor," she makes
William Crimsworth say, " is pale and spare, with
large eyes. . . . His shape is symmetrical enough,
but slight. ... I never saw a child smile less
than he does, nor one who knits such a formidable
brow when sitting over a book that interests him
or while listening to tales of adventure, peril or
wonder. ... He had susceptibility to pleasur-
able sensations almost too keen, for it amounts to
enthusiasm. . . . When he could read, he became
a glutton of books and is so still. His toys have
been few, and he has never wanted more. . . .
I discovered in the garden of his intellect a rich
growth of wholesome principles — reason, justice,
moral courage, promised, if not blighted, a fertile
bearing. . . . She (his mother) sees, as I see, a
something in Victor's temper — a kind of electrical
ardour and power — which emits now and then
ominous sparks. Hunsden calls it his spirit, and

26 Patrick Branwell Bronte

says it should not be curbed. I call it the leaven
of the offending Adam, and consider that it should
be, if not whipped out of him, at least soundly
disciplined. Frances, his mother, gives this some,
thing in her son's marked character no name,
but when it appears ... in the fierce revolt
of feeling against disappointment, mischance,
sudden sorrow or supposed injustice, she folds
him to her breast, or takes him to walk with her
in the wood. Then she reasons with him, and to
reason Victor is ever accessible. Then she looks
at him with eyes of love, and by love Victor can
be infallibly subjugated."* This is but a fanciful
picture for which Branwell may have stood as the
original, but if this was the case, we are brought
in touch with a disposition that was obviously
highly strung and sensitive to the utmost degree.
An intense capacity for enjoyment was most
certainly one of his characteristics, for we read
of the wild exuberance of his spirits when, in the
company of a friend, the son of a neighbour, he
visited Keighley Fair. On a later occasion, when
* Leyland, I., pp. 83 e/ seq.

Patrick Bramvell Bronte 2 7

he had been sent by his father to escort Charlotte

to a friend's house a few miles away, we learn

that his ecstacy knew no bounds at the beauties

of Miss Nussey's dehghtful home. " He walked

about in unrestrained boyish enjoyment, taking

views in every direction of the turret-roofed house,

the fine chestnut trees on the lawn . . . and a

large rookery, which gave to the house a good

background — all these he noted and commented

upon with perfect enthusiasm. He told his sister

he was leaving her in Paradise, and if she were

not intensely happy she never would be ! "*

At this time he was between fifteen and sixteen

years old.

This was a critical period in the boy's life.

Beyond his years of childish tuition, he seems to

have had no further help from his father, who, it

must be granted, was in no way fitted by nature

or temperament to have the up-bringing of so

brilliant, wayward and impulsive a youth as

Branwcll. Consequently, out of lesson hours, he

was left almost entirely to his own devices. In

♦ lb. p. 115.

28 Patrick Branwell Bronte

so retired and rural a hamlet what was there for
the boy to do save consort with the youth of the
place or listen to the coarse, if racy, conversation
of the sexton, John Brown, who, being constantly
employed in the graveyard, only a stones-throw
from the Parsonage door, was always at young
Master Bronte's disposal. The Sexton's " off "
hours were largely spent in the bar-parlour of the
Village Inn, and thither Branwell often followed
him, either to hear his stories or to discuss Pugihsm,
a sport which has frequently a strong attraction
for delicate boys striving to show they are as good
fighters as any other. The " Noble Art of Self
Defence " was much patronized in the early part
of the last century by the fashionable dandies of
London, as well as by the leading country gentle-
men. Branwell, an enthusiastic boxer, was a
member of the village Boxing Club, where no doubt
he met many rough companions whose society
cannot have been either suitable or beneficial to
his temperament at this impressionable period of
his Hfe. Still, it is difficult to see how, without
being a prig, he could have avoided the com-

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 29

panionship of the youths who were his father's
parishioners and Sunday scholars.

But though the rough and tumble life he
shared with some of his village companions was
undoubtedly a prominent feature of his early
youth, there were other ties and attractions that
bound him more closely : the attachment he
had to his sisters, his affection for his devoted
Aunt Branwell, and his respect for his father's
teaching and character. At the Parsonage he spent
his time cultivating his mind with all the good
literature within reach, in the study of music,
to which he was passionately devoted, and in
the serious pursuit of art.

Branwell had lessons in music from the teacher
who instructed his sister Emily — the only really
gifted musician of the three sisters — and he also
played the organ. Whether he played for the
Sunday services is not related, but we hear of
him at a later date, in 1837, officiating as organist
at meetings of the Masonic Lodge of the Three
Graces, held at Haworth in that year. He was
particularly devoted to sacred music, and an

30 Patrick Branwell Bronte

enthusiastic admirer of the compositions of
Handel, Hadyn, Mozart and other great masters.
It is told of him that when the works of these
great musicians were at any time played by his
friends, he would walk about the rooms in an
ecstacy, his eyes raised to the ceiling, " accom-
panying the music with his voice in an impassioned
manner, and beating time with his hand on the
chairs as he passed to and fro."*

Painting was, however, thought to be his
greatest gift, and in company with his sisters,
particularly Charlotte, Branwell had drawing
lessons from a visiting master, and quickly pro-
ceeded on his own initiative to attempt oil
painting. His gift for obtaining a hkeness of
his subject was very noticeable ; indeed, so
marked was his facility with brush and pencil
that the whole family were convinced that art
would be his vocation, and for several years he
was strongly encouraged by them to persist
industriously in its pursuit.

From all the accounts we have of his various
* "Leyland," I., p. ug.

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 31

accomplishments at the close of his boyhood,
it can scarcely be disputed that Branwell Bronte
was exceptionally gifted. He was, moreover, a
boy who pulsed with feeling, a boy, who, while he
danced with the joy of young life, vibrated also with
all the emotions of sorrow when it visited the little
domestic circle to which he belonged. In many
respects he was as sensitive as a woman, and where
he gave his affections, he became and remained
passionately attached. The pathetic death of his
two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, when he was
a boy of eight, made a tragic impression on his
mind, and perhaps laid the foundations of that
deep strain of dark melancholy that pervades all his
poetry, and which plunged him in gloom at
various intervals all through his life. His poems
" To Caroline " are supposed to have been the
outcome of his musings on the untimely deaths
of his sisters.

It is scarcely to be wondered at if Branwell,
marshalled as he was from a very early age in
all his goings and comings by women, should
have developed a marked sense of sex differen-

32 Patrick Branwell Bronte

tiation. Shut up as he was in a bare, dreary,
moorland Parsonage ; ruled over by a precise,
formal and elderly lady, and a harsh-mannered,
rude-voiced old Yorkshire house-wife, the famous
" Tabby " ; with no other companions than his
three, delicate, prim sisters, trained in the
strictest code of Victorian propriety ; his father
a grave, awe-inspiring elderly clergyman, ab-
sorbed more closely in his own personality than
in that of his son — with such an environment,
is it to be marvelled that he passionately longed
for the society of his fellows, and that, the moment
lessons were over, he rushed to freedom with all
the glee and impetuosity of a wild thing escaping
from prison bars ? One can imagine him scam-
pering over the moors, shouting aloud in sheer
dehght of living, strangely similar to that boy
of whom Wordsworth wrote : —

There was a boy — ye knew him well, ye cliffs
And islands of Winander ! Many a time
At evening, when the earliest stars began
To move along the edges of the hills,
Rising or setting, he would stand alone.
Beneath the trees, or by the glimmering lake ;

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Patrick Branwell Bronte 33

And there, with fingers interwoven, both hands
Pressed closely palm to palm, and to his mouth
Uplifted, he, as through an instrument
Blew mimic hootings to the silent owls.
That they might answer him * » ♦

And when it chanced

That pauses of deep silence mocked his skill,

Then, sometimes in that silence, while he hung

Listening, a gentle shock of mild surprise

Has carried far into his heart the voice

Of mountain torrents ; or the visible scene

Would enter unawares into his mind

With all its solemn imagery, its rocks,

Its woods and that uncertain heaven received

Into the bosom of the steady lake.

Ill

" I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO."

These words uttered listlessly by Branwell when
he was a boy of between seven and eight, as he
and his sisters were seated round the kitchen fire
one winter evening, and which brought from
Charlotte the bright suggestion that they should
play at choosing an Island,* were almost pro-
phetically significant of Branwell's attitude to-
wards the various dilemmas in which he found
himself at subsequent periods of his life. At the
age of seventeen it became incumbent on him to
choose a career. It may be supposed that his
father would have been well satisfied had his son
shown an inclination to qualify as a clergyman.
But Branwell had no such desire either then or
afterwards. It is probable that, this being the
case, Mr. Bronte did not take the same interest
in his son's future which he would have done had

* " Life," p. 53.
34

Patrick Bramtfll Bronte 35

Bran well staidly adopted his own profession.
But Charlotte, who was in a sense the leading spirit
at the Parsonage, was at this time much impressed
with her brother's abilities, and looked to him
to accomplish great things. His gift for drawing
was, so far, the most outstanding of his per-
formances, and seemed to hold out the greatest
chances of success. He had either at this time
or a few years later, probably in 1839, made a life-
size painting of his three sisters, which Mrs. Gaskell
saw before it had faded, and of which she writes
as follows : " It was a group of his sisters, life-size,
three-quarter length ; not much better than sign-
painting as to manipulation, but the Ukenesses
were, I should think, admirable. I could only
judge of the fidelity with which the other two were
depicted from the striking resemblance which
Charlotte . . . standing right behind it, bore to
her own representation, though it must have been
ten years or more since the portraits were taken.
. . . They were good likenesses, however badly
executed. From whence I should guess his
family augured truly that, if Branwell had but the

36 Patrick Branwell Bronte

opportunity ... he might turn out a great
painter."*

After, we may be sure, a most careful considera-
tion of the question, it was decided that Branwell
should seek entry as a student at the Royal
Academy Schools, and he accordingly wrote to
the secretary for information. All we know
further is that in 1835 he proceeded to London
with a view to presenting himself as a student,
and that within a week he returned to the Parson-
age without having achieved the exciting purpose
for which he had so high-heartedly set out. To
those who know the qualifying conditions of study
at the Academy Schools there will appear nothing
singular in Branwell's sudden return, though his
detractors, hastening to use even this for the
purpose of defaming him, and, without a shadow of
foundation for their assertions, insidiously suggest
that his failure was the outcome of indulgence in a
course of dissipation at the first opportunity that
presented itself.

Mrs. Gaskell in this connection writes absolute
* " Life," p. 88.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 37

nonsense about " sisters who have laid their lives
as a sacrifice before their brother's idolised wish,"
which is nothing to the point, as his sisters were
in no way affected by Branwell's apphcation at
the Academy Schools, though they might have
been had he selfishly decided to remain there and
go through the necessary course of training.
But to talk of " sacrifice " is ridiculous : some
opportunity of training for a profession was in
any case due to the boy if he were to support
himself in life, and had he decided to enter the
Church, he would have needed some course of
college training. But this week in London was
all he got, and yet Miss Sinclair talks glibly about
his having " had his chance ".* Even Mr. Shorter
makes the totally unsupported assertion that the
youth " probably wasted the money and his father
refused supplies. "|

Mr. Leyland, however, writes with sense and
judgment upon the matter, and he has an especial
right to do so, as his brother, the sculptor, was then

• Sinclair, " The Three Brontes," p. 17 (Hutchinson),
t Shorter, " The Bronte Circle " (Dent).

38 Patrick Branwell Bronte

living in London, in close touch with some of the
greatest artists of the day ; and it is more than
probable that under his patronage the lad made
this first venture. " It would," says Mr. Leyland,
" seem scarcely possible that the difficulties
attending Branwell's admission as a student
at the Royal Academy had been duly considered.
He could not be admitted without a preliminary
examination of his drawings from the antique
and the skeleton, to ascertain if his ability as a
draughtsman was of such an order as would
qualify him for studentship ; and if successful
in this, he would be required to undergo a regular
course of education and to pass through the various
schools where professors and academicians attended
to give instruction. No doubt it was wished that
Branwell should have a regular and prolonged
preparation for his professional, artistic career ;
but it would have lasted for years and the pecuniary
strain consequent upon it would perhaps have been
severely felt, even if Branwell's genius had justified
the outlay."*

* " Leyland," I., p. 142-146.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 39

It is greatly to Branwell's credit that he at once
grasped this aspect of the case. He probably
talked the matter over with the sculptor — after-
wards his life-long friend — and decided that he
was not justified in putting such a strain upon his
father's resources, and so, after a wonderful week
of sight-seeing in the city of his dreams, he made
the best of it, and bravely returned to Haworth.
This was indeed the only manly course to take,
and he took it. But the boy's own bitter dis-
appointment and disillusion may be better imagined
than expressed, and we know that he referred to
it in a conversation with his friend, Mr. George
Searle Phillips, who mentions it in his account
of Branwell published in the " Mirror " for 1872.

Branwell was not immediately discouraged.
He could not afford London, but an arrangement
was made, possibly by the generosity of his aunt
Miss Branwell, by which he should take a short
course of lessons in Bradford, in the studio of the
artist who had previously given him and Charlotte
some occasional lessons at Haworth. He worked
with Mr. Robinson for a few months, and then.

40 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

possibly fired by the example of the great Chantry's
humble beginnings, he started as portrait painter
on his own account in that town. Although he
received certain commissions, and lived frugally,
it was not possible to make a profitable business
out of so precarious an occupation ; the days
of black-and-white work, in which he would prob-
ably have excelled, had not yet come ; and after
a heart-breaking struggle, Branwell, in 1839,
decided to abandon the pursuit of art altogether.
Miss Sinclair dismisses Branwell's art career
very jauntily. " He went to London," she says,
" but nothing came of it. He went to Bradford
and had a studio there, but nothing came of it."*
Nothing for Branwell possibly, but, I venture
to think, much for ourselves. Had it not been for
Branwell's great gift, not of painting, perhaps,
but of portraiture, how much poorer should we
be to-day ! For is it not to his gift of perception
and insight which found in the countenances of
his three sisters something arresting, something
akin to greatness, perceived by no one else, that
* " The Three Brontes," p. 17.

Emily Bronx K.

From a painting by Patrick Branwi-ll Bronte.

(Reproduced by kind permission of the National Portrait
Gallery, London.)

Patrick Branwell Bronte 41

we have preserved for us, although in ruins, the
group of the three Brontes which Mrs. Gaskell
saw and described in its first freshness ? This we
owe assuredly to the Bradford period. And if
Branwell had no other fame, he has at least one
species of immortality as the painter of his sister
Emily's profile portrait, in which he has caught
the very soul and spirit of his subject, and given
her to us in all her Dantesque severity and aloof-
ness, given her to us clothed with all the fatality
of a Greek tragic figure, a second Antigone, gazing
intently into Eternity. Only an innately fine
artist could have given us this ; the colours have
perished, but the flame-like spirit of Emily remains
and fires the faded canvas. Who, having seen
even the wreck of this portrait of Emily Bronte
can be unmindful of the undeveloped genius of
the artist brother who conceived and limned it ?
Who, having dwelt on the truth of its execution,
and the inexhaustible wonder of its subject, can
truthfully say that " nothing came " of Branwell
Bronte's art studies at Bradford ?

While at Bradford he made many friends among

42 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

the most cultured artistic circles to be found there.
His musical abilities also won him many friends
in the town. Those who knew him there describe
him as " a quiet, unassuming young man, retiring
and difhdent, seeming rather of a passive nature
and delicate constitution than otherwise." Miss
Mary F. Robinson's statements that he left the
town heavily in debt, and was both a drunkard and
an opium-eater are, says Mr. Leyland " simply
untrue." " I have," he goes on to say, " the
positive information of one who knew Bran well
in Leeds, and who resided in Bradford when he was
there, that he did not leave that town in debt ;
that he certainly was not a drunkard, and that
if he took anything at all it was but occasionally,
and then no more than the commonest custom
would permit." In conclusion, Mr. Leyland
speaks with admiration of Branwell's " honest,
upright and honourable endeavour to make a living
by the profession of Art at Bradford."*

Other forces were at this time also working in
Branwell's mind. He had, since boyhood, never
♦ " Leyland," I., p. 178.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 43

ceased the writing of tales and romances. As
late as this Bradford period, he had written a
story entitled " Percy". He continually produced
poems, most of them tinged with that constitu-
tional melancholy which was one of his most
abiding characteristics. Great powers were un-
doubtedly stirring within him, but he was, his
Bradford friends noted, diffident ; the source of
this want of self-confidence may very well have
been the undoubted frailty of his constitution,
already pre-disposed to a consumptive tendency.
None the less, his spirit was brave, and he left
no means untried to di.scover what career he might
adopt which would enable him to relieve his father
from the burden of supporting him.

It was during what we may call this " Bradford
Period " that Branwell occupied his available
leisure in literary — chiefly poetic — attempts. Being
very anxious to succeed, and scarcely knowing to
whom to turn for guidance, he wrote to Words-
worth, and, enclosing some of his verses, ventured
to solicit his opinion as to whether he was justified
in pursuing his literary ambitions. I give the

44 Patrick Branwell Bronte

letter in full, as I think it is valuable evidence of
one side of Branwell's character, a side which has
been so little brought into prominence by his many
detractors :*

" Haworth, near Bradford.

Yorkshire,

January igth, 1837.
" Sir,

" I most earnestly entreat you to read and
pass your judgment upon what I have sent you,
because from the day of my birth to this, the
nineteenth year of my life, I have lived among
secluded hills, where I could neither know what
I was or what I could do. I read for the same
reason that I ate or drank — because it was a real
craving of nature ; I wrote on the same principle
as I spoke, out of the impulse and feelings of the
mind ; nor could I help it, for what came, came
out, and there was the end of it. For as to self-
conceit, that could not receive food from flattery,
since to this hour not half-a-dozen people in the
world know that I have penned a line.
* GaskeU, " Life," p. 98-99-

Patrick Branwell Bronte 45

" But a change has taken place now, Sir ; and
I am arrived at an age wherein I must do something
for myself : the powers I possess must be exercised
to a definite end, and as I don't know them myself,
I must ask of others what they are worth. Yet
there is not one here to tell me ; and still, if they
are worthless, time will henceforth be too precious
to be wasted on them.

" Do pardon me. Sir, that I have ventured to
come before one whose works I have most loved
in our literature, and who most has been with
me a divinity of the mind, laying before him one
of my writings, and asking of him a judgment
of its contents. I must come before someone
from whose sentence there is no appeal ; and such
a one is he who has developed the theory of poetry
as well as its practice, and both in such a way as
to claim a place in the memory of a thousand
years to come.

" My aim, Sir, is to push out into the open world,
and for this I trust not poetry alone — that might
launch the vessel, but could not bear her on ;
sensible and scientific prose, bold and vigorous

46 Patrick Branwell Bronte

efforts in my walk in life, would give a further
title to the notice of the world ; and then again,
poetry ought to brighten and crown that name with
glory ; but nothing of all this can be ever begun
without means, and as I don't possess these
I must in every shape strive to gain them. Surely
in this day, when there is not a writing poet worth
a sixpence, the field must be open, if a better man
can step forward.

" What I send you is the Prefatory Scene of a
much longer subject, in which I have striven to
develop strong passions and weak principles
struggling with a high imagination and acute
feelings, till, as youth hardens towards old age,
evil deeds and short enjoyments end in mental
misery and bodily ruin. Now, to send you the
whole of this would be a mock upon your patience ;
what you see does not even pretend to be more
than the description of an imaginative child. But
read it, Sir ; and, as you would hold a light to one
in utter darkness, as you value your own kind-
heartedness, return me an answer if but one word,
telling me whether I should write on, or write

Patrick Branwell Bronte 47

no more. Forgive undue warmth, because my
feelings in this matter cannot be cool ; and be-
Heve me, Sir, with deep respect,

" Your really humble servant,

"P. B. Bronte."

Mr. Shorter has referred very slightingly to
Branwell's letters in comparison with his sister
Charlotte's, but I think no one can read the one
I have just quoted without being touched by its
tone of courteous deference and the lucid beauty
of its style. The paragraph in which he asks
Wordsworth to pardon his appeal is one of re-
markable grace, and there are many other
passages in the letter, particularly towards the
close, that are affecting by the natural, simple
eloquence of their entreaty. A youth of nine-
teen who could write so well as this had assuredly
a future before him, if he could but meet with
sufficient opportunities of exercising his already
uncommon gifts of hterary expression.

But one of the outstanding disadvantages from
which Branwell Bronte suffered throughout his

48 Patrick Branwell Bronte

life was that — as he confessed so naively in this
letter — he did not know what powers he possessed,
and when he was on the verge of discovering them,
misfortunes assailed him, and he died without
coming into the heritage actually awaiting him.

Soon after his return from Bradford, we find
Branwell accepting the situation of tutor in the
family of a Mr. Postlethwaite of Broughton-
in-Furness, and entering upon his duties there
on the first of January, 1840. While in this
neighbourhood it is recorded that he tramped
among the lovely hills and valleys of that beautiful
country, and it is suggested that he may have been
received by Wordsworth, for whom, as we have
seen, he cherished a deeply reverent admiration.
He certainly was acquainted with Hartley Coleridge,
who gave him a favourable opinion upon
some work he had submitted. His mind con-
tinued to be occupied chiefly with Hterature,
and he wrote his poem on " Black Comb " at
this time.

It was while he was at Broughton that Branwell
sent his old friend and crony, John Brown, the

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 49

letter which so scandalized Miss Mary F. Robinson.
It was wTitten in a roystering, devil-may-care
spirit, probably to throw off, for an hour at least,
the constraint of solemn behaviour, unnatural
to any young man of his age, which, in his position
as tutor, he was obliged to assume. It was never
meant for pubhcation, but being proudly treasured
in the sexton's family, has been given to the world.

Mrs. Gaskell, writing of Branwell as he appeared
to his family about the year 1840, says : "At this
time the young man seemed to have his fate in
his own hands. He was full of noble impulses,
as well as of extraordinary gifts ; not accustomed
to resist temptation, it is true, from any higher
motive than strong family affection, but showing
so much power of attachment to all about him,
that they took pleasure in believing that after a
time he would 'right himself, and that they should
have pride and delight in the use he would then
make of his splendid talents ; ... in early
youth his power of attracting and attaching
people was so great that few came in contact
with him who were not so much dazzled by him

50 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

as to be desirous of gratifying whatever wishes
he expressed. ... I have seen Branwell's profile ;
it is what would be generally esteemed very
handsome ; the forehead is massive, the eye
well set, and the expression of it fine and in-
tellectual ; the nose too is good ; but there are
coarse lines about the mouth, while the slightly
retreating chin conveys an idea of weakness
of will. His hair and complexion were sandy.
He had enough Irish blood in him to make his
manners frank and genial, with a kind of natural
gallantry about them. In a fragment of one
of his manuscripts which I have read, there is a
justness and felicity of expression which is very
striking. It is the beginning of a tale and the
actors in it are drawn with much of the grace
of characteristic portrait-painting in perfectly
pure and simple language, which distinguishes
so many of Addison's papers in the Spectator.
. . . But altogether the elegance and com-
posure of style are such as one would not have
expected from this vehement and ill-fated young
man. He had a stronger desire for literary fame

Patrick Branwell Bronte 51

burning in his heart than even that which occa-
sionally flashed up in his sister's. He tried
various outlets for his talents. ... In 1840
he was living at home, employing himself in
occasional composition of various kinds, and
waiting till some employment for which he might
be fitted without any expensive course of pre-
liminary education, should turn up."*

There are, I think, a few points in Mrs. Gaskell's
description which seem to invite attention. It
will be seen how much she admired Branwell's
prose style, but it will also be noticed that she was
so afraid of bestowing unqualified praise upon one
whom she regarded as a backslider, that she
modifies it with the expression of her astonishment
at finding it so good. What connection there can
be between an author's personal ill-fortune and
his method of writing is difficult to conjecture.
What is made plain by Mrs. Gaskell is that
Branwell possessed a captivating personality, and a
fascination of manner which goes far to explain
much that subsequently befell him.
• "Life," 123-4.

52 Patrick Branwell Bronte

Another point that calls for notice is the obvious
determination of Mr. Bronte not to spend any
money on preparing his son for any of the pro-
fessions. We hear that the old gentleman was
never weary of relating how he had managed
to make his way to Cambridge and win his degree.
But possibly he omitted to tell of the kind patron
he had in the vicar of his native parish, a certain
Mr. Tighe, by the aid of whose interest and
liberality he had been able to be admitted to
the University. The obvious thing would have
been to send Branwell to try his fortune at Cam-
bridge, even for a year. With the help of his
aunt it would have been possible to raise the
money for a year's course at least, and such a
brilliant youth as Branwell would assuredly have
repaid the training. But the only available
capital was Miss Branwell's savings, and that was
shortly to be annexed by that vehement indi-
vidualist, his sister Charlotte, when she per-
suaded her aunt to advance £ioo or more, to
enable her and Emily to study at Brussels. She
even refers to her father's ambitions to enforce

Patrick Branwell Bronte 53

her argument. " I want us all to get on," she
writes.

Such a sum spent in getting Branwell out of
the wretched village influences into a scholarly
environment, where he could have absorbed the
culture for which he so ardently hungered, might
have altered the whole course of his life. It
was certainly not the sisters who were sacrificed.
The boy was mis-handled from his earliest years.
He had no suitable guide or counsellor in his
father, who was too self-absorbed to concern him-
self with his boy's future, and who, having sown
neglect, reaped the harvest he might have ex-
pected.

Mrs. Gaskell refers to Branwell as being at home
in the year 1840. He was there only from June
till October, having at his father's instance re-
signed his appointment at Broughton only six
months after he had received it. Meanwhile,
as Mrs. Gaskell tells us, he was occupying himself
in " occasional composition". By a strange and
most fortunate chance some of these "compositions"
have come into the possession of a critic competent

54 Patrick Branwell Bronte

in the highest degree to pronounce upon them.
Mr. John Drinkwater has discovered, edited and
privately printed* a newly found MS. of Branwell
Bronte's, signed by him, and dated " Haworth,
Nr. Bradford, Yorks, June 27th, 1840." This
MS. is nothing less than a verse translation of
" The Odes of Quintus Horatius Flaccus," all but
the last, of which Branwell says, to quote from
Mr. Drinkwater's volume : " This Ode I have no
heart to attempt, after having heard Mr. H.
Coleridge's translation, on May Day, at Ambleside."
Mr. Drinkwater supposes that most of these
translations were made while Branwell was at Mr.
Postlethwaite's, and probably the remainder
at Haworth, after he returned home, and he finds
these verses to be Branwell's " best achievement,
so far as we can judge, as a poet." They are,
he says, unequal, " but they also have a great
many passages of clear lyrical beauty, and they

• As only fifty copies have been issued, I have not
been able to examine Branwell's Translations, but Mr.
Drinkwater most courteously allowed me to see a copy
of his Introduction, from which I have made the above
extracts.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 55

have something of the style that comes from a
spiritual understanding, as apart from merely
formal knowledge, of great models." After pass-
ing in brief review the various verse translations
of Horace from Ben Jonson to John Conington,
whom Mr. Drinkwater regards as the " most
consistently attractive " of them all, he adds :
" Branwell Bronte's Translations of the First
Book of Odes need, at their best, fear comparison
with none."

Of at least half the Odes, Mr. Drinkwater goes
on to say: " They are excellent in themselves and
as good as any English versions that I know,
including Conington's. In a few instances, I
should say that they are decidedly the best of
all ... in some whole poems, as in the
lovely rendering of xxi, there is hardly a flaw from
beginning to end. At his best he has melody
and phrase, and he builds his stanzas well. . . .
The book adds appreciably to the evidence that
Branwell Bronte was the second poet in his family
and a very good second at that, and it leaves no
justification for anyone to say that he ' composed

56 Patrick Branwell Bronte

nothing which gives him the sHghtest claim to
the most inconsiderable niche in the temple of
hterature.' "*

Branwell spent the summer of 1840 in anxious
enquiry after a new kind of occupation, and
finally obtained a post as Clerk-in-Charge at one
of the tiny new stations on the Leeds and Man-
chester Railway. He commenced his duties at
this place, Sowerby Bridge, on the first of October,
with great zest, but perhaps without realising to
the full how extremely unsuited he was both by
training and temperament for the kind of re-
sponsibility he had undertaken. He was above
all things, anxious for some remunerative work
by which he might be able to support himself,
as he now did for the next two years.

The strenuous efforts of Branwell to obtain
employment — even employment highly distaste-
ful to him — do him the highest credit. He did
not lose an hour in seeking to find some outlet
for his energy, and to earn an income which, if

* Quoted from Mr. Clement Shorter's account of
Branwell Bronte, in " The Brontes and their Circle,"
p. 113.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 57

it did not enable him to save, at least kept him
from being a burden on his father.

But as regards the duties attached to the post,
light as they were, they were strangely unsuitable
and tiresome to a youth of his excitable and poetic
temperament. His heart could not be in them
as, in duty to his employers, it should have been.
He was temptingly near Halifax, where his friend
Leyland lived, and he often went over to see him,
After a time he was moved to another charge,
to the care of the new halting-place at Luddenden
Foot, where he had to spend all day in a miserable
wooden shanty, stuffy in summer, and penetrated
by wind and rain in the spring, winter and autumn
months, a residence extremely unfitted for a
youth so constitutionally delicate as Branwell
Bronte. While he was employed at Sowerby
Bridge, Mr. Francis Leyland was taken by his
brother, the sculptor, to see Branwell at the
station there. He gives us his impressions of
him as he appeared in the autumn of the year 1840.

" The young railway clerk was of gentleman-
like appearance, and seemed to be qualified for a

68 Patrick Branwell Bronte

much better position than the one he had chosen.
In stature he was a Httle below the middle height,
not ' almost insignificantly small ' as Mr. Grundy
states. . . . He was slim and agile in figure yet
of well-formed outline. His complexion was clear
and ruddy, and the expression of his face, at the
time, lightsome and cheerful. His voice had a
ringing sweetness, and the utterance and use of
his EngUsh was perfect. Branwell appeared to
be in excellent spirits, and shewed none of those
traces of intemperance with which some writers
have unjustly credited him about this period of
his life.

My brother had often spoken to me of Branwell's
poetical abilities, his conversational powers and
the polish of his education ; and, on a personal
acquaintance, I found nothing to question in this
estimate of his mental gifts and of his literary
attainments."*

Another personal impression of Branwell when
he was at Luddenden Foot, is given by Mr. William
Heaton, who knew him well. I quote it as it is
given in Mr. Leyland's pages, f

♦ " Leyland," I., 266. f lb., 268.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 59

" He was," says Mr. Heaton, " blithe and gay,
but at times appeared downcast and sad ; yet if
the subject were some topic that he was acquainted
with, or some author he loved, he would rise from
his seat, and in beautiful language, describe the
author's character, with a zeal and fluency I
had never heard equalled. His talents were of
a very exalted kind. I have heard him quote
pieces from the bard of Avon, from Shelley,
Wordsworth and Byron, as well as from Butler's
' Hudibras,' in such a manner as often made me
wish I had been a scholar as he was. ... He
lent me books which I had never seen before,
and was ever ready to give me information.
His temper was always mild towards me. I shall
never forget his love for the sublime and beauti-
ful works of Nature, nor how he would tell of the
lovely flowers and rare plants he had observed
by the mountain stream and woodland rill. All
these had excellencies for him ; and I have often
heard him dilate on the sweet strains of the
nightingale, and on the thoughts that bewitched
him the first time he heard one."*

* " Leyland," I., p. 269.

60 Patrick Branwell Bronte

While at Luddenden Foot Branwell made
many local excursions up that lovely valley.
He had friends in the neighburhood at Hebden
Bridge, and we hear from Mr. Leyland that
sometimes ' clerical visitors ' called at his wooden
shanty to hear his brilliant conversation. They
invited him to their houses also, and it was while
here that Branwell paid a visit to Manchester
Cathedral. But these excursions drew him away
from his proper duties ; he did not attend as
closely to his work as he ought to have done ;
frequently he left it in charge of his deputy ;
and he was undoubtedly careless in his accounts.
The Company invited him to appear before them
and explain these irregularities. They decided
to terminate his engagement with them, and so,
after two years of employment, ended Branwell's
career as a railway clerk.

It was an ignominious ending, and it plunged
him in the greatest gloom. He felt keenly the
disgrace attached to his dismissal, all the more
because it was such a disappointment to his
family. He had supported himself for two

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 61

years, however, and immediately began to look
out for another situation. He applied to Mr.
Grundy, but that gentleman did nothing for him,
probably feeling convinced that business was
the last thing for which his dreamy, volatile,
poetical friend was fitted. But he answered in
a friendly tone, suggesting he should try one
of the professions. This meant the Church, and
for the Church Branwell declared he had no
mental qualification which might make him
" cut a figure in its pulpits . . . save, per-
haps, hypocrisy." But he goes on to say that
Mr. James Montgomery and another literary
gentleman, who had seen something of his work,
advised him to " turn his attention to Litera-
ture." To this career, as we know, Branwell
was much attracted already, though he did not
take himself with any great seriousness as yet.
He admits to Mr. Grundy that he has " little
conceit of himself," but a great desire for activity.
He was in fact infected with that fever of rest-
lessness which seems to have burned alike in
his veins and those of his sister Charlotte. In

62 Patrick Branwell Bronte

the months following his return to the Parsonage,
we find Branwell solacing his weariness and
enforced leisure with the writing of Poetry. To
this year, early 1842, we may assign three of
his best Sonnets : "On Landseer's Painting —
The Shepherd's Chief Mourner " ; "On the
Callousness produced by Care " ; and on " Peace-
ful Death and Painful Life."

He was in a condition of comparative loneliness
at this time, as all his sisters were away from
home, Anne teaching in a family who lived about
twelve miles from York, and Charlotte and Emily
at Brussels, in the establishment of M. Heger.

In September his aunt, Miss Branwell, sud-
denly became very ill. Branwell was fortunately
at hand to do his utmost for her. She suffered
terribly and only lived a fortnight. Branwell
was unremitting in his attentions to her, but
nothing could save her. It was while sitting
under the shadow of this impending bereavement
that Branwell wrote to his friend Grundy : — " I
have had a long attendance at the death-bed of
the Rev. Mr. Weightman, one of my dearest

Patrick Branwell Bronte 63

friends, and now I am attending at the death-
bed of my aunt, who has been for twenty years
as my mother. I expect her to die in a few
hours. As my sisters are far from home, I have
had much on my mind, and these things must
serve as an apology for what was never intended
as neglect of your friendship to us. I had meant
not only to have written to you, but to the
Rev. James Martineau, gratefully and sincerely
acknowledging the receipt of his most kindly
and truthful criticism — at least in advice, though
too generous far in praise ; but one sad ceremony
must, I fear, be gone through first." A week
later he writes to Mr. Grundy again : — " I am
incoherent, I fear, but I have been waking two
nights witnessing such agonizing suffering as I
would not wish my worst enemy to endure : and
I have now lost the guide and director of all the
happy days connected with my childhood. I
have suffered much sorrow since I last saw you at
Haworth."*
Miss Branwell died on the 28th of October,
• Shorter, " The Brontes and Their Circle," p. 115.

64 Patrick Branwell Bronte

1842, while all her nieces were away. She was
buried before Emily and Chariotte were able to
return. By the terms of her will, made as early
as 1833, when Branwell was only a boy of fifteen,
she left her little savings to her nieces, so once
again we notice that it was not the sisters who
were financially sacrificed. But even this bequest
has been made an excuse for belabouring
Branwell, whose supposed depravity at the age of
fifteen has been the reason assigned by Mrs.
Gaskell and Miss Robinson for his loss of benefit.
Mr. Leyland displays a quite laudable indigna-
tion on the subject. " It is ", he writes, " amazing
that so much ignorance should have been dis-
played on a subject so easily capable of being
correctly stated ; but it is lamentable that this
ignorance should have led the biographers of the
Brontes by erroneous statements, to inflict ad-
ditional and unmerited injury on Branwell."*

But to inflict injury on Branwell has by this
time become, as I have already pointed out, a
positive obsession with some of our Bronte writers,
among whom Miss Sinclair is noticeably promi-

t " Leyland," XXXIII., p. 31-32.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 65

nent. All her references to Branwell are made
in a tone of almost heartless flippancy, and with
a careless disregard for the facts of the case that
is surprising in a writer of her distinction. She
rivals Miss Robinson in prejudice, though with
less excuse, for her predecessor had not access
to the more recent material included in Mr.
Leyland's volumes, which Miss Sinclair apparently
finds it convenient to ignore, as, for example,
when she remarks of this particular event, the
death of Miss Branwell and the sudden recall of
Emily and Charlotte from abroad : — " Then, in
their first year of Brussels, their old Aunt, Miss
Branwell, died. . . . Things were going badly
and sadly at the Parsonage. Branwell was there
drinking."* On the contrary, we know now how
usefully and tenderly Branwell was employed,
and there is not the remotest shadow of evidence
for this cruel and uncalled for assertion. " Mean-
while ", writes Mrs. Gaskell, " they enjoyed their
Christmas all together inexpressibly. Branwell
was with them ; that was always a pleasure at
this time." And so ended the year 1842.

♦ " Three BronWs," p. 25.

S

IV

" MUCH TRIBULATION "

And now, we come to the last and most critical
period of Branwell Bronte's life. In January,
1843, immediately after the events just detailed,
he obtained another post, as tutor in Mr. Robinson's
family at Thorp Green, in the neighbourhood of
Boroughbridge and York, where his sister Anne
was already installed as governess. For the next
two and a half years, till the end of July, 1845,
he retained this situation, obviously giving satis-
faction to his employer. These years we may
certainly regard as the happiest in Branwell's
so far not too fortunate life, inasmuch as, for the
first time in his experience, he was in daily contact
with a woman of the most engaging charm and
breeding, the like of whom, we may beheve, he
had never yet enjoyed the privilege of meeting.
Mrs. Robinson was a woman of the world, who,
without necessarily giving any thought to the
matter, could hardly fail to attract the ardent

06

Patrick Branwell Bronte 67

admiration of an impressionable, inexperienced,
poetic young man of twenty-five. She was his
senior by about seventeen years, but judging from
the impression she made on Branwell, we may
conclude she was equally attractive in person and
intellect. The comparative luxury and elegance
of her surroundings lent her added grace and
dignity. Probably they were thrown much to-
gether in consultation about her son's education,
or in drawing lessons, sketching parties, walks
up and down the alleys of the large secluded garden
and the like, until the radiance of her graciousness
and charm completely dazzled the young tutor.
At first his feelings may have been those of a
young troubadour toward his queen of love and
beauty, a being elevated far above his reach, to
whom it was out of the question that he should
even aspire. But as the months grew into years
and their intimacy increased, his feelings for the
lady of his reverence became inflamed, until,
little by httle, whether encouraged by any response
on her part or not, he fell hopelessly in love with
her.

68 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

Branwell Bronte is by no means the first and
only learned young clerk or poet who has fallen
in love with a mistress far above him in fortune and
position. The story is as old as the world. In
manners, at least, and rich mental gifts Branwell
was Mrs. Robinson's equal ; knowing his own
gifts and culture, it was not perhaps such " frantic
folly," as Charlotte afterwards called it, to dream
that one day he might win her for himself. Such
apparently unequal yokings have often occurred,
and have been justified by their success. But
to fail in such daring aspiration — that is the danger ;
for to be repulsed, to be repudiated, is humiliation
indeed.

Whether Mrs. Robinson had given Branwell the
right to be her champion against her husband,
who, he declared, did not treat her well, or whether
the lady's affection for Branwell was a phantasy
of his over-heated imagination, does not particu-
larly matter to us now. What does matter is the
deep love he bore her, a love which, whether
returned or not, was to prove the direct and tragic
cause of his complete undoing.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 69

In the wholesale condemnation to which Bran-
well Bronte's mad passion for his employer's wife
has given rise, the human element in him has
scarcely been allowed fair play. We ought,
before condemning him, to know just how far he
may have been drawn on by the fancied appeal
of a woman who was not particularly happy
with her husband. We ought also, before con
demning him, to reflect that he came of a wild-
blooded Irish stock, that he was of Celtic, not
Saxon, origin, possessing all the impulsive, ardent,
poetic temperament of a race which has ever
been noted for its gallantry to the gentler sex,
a race that has never been remarkable for the
phlegmatic control of its emotions. Branwell
undoubtedly also possessed the weakness of dis-
position, combined with passionate ardour, which
is easily allured by women, especially so cultivated,
experienced and fascinating a creature as Mrs.
Robinson proved herself to be. She may, perhaps
unconsciously, have given him sufficient en-
couragement to lead him to suppose he had a par-
ticular place in her esteem : it is certain, at any

70 Patrick Branwell Bronte

rate, that the fantastically dreaming youth
assumed that his devotion was returned. Little
by little the passion grew in his soul till his whole
being was devoured by the thought of her, and
quite seriously, however foolishly, he looked
forward to the time when she might be free, and
he would be able to ask her hand in marriage.
Whether the lady regarded herself as pledged to
Branwell can never be known. Nor, in spite of
Miss Sinclair's positive assurance on the subject,*
has it ever been divulged how Branwell's attentions
to his wife were made known to Mr. Robinson.
All that we do know is that Branwell had just
returned home for the midsummer vacation
when he received a letter from his employer
summarily dismissing him from his tutorship,
and threatening him with the fullest exposure
if he dared to hold any further communication
with the family at Thorp Green.

This sudden and unexpected blow was almost
too much for Branwell's sanity. Whatever was
true or false in his love story, the agony and
* " The Three Brontes," p. 30.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 71

humiliation of this abrupt dismissal was real
enough. Such a passion as he had allowed to
grow up in his heart and mind could not be eradi-
cated or destroyed without tearing up the very
roots of his being.

To his indignant family, however, it merely
appeared fantastic or preposterous ; Charlotte
was shocked and angered beyond measure, the
more so as the whole family were for a brief period
the victims of his uncontrollable agitation, almost
amounting to unreason. For a space of eleven
nights, as he himself afterwards confided to a
friend, he lay in " sleepless horror " until change of
scene was imperative, and in the care of John Brown
he went to Liverpool, whence he took boat for
the Welsh coast.

The change was immediately beneficial. The
beauty of the scenery brought peace once more
to his troubled spirit — witness his poem, " Pen-
maenmawr ", written at this time. He returned
composed and outwardly calm, determined to
face his misery and live it down as best he might.
Hope still animated him that possibly all was not

72 Patrick Branwell Bronte

lost, that some day he might marry the object
of his devotion. Thus buoyed up, he continued
some work which, he gives his friend Leyland
to understand, he had begun some years pre-
viously, but to which he had not till now turned
his serious attention. During the comparative
leisure he had enjoyed at Thorp Green, a situation
in which he was, to use his own expression, " so
much the master", Branwell had directed his
thoughts to prose literature, and had projected
and commenced a novel, of which he had compiled
the first volume. Upon his return from Wales,
he took up this task once more.

To this subject of Branwell's novel we shall
presently return. For the moment we are merely
concerned with mentioning it as one of the out-
standing facts in Branwell's life, and to shew
that his concentration on this piece of literary
composition goes far to prove that, at this time
at least, he was not the confirmed drunkard Mrs.
Gaskell and others have made him out to be.
His mental powers were indeed now at their
zenith : of his brilliance, both now and to the

Patrick Branwell Bronte 73

last days of his life, Mr. Leyland insists that there
can be no doubt. Indeed, it was during the few
months following his return from Thorp Green
that he produced, both in prose and verse, the
finest work of his life.

Things were apparently going moderately well
with him until the following spring, when, in
May, 1846, he received the news of the death of
Mr. Robinson, his late employer. This momentous
incident raised his hopes to ecstacy, only, however,
to dash them immediately to earth, for as he was
about to set out at once with the expectation of
again meeting the woman on the memory of whom
he had been living for the past ten months, a
messenger arrived bringing him the news that he
could never see her again, inasmuch as the terms
of Mr. Robinson's will absolutely precluded his
widow's remarriage, except with loss of the estate.

Thus, deprived of all hope, Branwell's case was
more desperate than before. In a letter to a friend,
he writes : " Well, my dear sir, I have got my
finishing stroke at last, and I feel stunned into
marble by the blow. . . . It's hard work for me,

74 Patrick Bramsjell Bronte

dear sir ; I would bear it, but my health is so bad
that the body seems as if it could not bear the
mental shock. . . . My appetite is lost, my
nights are dreadful ; and having nothing to
do, makes me dwell on past scenes . . . till I
would be glad if God would take me. In the next
world I could not be worse than I am in this."*

If his summary dismissal from Thorp Green at
the end of July, 1845, had sent Branwell reeling
to the ropes, this gave him his knock-out blow.
His health, which had been long undermined by
frequent illnesses, now gave way, and his nervous
system went to pieces. There seemed no hope
for him anywhere, and no one to lend him a
helping hand. Something could still have been
done for him had the personality of his elder
sister been other than it was, but her patience was
exhausted, her pride outraged, and she made
it clear on all sides, both in the family and out
of it, that she took no further interest in him.

Since the time of Branwell 's return from his
railway appointment it seems as if his family had
* " Leyland," II, p. 147.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 75

gradually begun to lose faith in his capacity to
achieve that brilliant career to which they, no
less than he himself, were looking forward.
Charlotte, in particular, was intolerant of failure.
And though Branwell's apparent success at Thorp
Green had once more stimulated her interest in
his prospects, his sudden dismissal in the summer
of 1845, added to his own temporary loss of self-
control, seems to have completely alienated her
sympathy from this formerly cherished brother.
Nothing is more ruthless than love which has
turned to hate, and Charlotte confesses in one of
her letters to Ellen Nussey, that she was " a
hearty hater."* She was moreover possessed of
a hard vein of biting sarcasm which, combined with
an explosive temper when crossed, must have
made her, for the inmates of the Parsonage,
" gey ill to live wi'." It may be said that her
attitude towards Branwell was natural enough,
that is, for those whose standard is measured by
her criterion. She had hoped and planned for her
brother all his life through ; she had been, we can
• " Life," p. 86.

76 Patrick Branwell Bronte

believe, his constant spur to action ; she had seen
his marked abiUty ; she was conscious of his gifts ;
and now she was suffering from the exasperation,
the mortification of seeing those gifts and abili-
ties, as she thought, wasted, thrown away in the
pursuit of an infatuation which she could only term
"frantic folly". Her endurance and patience
were at an end. She had her own work, her own
career to attend to, and the care of her father.
There was not room in her heart for both her own
consuming ambition and concentration on this
failure of a brother. Branwell must go. And
with the final overthrow and extinction, so she
believed, of his prospects, she swept him out of
her path.

Searching Charlotte's correspondence at this
time and during the next three years of Branwell's
life, we glean not a single word of love or pity
for her brother : nothing but ringing contempt.
For his intervals of self-control and temperance
she gives him no credit, remarking sarcastically,
that he is " forced to abstain." When her friend
Ellen Nussey is about to visit them, Charlotte

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 77

assures her that she need not fear any incivility
from Branwell, and sarcastically adds, " on the
contrary, he will be as smooth as oil."* Yes,
assuredly Charlotte was a good hater.

And yet, Charlotte Bronte was what by all
recognized standards would be described as a fine
character ; she was brave, upright, honourable,
and in the main, just. But she possessed the
defects of her almost Roman temperament in a
marked degree. The honour of the family name
and the pursuit of her own personal ambition
were dearer to her than the saving of her own
brother — if indeed he could be saved. She had
in her, too, not merely the indifference of the
pagan to the misery of the world's weakUngs, but
also a touch of that fanatical strain which formerly
produced martyrs or great reformers ; of that
ascetic severity characteristic of a Conrad or a
Calvin. She had much righteousness of vision,
but little tolerance for wrongdoers. The sinner
must be shewn his sin, reasoned with certainly,
but if he gave no visible promise of amendment,
• Shorter, "The Bronte Circle," p. 125.

78 Patrick Branwell Bronte

he must be cut off both from sympathy and inter-
course. Her disposition had in it something of
the harsh fierceness of that bitter north-easter,
which made the shivering traveller hug his cloak
rather than discard it ; she had nothing of the
sun in her nature, the all-loving, all-forgiving
sun, shining alike on the evil and the good,
nothing of the tender gentleness of the rain,
falling hke the tears of God's pity alike on the
just and unjust. There was no halting between
two opinions with Charlotte ; everything was
either black or white, right or wrong ; and in her
denunciation of wrong she was pitiless. Poor
Branwell was, as we know, wrong in many ways.
We can believe that she may have reasoned with
him at first, but when in spite of her remon-
strances he went again astray, when he fell, not
once but many times, and again and again, it
was too much for her patience ; she was not one
of those who could forgive her brother unto
seventy times seven. Seven times was more
than enough for her, and if after this he continued
in his evil ways, then she felt justified in gathering

Patrick Branwell Bronte 79

up her garments and passing him by. It is
related by Miss Robinson, I know not on what
authority — unless that of Miss Nussey — that for
two years Charlotte never spoke to her brother.

One pauses to wonder at the temerity that
dares to judge and punish the shortcomings of a
sister or brother, whose case, but for the accident
of birth, might have been one's own. How easy
for those secure on land to condemn the distracted
master of the vessel, assailed at once by the winds
and waves of material ill-fortune, weakened by
anxiety and fever, bound it may be by his mutinous
crew of wild passions, when he loses his grasp
of the rudder and his ship drifts helplessly
upon the rocks ! I am inclined to believe that
Charlotte's attitude was a dominating factor in
her brother's life. Hitherto he had not wholly
forfeited her good opinion, but now that she
deserted him, he felt himself like a rudderless ship,
like Cowper's hopeless " Castaway".

To know that he had not merely lost the woman
he loved so deeply, and lost her for ever, but that
with her, and because of her, he had lost the

80 Patrick Branwell Bronte

respect of his high-minded sister, was to feel that
he was indeed at the end of all things, and hence-
forth he gave himself up to despair. Charlotte's
scorn lashed him as with scorpions, her eyes
darted lightnings of contempt that blasted his
soul. He himself, in a conversation with a
friend, refers to an occasion when he was terribly
cut up by one of his sister's rebuffs : " One of the
Sunday-school girls fell sick, and they were afraid
she would not live. I went to see the poor little
thing," he said, " sat with her half an hour, and
read a psalm to her and a hymn at her request.
I felt very like praying with her too," he added,
his voice trembling with emotion, " but, you see,
I was not good enough. ... I came away with
a heavy heart, and went straight home, where
I fell into melancholy musings. I wanted some-
body to cheer me. . . . Charlotte observed my
depression, and asked what ailed me. So I told
her. She looked at me with a look I shall never
forget — if I live to be a hundred years old. . . .
It wounded me as if someone had struck me a blow
in the mouth. It involved ever so many things in

Patrick Bramvell Bronte 81

i(. It was a dubious look. It ran over me,
questioning and examining, as if I had been a
wild beast. It said, ' Did my ears deceive me
or did I hoar aright ? ' And then came the
painful, baffled expression, which was worse than
all. It said, ' I wonder if that's true ? ' "♦

Charlotte's inward knowledge of her own
lapse, her secret passion for Monsieur Heger, for
which she scourged herself night and day, instead
of making her more tender to her brother's fault,
possibly aggravated her indignation : she had
known what it was to suffer the pangs of frustrated
passion, but she had burnt out the plague-spot
in her flesh. Let him do likewise. Whether this
was her argument or not, the fact remains that
after a time she utterly repudiated her brother,
and made no further attempts to draw him out
of the Slough of Despond into which he had
fallen.

Charlotte's behaviour to her brother at this
time of his greatest need is the one fault in her

• Quoted in an article by Mr. G. S. Phillips in
" The Mirror," lor 1872. Printed by Leyland, II., p. 127.

F

82 Patrick Branwell Bronte

otherwise blameless life, which it is difficult to
condone. Branwell Bronte was in some respects
a wrong-doer, but he was really a very sick man.
For the last two years of his life he was suffering
from extreme bodily weakness, and great mental
distress. He was a victim of neurasthenia, a
disease not then understood or recognized, but
which is carefully treated in our more enlightened
day. With subjects in the condition of Branwell
Bronte it is above all things vital never to let them
lose their self-respect, never to let them see that
you have lost faith in their powers of recovery.
Firmness and loving-kindness will work miracles
in apparently hopeless cases. A well-known
medical writer. Dr. Brown, who has published a
book on the subject, describes cases very similar to
Branwell's sufferings.*

After the " emotional shock " of his dismissal
from Thorp Green and Mrs. Robinson's later
repudiation of him, we may fairly conclude

*" Suggestion and Mental Analysis," by William
Brown, M.A., M.D. (Oxon), D.Sc, etc. (University of
London Press, Ltd.) 1922.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 83

he was much more a subject for a nursing home
than for a penitentiary. The critical atmosphere
of the Parsonage was hostile to him ; no nursing
of nervous disorders there, no recognition of them
even. In the few comments which Charlotte
makes upon her brother, she always conveys
the impression that she had not a grain of sym-
pathy for him, not the faintest understanding
of his case, nor any wish to understand it.

The attitude of his father and the other sisters
was, from all we can gather, more forbearing than
that of Charlotte. Anne, who had been with him
at Thorp Green, and who must have known a
good deal about the relations between Branwell
and Mrs. Robinson, refers somewhat enigmatically
to what she had seen, and adds, very temperately,
that her brother " has had much tribulation and
ill-health." She also expresses the hope that
" he will get better and do better in future."
Emily Bronte, at the same date, July 30th, 1845,
wTites : " We are all in decent health . , . with
the exception of Branwell, who, I hope, will be
better and do better hereafter." These respective

84 Patrick Branwell Bronte

opinions were written, it will be noticed, almost
immediately after Branwell's first breakdown,
and with full knowledge of all that had occurred.
This almost tender attitude is in sharp contrast
with Charlotte's resentful harshness, and, as
regards Emily Bronte, is of the most momentous
importance, as I hope presently to show. Emily
is supposed to have been his favourite sister,
though all his life he had been dominated by the
strong nature of Charlotte. It was Emily who
now took him to her heart, and who hung over him
through the remaining three years of his broken
life with all the tenderness of a mother.

In August of this year, 1846, Charlotte went
with her father to Manchester, where he was oper-
ated on for cataract. Branwell shared his sisters'
anxiety as to the result of the operation, as we
know from a letter to Mr. Grundy, in which he
says : " My father, too, is quite blind, and from
such causes literary pursuits have become matters
I have no heart to wield."

Emily and Anne remained at the Parsonage
with Branwell during the month of Charlotte's

H

X

X
H

o

as

I

Patrick Branwell Bronte 85

absence, and they apparently got on with much
comfort together. It was probably at this time
that Mr. Grundy paid a last visit to Haworth
Parsonage, and met Emily. To this important
visit I shall presently have occasion to refer. By
the help of his old friend, Mr. Grundy, Branwell
still hoped to receive some post in connection
with the Leeds railway, but his application met
with no success. Continual failure in every
direction was very depressing to his spirits, already
in a drooping condition. Even had he been suc-
cessful, it is doubtful if his health, at this time
particularly wretched, would have permitted him
to undertake serious daily duties. But, while he
continued to look out for employment, he occupied
himself in writing poetry, though he confesses to
his correspondents, Mr. Grundy and Mr. Leyland,
that he feels too physically prostrate to attempt
any big hterary undertaking in prose.

We can hardly accept Charlotte's statement
that her brother was totally unaware of his sisters'
activities at this time, as, when, on some occasion
of Charlotte's having written to a publisher and

86 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

received no reply, Mrs. Gaskell mentions that
" she consulted her brother as to what could be
the reason for the prolonged silence. He at once
set it down to her not having enclosed a postage
stamp in her letter. She accordingly wrote
again, to repair her former omission and apologize
for it."* The discrepancy suggests that Char-
lotte's memory was not quite trustworthy, as
might easily be the case after the lapse of years.

Branwell's health now rapidly declined, although
Charlotte fiercely and persistently refused to ack-
nowledge the truth. She sneered at his pro-
fessions of weakness, though, from the accounts
that have come down to us, it is obvious that he
was unfit for any employment requiring physical
vigour. In every reference to his illnesses she
attributes them to nothing but his own fault.
She could not or would not see that the man's
spirit had sustained a mortal blow ; that he
desperately needed cheering, that he was abandoned
and terribly lonely, that for some reason or other
he was physically wasting away ; that he had
* " Life," p. 222-23.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 87

neither the mental nor physical strength to fight
further, and was in no condition to stand up against
the raking fire of her illimitable scorn ; that he
was in fact dying, dying on his feet, dying from
consumption brought on by self-neglect, despair
and a broken heart.

In every biography of his sisters we hear of
Branwell's drinking habits. It is undeniable
that he was fond of conviviality, which at times —
but only at times — ran to excess. Nothing is
gained by any attempt to exonerate him from this
deplorable and unfortunate weakness. His ances-
try and careless upbringing were predisposing
influences, and the habits of his contemporaries
offered no example of restraint. In the generation
immediately preceding his own, heavy drinking
had been the recognized accomplishment of a
gentleman, a wit, or a man about town. The
Elizabethans had set the fashion ; the frequenters
of the Coffee Houses had followed it ; even the
reputable Addison is said to have tippled, and
certainly Steele, Fox, Goldsmith, Sheridan, Burns
and Byron were all notoriously hard drinkers.

88 Patrick Branwell Bronte

Charles Lamb was no exception, and frequently
cursed his wretched drinking habits, which,
on his own admission, contributed to his sister's
mental disturbance. But Branwell Bronte was
born in an age when the first recoil was beginning
to be felt against these wild, carousing habits.
To frequent an inn except as a traveller began to
be taken as a sign of depravity, and it was the
disgrace attached by Charlotte to her brother's
evening visits to the " Black Bull " in the village
that made her so bitter towards him.

Let it then be admitted at once, freely and with-
out argument, that Branwell Bronte often drank
heavily, and perhaps at times took opium. What
I am concerned to dispute is that he was never
the wholly degraded or habitual drunkard that his
detractors would make him out. Here we have
the evidence of Mr. Leyland and other reputable
people who knew him personally. He had, says
Mr. Leyland, long periods of temperance. At
its worst, his drinking was more the indulgence of
a convivial habit than anything else. It was
apparently his only vice, and, deplorable as it

Patrick Branwell Bronte 89

might be, it bore the character of weakness rather
than criminal misdemeanour.

In defence of Branwell it may be pleaded
that all through his life he had few chances such
as come to others. At the very first, as we have
seen, when, buoyant with hope and inspiration,
he set out to do great things in London, his
prospects were immediately blighted, chiefly by
lack of funds to pursue an art student's career.
He had no money spent on him except during
the few months of art tuition at Bradford. The
only fund that might have provided him with a
university education or other start in life was
raided by Charlotte when she persuaded her
aunt to finance her education and Emily's at
the Heger's Brussels pensionnat.

Miss Sinclair is wide of the mark when she
talks about the sisters going out as governesses
in order that Branwell might pursue a glorious
career. When Charlotte went to Roe Head as
governess Emily went with her as a pupil, and
was presently followed by Anne, and it was in
all probability to help to educate her sisters, not

90 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

Branwell, that she volunteered her services to
Miss Wooler. Nothing was spent on Branwell
other than the week's expenses in London, and
some painting lessons at Bradford for which his
aunt probably paid. When Emily went for six
months as a teacher in a school at Halifax, Bran-
well was already getting commissions for por-
traits at Bradford, and keeping himself. When
after 1839 Anne and Charlotte took further short
spells of teaching, Branwell was tutoring at Mr.
Postlethwaite's, and immediately after that he went
for two years as railway clerk at Sowerby Bridge
and Luddenden Foot. This disposes of the sug-
gestion that the sisters were out earning a hard
living as governesses while he was doing nothing.
The whole suggestion is not merely ridiculous,
but malicious. " Our debts will be paid off,"
writes Emily in her secret letter to Anne, dated
July, 1841. These debts Miss Sinclair has the
hardihood, in face of known facts, to suggest
were " probably Branwell's."* They had nothing
to do with Branwell. He was at this time earning
* " The Three Brontes," p. 23.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 91

his own living on the railway. What Emily is
referring to, if Miss Sinclair would take the trouble
to read the context, are those they would have
incurred in founding that " pleasant and flourish-
ing seminary " of their dreams, which Emily
has just mentioned in the preceding sentence.
But, as Miss Sinclair accepts all her predecessors'
attitude towards Branwell, any stick is good
enough to aim a blow, whether merited or not,
on the old woman's principle that " if he didn't
deserve that particular whipping he soon would
do."

There was one occasion on which they had to
pay some of their brother's debts, in the winter
of 1846, but Branwell was no idle acceptor of
gifts, for, in a letter to Mr. Leyland, he expresses

the wish that Mr. would send him his bill,

" and the moment that I receive my outlaid cash,
or any sum that falls into my hands, I shall
settle it." This was probably some tailor's bill
which he had incurred while he was at the Robin-
sons', with the full expectation of meeting it
out of his future salary, and which, owing to his

92 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

unexpected dismissal, he was obviously unable
to meet. It was unfortunate, of course. The
Sheriff's officer arrived; Charlotte bitterly re-
sented the disgrace, and promptly wrote off and
told her friend Ellen Nussey all about it.

In all her letters to this friend, when Charlotte
has nothing in particular to relate, she finds occa-
sion to say something disagreeable about her
brother. Do we impart the failings and weak-
nesses of those we love even to the nearest and
dearest of our friends ? But Charlotte went even
farther : she told her old school-mistress, Miss
Wooler, about her brother's failings. For this
there can have been no necessity. Miss Wooler
was not hkely to visit Haworth, as Ellen Nussey
was, and the only deduction we can draw is that
Charlotte was unable to write a letter without
detailing to her correspondents her own sufferings
and all she had to put up with. It was assuredly
Charlotte who was the egoist of the family.
Had she loved Branwell she would have suffered
more silently for his sake, instead of blazoning
his unhappy weakness to every intimate corres-

Patrick Branwell Bronte 93

pondent. Miss Nussey had known Branwell from
a boy, and as late as the winter of 1842-3, mes-
sages were being exchanged between them through
the medium of Charlotte's letters. After 1845,
however, Charlotte evidently decided that Ellen's
interest in her brother must be checked, and, by
her continual report of his delinquencies, she
effectually wrecked his image in her friend's
mind. Long before this, however, it had become
evident, from Branwell's manner, that he had
become completely absorbed in an entirely different
personality.

The following letter to his friend Leyland,
written some time about the close of the year
1846, or, more probably, in the opening of 1847,
gives such a vivid picture of Branwell's mental
and physical condition that I transcribe it in
full:

" My DEAR Sir,

I am going to write a scrawl, for the querulous
egotism of which I must entreat your mercy ;
but, when I look upon my past, pre.sent and

94 Patrick Branwell Bronte

future, and then into my own self, I find much,
however unpleasant, that yearns for utterance.

This last week an honest and kindly friend
has warned me that concealed hopes about one
lady should be given up, let the effort to do so

cost what it may. He is the , and was

commanded by , M.P. for , to

return me, unopened, a letter which I addressed

to and which the lady was not permitted

to see. She, too, surrounded by powerful per-
sons who hate me like Hell, has sunk into re-
ligious melancholy, believes that her weight of
sorrow is God's punishment, and hopelessly
resigns herself to her doom. God only knows
what it does cost and will, hereafter, cost me,
to tear from my heart and remembrance the
thousand recollections that rush upon me at the
thought of four years gone by. Like ideas of
sunlight to a man who has lost his sight, they
must be bright phantoms not to be realized again.
I had reason to hope that ere very long I should
be the husband of a lady whom I loved best in
the world, and with whom, in more than com-

Patrick Branwell Bronte 95

petence, I might live at leisure to try to make
myself a name in the world of posterity, without
being pestered by the small but countless bother-
ments, which, like mosquitoes, sting us in the
world of workday toil. That hope and herself
are gone — she to wither into patiently pining
decline, it to make room for drudgery, falling
on one now ill-fitted to bear it. That ill-fitted-
ness rises from causes which I find myself able
partially to overcome, had I bodily strength ;
but, with the want of that, and with the presence
of daily lacerated nerves, the task is not easy.
I have been in truth too much petted through
life, and, in my last situation, I was so much
master, and gave myself so much up to enjoy-
ment, that now, when the cloud of ill-health and
adversity has come upon me, it will be a dis-
heartening job to work myself up again, through
a new life's battle, from the position of five years
ago, to that from which I have been compelled
to retreat with heavy loss and no gain. My army
stands now where it did theft, but mourning
the slaughter of Youth, Health, Hope and both
mental and physical elasticity.

96 Patrick Branwell Bronte

The last two losses are, indeed, important to
one who once built his hopes of rising in the
world on the possession of them. Noble writings,
works of art, music or poetry, now, instead of
rousing my imagination, cause a whirlwind of
blighting sorrow that sweeps over my mind with
unspeakable dreariness ; and, if I sit down and
try to WTite, all ideas that used to come clothed
in sunlight now press round me in funereal
black ; for really every pleasurable excitement
that I used to know has changed to insipidity
or pain.

I shall never be able to realize the too sanguine

hopes of my friends, for at twenty-nine I am

a thoroughly old man, mentally, and bodily, far

more indeed than I am willing to express. God

knows I do not scribble like a poetaster when I

quote Byron's terribly truthful words :

No more — no more — oh ! never more on me
The freshness of the heart shall fall like dew,
Which, out of all the lovely things we see,
Extracts emotions beautiful and new !

I used to think that if I could have, for a week,
the free range of the British Museum — the library

Patrick Branwell Bronte 97

included — I could feel as though I were placed
for seven days in Paradise ; but now, really,
dear sir, my eyes would rest upon the Elgin
marbles, the Egyptian saloon, and the most
treasured columns, like the eyes of a dead cod-
fish. My rude, rough acquaintances here ascribe
my unhappiness solely to causes produced by my
sometimes irregular life, because they have known
no other pains than those resulting from excess
or want of ready cash. They do not know that
I would sooner want a shirt than want a springy
mind, and that my total want of happiness, were
I to step into York Minster now, would be far,
far worse than their want of a hundred pounds
when they might happen to need it ; and that,
if a dozen glasses or a bottle of wine drives off
their cares, such cures only make me outwardly
passable in company, but never drive off mine.
I know only that it is time for me to be some-
thing, when I am nothing, that my father cannot
have long to hve, and that, when he dies, my
evening, which is already twilight, will become
night ; that I shall then have a constitution still

98 Patrick Branwell Bronte

so strong that it will keep me years in torture
and despair, when I should every hour pray that
I might die.

I know that I am avoiding, while I write, one

greatest cause of my utter despair ; but, by G ,

sir, it is nearly too bitter for me to allude to it.
(Here follow a number of references to the sub-
ject, which are omitted by Mr. Leyland.) To
no one living have I said what I now say to you,
and I should not bother yourself with my inco-
herent account did I not believe that you would
be able to understand something of what was
meant — though not all, sir ; for he who is with-
out hope, and knows that his clock is at twelve
at night, cannot communicate his feehngs to one
who finds his at twelve at noon."*

The importance of this letter is great, because
it is first-hand evidence, and because it shows us
his utterly listless, hopeless and dejected con-
dition, with no interest in any work of art or
literature, his own or others', outside his nar-
rowly confined horizon of vision. He was the
♦ " Leyland," II., p. 177.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 99

victim of one idea — his frustrated passion for
Mrs. Robinson. It also shows, without the pos-
sibility of doubt, the shockingly weak condition
of health and spirits into which he had fallen.
He was surely a subject for pity rather than for
the scorn and derision with which his elder sister
regarded him.

The winter of 1846-7 was a particularly trying
one, and both Branwell and Mr. Bronte had
influenza and bronchial trouble. In the following
May, Charlotte invited her friend Miss Nussey
to visit them, a thing she would never have done
had BranweU's conduct been all that his bio-
graphers have tried to make out. He was
depressed, but still trying to employ his time
with writing, chiefly poetry, a poem " Morley
Hall " in particular, for his friend Leyland.
This may have been a commission, given him in
kindness partly to distract his mind. He never
ceased to prosecute enquiries as to " situations
suitable to me, whereby I could have a voyage
abroad." These, however, came to nothing,
though a voyage south would greatly have

100 Patrick Branwell Bronte

benefited both mind and body. During this
year — 1847 — which proved a terrible one for his
faihng health, he wrote another poem, significantly
called " The End of All." One more poem,
however, was attempted after this, but remained
unfinished. Its title was " Percy Hall."

It is obvious that, to the very last, Branwell
retained his gifts of poetic expression and a graphic
power of personal narration which, his hearers
relate, was nothing short of marvellous. Mr.
Lejdand affirms that " he himself could endorse "
all that Mr. Phillips says about Branwell's bril-
liancy of intellect at this time. Mr. Phillips
admits he was much altered in appearance during
the latter part of their acquaintance, but goes
on to say, " if he had altered in the same direction
mentally, as his biographer says he had, then he
must have been a man of immense and brilhant
intellect. For, I have rarely heard more eloquent
and thoughtful discourse, flashing so brightly
with random jewels of wit, and made sunny and
musical with poetry, than that which flowed
from his lips during the evenings I passed with

Patrick Branwell Bronte 10 1

him at the ' Black Bull,' in the village of Haworth.
His figure was very slight, and he had, like his
sister Charlotte, a superb forehead. But, even
when pretty deep in his cups, he had not the slight-
est appearance of the sot that Mrs. Gaskell says
he was. ' His great tawny mane,' meaning thereby
the hair of his head, was, it is true, somewhat
dishevelled ; but, apart from this, he gave no sign
of intoxication. His eye was as bright and his
features were as animated as they very well
could be ; and, moreover, his whole manner gave
indication of intense enjoyment."

The spring and summer of 1848 were wild, wet
and unfavourable to one like Branwell, suffering
from chronic bronchitis, and " marasmus," a con-
sumptive wasting-away, arising from hereditary
tendency, chill, and neglect of food, as well as
from mental agony and the effects of irregular
life. His family do not seem to have observed
him very closely. On the 28th of July, Charlotte
writes : " His constitution seems much shattered.
Papa and sometimes all of us have sad nights
with him. He sleeps most of the day, and conse-

102 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

quently will lie awake at night. But has not
every house its trial ? "

This is Charlotte's only comment on the desper-
ate condition of her dying brother. He did not
trouble them many weeks longer : on the morning
of Sunday, the 24th of September, he died with
tragic suddenness, after having been confined to
bed only for a single day.

Charlotte, writing to a friend on the 9th of
October, gives a short account of his last hours,
and goes on to say : " A deep conviction that he
rests at last, rests well, after his brief, erring,
suffering, feverish life, fills and quiets my mind
now. The final separation, the spectacle of his
pale corpse gave me more acute bitter pain than
I could have imagined. Till the last hour comes,
we never know how much we can forgive, pity,
regret a near relative. All his vices were and are
nothing now. We remember only his woes."

How much more helpful to Branwell, could his
sister Charlotte have pitied and forgiven him a
httle earlier in his lifetime. It was rather late
in the day to remember his woes when he was
dead.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS— By Emily ?

We have heard the brief chronicle of the promise
of genius cramped by ill-health, crushed by
misfortune, yet constantly putting forth buds
of rare beauty and vitality. Is it possible that
any valuable fruit was produced, unknown to
contemporaries, overlooked or neglected by bio-
graphers, or wrongly attributed to another as a
miracle ?

It is now a matter of common knowledge to
Bronte students that Branwell did claim to have
written a work which, though published anony-
mously in his lifetime, only some eight month
in fact before his untimely death, made no stir
in the literary world either then or for many years
after. This work was the novel, " Wuthering
Heights," which has long been assigned to his
sister Emily, chiefly, if not entirely, upon the
evidence of Charlotte Bronte's " Preface and

Biographical Memoir of her Sisters," issued with

103

104 Patrick Branwell Bronte

the edition of 1850. Charlotte made her statement,
without doubt, in absolute good faith, completely
beheving that what she affirmed was the truth
of the matter. There can be no doubt of this.
She had probably never heard a word about any
claim entered by her brother. A claim was made
privately in a declaration to his friend, Mr. Grundy,
and subsequently pubhshed by that gentleman
in a volume of personal " Recollections " issued
in the year 1879, long after Branwell, Emily and
Charlotte were dead, so that there was no one left
who could either confirm or refute it.

The matter dates from a visit of Mr. Grundy's
to Haworth Parsonage, probably in the summer of
1846, when Charlotte was at Manchester with her
father, and Branwell, Emily and Anne were left
at home together. Mr. Grundy writes as follows :
" One very important statement which he (Bran-
well) made to me throws some light upon a question
which I observe has long vexed the critics, that is,
the authorship of ' Wuthering Heights.' . . .
It is well-nigh incredulous that a book so mar-
vellous in its strength, and in the dissection of

Patrick Branwell Bronte 105

the most morbid passions of diseased minds,
could have been written by a young girl like Emily,
Bronte, who never saw much of the world, or knew
much of mankind, and whose studies of life and
character, if they are her own, must have been
chiefly evolved from her own imagination. Patrick
Bronte declared to me, and what his sister said
bore out the assertion, that he wrote a great portion
of ' Wuthering Heights ' himself. Indeed, it
is impossible for me to read that story without
meeting with many passages which I feel certain
must have come from his pen. The weird fancies
of diseased genius with which he used to entertain
me in our long talks at Luddenden Foot re-
appear in the pages of the novel, and I am inclined
to believe that the very plot was his invention
rather than his sister's."*

Now, this claim of Branwell's, made, be it ob-
served, when the novel was still going the round
of the publishers, and, so far, without success,
indeed often with nothing better than " an

♦ Francis H. Grundy, " Pictures of the Past,"
(Griffith & Farran,) 1879, p. 80.

106 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

ignominious and abrupt dismissal," with not a
shadow of intimation of its future celebrity or
of the genius that would be ascribed to its author ;
this in no way braggart claim, has been made
" the whole head and front of his offending."
Had he never made it, his shade would assuredly
have been allowed to rest in obscurity and medi-
ocrity. Having made it, however, and the claim
having been subsequently published by Mr.
Grundy, it could not be overlooked by those who
had made themselves the passionate partisans
of Emily's authorship. The hunt was now up,
and the pursuers were determined to be satisfied
with nothing short of the complete extirpation
of Branwell Bronte. His character must be stained
with the darkest colours ; nothing bad enough
could be invented about him ; he was to be ex-
posed as a bragging liar, a drunkard, an opium-
eater ; in short, a man so degraded, so lost to every
sense of decent feeling that no reliance could be
placed on any declaration of his, least of all upon the
" preposterous statement," as Mr. Clement Shorter
calls it, " that he wrote ' Wuthering Heights.' "

Patrick Branwell Bronte 107

Yet, if Branwell Bronte was such a wretched
creature as the biographers make out, why trouble
about him at all ? If his claim is actually so
" preposterous," if his literary capacity is so
completely negligible, why should the discussion
of Branwell occupy so important a place in all
the Bronte literature ? What, in short, is the
cause of all this feverish desire to " suppress "
him running through all the pages of Miss Mary F.
Robinson's monograph on Emily Bronte ; through
much of Miss May Sinclair's book on the same sub-
ject ; and through Mr. Clement Shorter's work
on the " Brontes and their Circle " ? Can it be
due to an uneasy feeling in their minds that
Branwell's declaration of authorship may not
be easily got rid of ? Can it be the dread lest
Emily Bronte's reputation as the author of this
great novel is trembling in the balance ? And is
it then in order to safeguard the interests of Emily
that one and all they never cease, on any occasion
open to them, to dig up and insult her brother's
ethical and literary remains ?

If they are so sure about Emily's reputation.

108 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

if it is really secure and removed beyond all dispute,
why all this vituperation of poor Branwell ?
Why not let him rest in well-deserved obscurity,
why not inscribe " Pobre " over his tombstone
and let him be ? Is it that, having committed
themselves irrevocably to the championship of
Emily, they are ashamed to draw back ?

Even if she did not write " Wuthering Heights,"
they have nothing to fear : she has renown enough
without it. Let us therefore try to sift the
evidence, openly and without prejudice, in the fair
court of PubHc Opinion, not impatiently pre-
judging the case and anticipating the verdict
along with the impassioned admirers of Emily
Bronte. Because we love Emily — and the present
writer will yield to no one in admiration of her—
because of that very admiration and a certain
prepossession in her favour, we have to be the more
careful to avoid the bias that would make our
verdict accord with our secret wishes.

Whether Emily Bronte wrote " Wuthering
Heights " or not, she would still remain what
she is, one of the most remarkable and lofty-

Patrick Branwell Bronte 109

minded women the world has ever known. Her
" Poems " would still entitle her to fame, though
perhaps not to the extended reputation she has
received as a novelist.

Leaving these generalities, let us marshal such
facts as are available for the fair examination of
the question. This examination involves four
particular enquiries. What further evidence is
there, apart from Mr. Grundy's statement, of
Branwell's claim to and qualification for the
authorship ? How did it come to pass that Char-
lotte knew nothing about her brother's claim ?
On what grounds did she so confidently found her
assertion of Emily's authorship ? What were
the evidences of Emily's authorship, and her quali-
fications for the work ?

It will be convenient to consider these points
in a reverse order, first laying before the reader
all that is certain and accepted as regards Emily's
connection with it, including an estimate of her
particular capacity for writing it, together with
Charlotte's available information ; leaving the dis-
cussion of Branwell's claim for a later page.

110 Patrick Branwell Bronte

All we know about Emily's presumptive author-
ship is that when, in the winter of 1845-6, Charlotte
was urging each of her sisters to " prepare " a
novel for pubhcation, to be offered along with
one she herself had written, Emily " produced "
this book, " Wuthering Heights," to be sent to
the pubHshers, not as the work of Emily Bronte,
but of " Ellis Bell," the pseudonym which had
been already assigned to her in connection with the
publication of the joint book of Poems which
Charlotte had already given to the Press. The
book was presumably in her hand-writing and
consequently passed for hers, but there is no evi-
dence that it had been shown to her other sisters
in instalments, or discussed between them "chap-
ter by chapter," as some critics have averred.
We have Charlotte's definite statement in her
" Biographical Introduction," made with special
reference to this work, that for some years they
had " discontinued " their earlier habit of inter-
communication and consultation.

This novel, when read by Charlotte or aloud to
her, not merely surprised, but completely astounded

Patrick Branwell Bronte ill

her. It fell on her ears like a clap of thunder.
She was absolutely horrified. She admits that she
" shuddered " as she hstened, and " the mere
hearing of certain vivid and fearful scenes banished
sleep by night, and disturbed mental peace by
day."* It seemed almost inconceivable to her
that her quiet, retiring sister could have created
anything so apparently alien to her own disposi-
tion, character and limited experience. The whole
relationship between Emily and the book which
passed ostensibly as hers was a puzzle and a prob-
lem to Charlotte ; but, however mystified or
curious Charlotte might be, Emily never enlight-
ened her sister as to what had prompted her to
such a strange work. She remained silent and
immutable as a sphinx, or merely put Charlotte's
complaints aside as smacking of " affectation."
Obviously she would not discuss the work in any
way, at least not with Charlotte.

Upon its pubhcation eighteen months later, in
December, 1847, we find Charlotte, in a letter
to Mr. Williams, the reader for Messrs. Smith &

* Preface to 1850 edition of " Wuthering Heights,"

112 Patrick Br anw ell Bronte

Elder, half apologizing for the contrast between
the " refined " poetry of " Elhs Bell " and the
prose of " Wuthering Heights " — a prose which,
she says, " breaks forth in scenes which shock
more than they attract."* The book had a bad
reception, and a bad press. The author was
universally supposed to be a man, and a very coarse
and brutal one. At length it began to be suggested
that " it was an earher and ruder attempt by the
same pen that produced ' Jane Eyre.' " This was
in the summer of 1848, about two months before
Branwell's death, when the book had been pub-
lished only about six months. Charlotte was much
upset, and determined to put the matter right with
her London publishers by taking her sisters with
her to convince Mr. Williams and Mr. Smith
of their separate identity. Here then was an oppor-
tunity for Emily to proclaim herself the veritable
author of the book. But what happened ?

She would not, and did not go.

None the less, Mr. Clement Shorter, in his eager

* Letter to W. S. Williams, quoted " The Brontes
and their Circle," p. 146.

Patrick Br anw ell Bronte 113

anxiety to establish Emily's authorship, is deter-
mined that she must be " got " there, and accord-
ingly makes the astonishing blunder of putting
Emily's name instead of Anne's in connection with
this visit.* Miss Sinclair avoids this pitfall, but
professes to account for Emily's refusal to prefer
her claim in person by attributing it to her pride
and a superb indifference.

But Emily went even further than this. Not
only did she refuse to make a personal claim of
authorship, but, on Charlotte's return, she evi-
dently took her very sharply to task for making
unwarranted assumptions on her behalf, namely,
for telling Messrs. Smith and Williams that there
were " three " sisters who were authors. Mrs.
Chadwick has drawn attention to this point.
In reference to the authorship of " Wuthering
Heights," she says : " It was sent out as the work
of Ellis Bell, and only as such was she determined
that it should be known. "f The letter Charlotte

• " Brontes and their Circle," p. 6. A Bronte Chron-
ology.

+ " In the Footsteps of the Brontgs," p. 325.

H

114 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

was immediately pressed by Emily to write in
correction of this error is given by Mr. Shorter,
and I here quote the part to which Mrs. Chadwick
refers : " Permit me to caution you not to speak
of my sisters when you write to me. I mean, do
not use the word in the plural. Ellis Bell will
not endure to be alluded to under any other
appellation than the nom-de-plume. I committed
a grand error in betraying his identity to you and
Mr. Smith. It was inadvertent — the words ' we
are three sisters ' escaped me before I was aware.
I regretted the avowal the moment I had made
it ; I regret it bitterly now, for I find it is against
every feeling and intention of Ellis Bell."*

This is startling evidence indeed. What is the
obvious deduction from this strong, almost angry
protest, which Charlotte was constrained to make
on behalf of Emily ?

Might it not be that Emily, who, as Charlotte

tells us, was incapable of " trickery ", would not

for one moment allow it to be either presumed

or established that she, Emily Bronte, was to be

* " The Brontes and their Circle," p. 361.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 115

identified with " Ellis Bell " ? And, what for
our present purpose is even more significant,
we find her insisting that this same " Ellis," who
is not to be identified with herself, is not to be
assumed to be one of the " three sisters." What
then is the inference ? Is it not clear from these
remarkable stipulations of Emily's, which we may
beUeve worried Charlotte not a httle, that Emily
was concealing another person's authorship under
her pseudonym ? That by obliging Charlotte
to write this letter she went as far as she possibly
could in disclaiming the work for herself ? That,
although she hated and was incapable of "trickery"
in the accepted sense of that word, she was never-
theless bound in some mysterious, secret way
not to reveal the real authorship of the book ?

Yet, if she was concealing someone else's
authorship, whose could it be ? She hotly re-
pudiates, through Charlotte, the idea that " Ellis
Bell " is either herself or one of the Bronte
" sisters " : who then was " Ellis Bell " ? And
what " intention " of Emily's was violated by
couphng this pseudonym with her own name ?

116 Patrick Branwell Bronte

Was " Ellis Bell " Branwell Bronte ? And was
this " intention " of Emily's her endeavour to
conceal his authorship of " Wuthering Heights " ?
And why should she conceal it ?

Before entering into the discussion of these
exciting questions, it is first necessary to deal
with Emily's own capacity for writing the book,
and to enquire closely into her known literary
activities at the very period when she produced
" Wuthering Heights," and handed it to Charlotte
for publication. This will take us back to the
summer of 1845, and more particularly to the
month of July, when Branwell had just received
his dismissal from Thorp Green, and Charlotte
had already begun to turn her thoughts to the
role of author.

Students of the Brontes will have noticed theii
peculiar love of " secrets " ; their plays were often
thus described. " Best plays mean secret plays,"
writes Charlotte in 1829.* They maintained
this idea of secrecy no doubt in several writings.

* "

" Life," p. 55. " These are our three great plays
that are not kept secret."

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 117

but we meet with it notably in another instance,
at a much later date, when one might suppose
they had outgrown the youthful fancies which
had first prompted it. In this case it was two
secret letters, one to be written from Anne to
Emily, at the end of every four years, and one
from Emily to Anne at the same time. Both
letters were to be indited and locked up, and finally
opened on Emily's birthday at the close of the
appointed period. This little piece of intimacy
between the sisters Anne and Emily, who were
especially devoted to one another, does not seem
to have been extended to Charlotte, who probably
knew nothing about it. But Emily was full of
fun, and enjoyed a specially private mystery
between herself and one she tenderly loved.
By an unprecedented piece of literary good
fortune, Mr. Clement Shorter has chanced upon
these brief little records for the years 1841 and
1845. Emily's birthday being on the 30th of
July, they are dated accordingly.

In these letters there is a further secret, a
private hterary partnership between Anne and

U 8 Patrick Branwell Bronte

Emily in the story of some imaginary people
called by the writers, " The Gondialand." In
1841 Emily writes to Anne : " The Gondialand
are at present in a threatening state, but there is
no open rupture as yet. All the princes and
princesses of the Royalty are at the Palace of
Instruction." In Anne's letter of the same date
we have the following : " How will it be when we
open this paper and the one Emily has written ?
I wonder whether the Gondaland {sic) will still be
flourishing, and what will be their condition ?
I am now engaged in writing the fourth volume
of Solala Vernon's life." Next, as Mr. Shorter
says : " let us take up the other two little scraps
of paper. They are dated July the 30th, 1845,
i.e., on Emily's twenty-seventh birthday." There
are several entries referring to family matters,
but aU that is immediately to our purpose is as
follows : " Anne left her situation at Thorp
Green of her own account, June, 1845. Anne and
I went our first long journey by ourselves together,
leaving home on the 30th June, Monday, sleeping
at York, returning to Keighley Tuesday evening.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 1 19

sleeping there and walking home on Wednesday
morning. . . . And during our excursion we were,
Ronald Macalgin, Henry Angora, Juliet Augusteena,
Rosabella Esmaldan, Ella and Julian Egremont,
Catharine Navarre and Cornelia Fitzaphnold,
escaping from the Palaces of Instruction to join
the Royalists, who are hard driven at present
by the victorious Republicans. The Gondals
still flourish bright as ever. I am at present
writing a work on the First War.* Anne has been
writing some articles on this and a book by Henry
Sophona. We intend sticking firm by the rascals
as long as they delight us, which I am glad to say
they do at present."

So much for the letter as far as it reveals Emily's
literary occupations at this particular time, July
30th, 1845. But it has a further interest for us,
so we will quote another extract : " We are all
in decent health only that papa has a complaint
in his eyes, and with the exception of B. (Branwell)
who, I hope, will be better and do better here-

•Also " The Life of the Emperor Julius," vide
Anne's letter infra.

120 Patrick Branwell Bronte

after. I am quite contented for myself : not
so idle as formerly, altogether as hearty, and
having learnt to make he most of the present,
and not long for the future with the fidgetiness
that I cannot do all I wish ; seldom or ever
troubled with nothing to do, and merely desiring
that everybody could be as comfortable as myself,
and as undesponding, and then we should have a
very tolerable world of it. ... I must hurry
off now to my turning and ironing. I have plenty
of work on hand, and writing, and am altogether
full of business."

The value of these letters lies in the fact that
they are the only pieces of self-revelation Emily
Bronte ever vouchsafed to any member of her
family. Closely analysed, what do they prove
about the writer ?

We find her possessed of a spirit of humorous
playfulness, a great love of fun and of romantic
as contrasted with realistic invention. She is
absorbed in the Gondals and their fortunes, and
is busy writing about them. We find her also
full of a tender affection towards her younger

Patrick Branwell Bronte 121

sister, and towards her brother, concerning whom
she is quite optimistic. She is, in fact, full of
brightness and hope for everyone. We see in her
one of the helpers of the world, a lifter of other
people's burdens, glorying in her strength. And
yet it is this bright and brave creature, hating
every species of depression, who is to be credited
with the creation of the dark, hopeless, tragic
story unfolded in the gloomy pages of " Wuthering
Heights."

Next let us take a glance at Anne's letter of the
same date. After referring enigmatically to her
" escape " from Thorp Green, where, she remarks'
" I have had some very unpleasant and undreamt-
of experience of human nature," she refers to her
brother who has " been a tutor there, and has had
much tribulation and ill-health. He was," she
goes on, " very ill on Thursday, but he went,
with John Brown, to Liverpool, where he is now,
I suppose ; and we hope he will be better and do
better in future. . . . Emily is engaged in writing
the Emperor Julius's life. She has read some of
it, and I very much want to hear the rest. She

122 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

is writing some poetry too. I wonder what it is
about. I have begun the third volume of ' Passages
in the Life of an Individual.' We have not yet
finished our Gondal Chronicles that we began
three and a half years ago."*

This extract is important, as it refers to what
Emily was doing at this time, and confirms her
own admission that she was working at Gondal
subjects. It will be noticed that there is very
little reference to Charlotte throughout the letters.
She was evidently not admitted to this confidential
gossiping chronicle between the two younger
sisters, and probably knew nothing of the Gondal
literature. The whole scheme of the Gondal
History appears as a " secret " between Anne
and Emily, and no one else was allowed to be
concerned in its creation.

The " Poems " here referred to, and about
which Anne was curious, were a very secret and
private possession of Emily's. No one had been
permitted to see them, and, but for an accidental

* For these letters in full, see " Brontes and their
Circle," p. 134-140.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 123

discovery of them by Charlotte shortly after this
letter was written, it is possible they would never
have been made known in Emily's lifetime.
We know how Charlotte finally persuaded her
sister to allow her to publish them, and how for
the purpose of anonymity Charlotte suggested
they should assume the pseudonyms of the three
" Bells." Poetry was indeed Emily's greatest
gift. Poetic inspiration was the very breath
of her nostrils.

But a close examination of Emily's own work,
both at this period, when, as we have seen, she
was absorbed with the " Gondals," writing the
" History of the First War " and " The Emperor
Juhus's Life," when most of her poetry was
written, must convince any unprejudiced critic
that realistic fiction was not at all in her line.
Anne and Charlotte were vivid reahsts : they used
all the scanty material that lay to hand, their own
schooldays, or their teaching experiences, varied
and enriched with a vein of romance or a fiery
eruption of passion working through the dull
grey lava of composition. Not so Emily. Her

124 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

mind was outside all these mundane desires and
experiences ; it was out on the moors, or even
above the moors, soaring up to the fantastic
companies among whom she had dwelt so long ;
not degraded to the drunken ravings of a Hindley
Earnshaw, or the demoniac machinations of a
Heathcliff, or even occupied with the placid,
practical-minded prosings of a Mrs. Nelly Dean.
Emily's imagination was peopled with beings of
another world altogether. She was, like Blake,
a visionary of the purest exaltation. Men and
women of the usual individual types, that is,
as men and women, did not appeal to her ; she
avoided them on every occasion, indeed fled before
them. Charlotte lets this slip inadvertently, in
a letter to Mr. Williams : "I should much, very
much, like to take that quiet view of the ' Great
World ' you allude to. . . . Ellis, I imagine,
would soon turn aside from the spectacle in
disgust. I do not think he admits it as his creed
that ' the proper study of mankind is man ' —
at least not the artificial man of cities."* Not
• " The Brontes and their Circle," p. 148.

Patrick Branzoell Bronte 125

indeed man anyAvhere ! One can as soon imagine
John Milton writing a novel as Emily Bronte,
One has only to read her inspired poetry to feel
how far above earth her spirit waged its warfare :
her love was never given to an earthly human
lover. Her body was on earth, but her mind
and spirit were far above, out and away beyond it.
Like " Bonny Kilmeny " she " had been she knew
not where," and her " eyes had seen what she
could not declare " ; she had been, like KUmeny,

" Where the cock never crew,
Where the rain never fell, and the wind never blew,
But it seemed as the harp of the sky had rung,
And the airs of Heaven played round her tongue.
When she spake of the lovely forms she had seen.
And a land where sin had never been."

She was in fact completely absorbed in her dream-
world, the world of the Gondialand. She was not
interested enough in them to write about any
earthly horses or stables, either at the Heights
or at Thrushcross Grange : riding only the winged
steeds of her fiery imagination, " the Horse Black
Eagle I rode at the Battle of Zamorna." Many
of her poems are Gondal poems, though we cannot

126 Patrick Branwell Bronte

now trace their connection with the History of the
Gondals, as the Chronicles have perished, probably
destroyed by Charlotte, because appearing too
wildly imaginary for the latter-day world in which
she moved and had her being. She thought them
rather childish, a little too romantic for " grown-
ups " to be occupied with. At any rate, they
are gone, and much of Emily has perished with
them. So withdrawn was Emily's spirit, so
intense her reserve, that even to her darling sister
Anne she had not confided a line of her Poems,
so that we can but faintly imagine her fury when
Charlotte discovered and rifled her hidden nest.
" It took hours," says Charlotte, " to reconcile
her to the discovery I had made, and days to
persuade her that such poems merited publication."
Yet it is this Emily, hiding in a locked desk
her secretly written verses from the eyes even of
her favourite sister, Anne, and so hotly resenting
Charlotte's accidental inspection of them ; it is
this Emily, jealously guarding the Gondialand
secret from the rest of the family ; it is this
fiercely exclusive, passionately self-contained

Patrick Branwell Bronte 127

writer, with a personality shy as the most furtive
woodland animal, fleeing from contact with its
fellows, shunning and even dreading every kind
of publicity — this is the Emily who, we are invited
to beheve, offered a novel to the public gaze, and
asked Charlotte to arrange for its publication.
Can we really believe this ?

It is true that her poems were finally laid before
the public under an assumed name, but we have
seen how, much against her will, they were torn
from her by Charlotte. Had Charlotte not un-
earthed them, it is quite certain Emily would never
have disclosed their existence. It is surely obvious
that at this date, the winter of 1845-6, any idea
of writing for the public had never so much as
crossed Emily Bronte's mind. She had none of
the cravings that devoured her sister Charlotte
to make a name in the world. Indeed, Charlotte
admits in the " Biographical Notice of her Sisters,"
prefixed to the 1850 edition of " Wuthering
Heights," what difficulty she had to " fan " even
the tiny spark of latent ambition in Emily's mind,
which makes her calm production of the novel of

12 8 Patrick Branwell Bronte

*' Wuthering Heights " a mysterious and inex-
plicable thing — unless, that is, we may accept
the hypothesis that she was acting on behalf of
a concealed author.

But, apart from Emily Bronte's distaste for pub-
licity, there are other considerations and arguments
induced by a study of her peculiar personality
which make it difficult to imagine her as the
author of this book. No work such as " Wuthering
Heights " could possibly be produced without
some raison d'etre, and where can we find any
raison d'etre for Emily's authorship ? Men and
women are not stirred up to write passionate
works unless they have experienced something
of such passions themselves, and this terrible story
is utterly out of harmony with what we know of
her spiritual or her visionary nature. It is
sharply in contrast with her calm, helpful attitude
towards others, that high, brave, contented
outlook which made her anxious that everyone
should be as cheerful as herself, so that there could
be a " very tolerable world " for those around
her. The author of " Wuthering Heights " did

Patrick Branwell Bronte 12 9

not find the world tolerable, or care whether it
was so or not, or tend to make it more so by his
writings. From the ethical point of view the
book will not help anyone, masterpiece though
it be. It is, on the contrary, one of the most
depressing works ever written, and the misery of
the chief characters in it is never relieved until the
very end. To write such a book would never have
suited Emily. She was not out to upset the world :
it was hard enough to have to upset Charlotte,
who took the hearing of it so badly.

As for the suggestion made both by Sir Wemyss
Reid and Miss Robinson, that Emily drew the study
of Heathcliff from her unfortunate brother's ex-
periences, that she was so cruelly detached from
human sympathy as to " use " his vices for her
own artistic ends, and so " drew its profit from
her brother's shame," the suggestion is an outrage
on this loving guardian of her brother. If we
interpret that fiery nature aright, we must believe
that Emily would rather have bitten out her tongue
or burnt off the offending hand than have uttered
or penned a line that should defame him.

1 30 Patrick Branwell Bronte

There was undoubtedly something in Emily's
attitude about the book which puzzled Charlotte,
though she could not precisely define it even to
herself. She was, as we have seen, shocked beyond
measure at its subject matter and language,
and nearly all her references to it, both in
her letters to Mr. Williams and in her 1850
Preface, are more or less apologetic. Emily,
as we have seen, would not discuss the book with
her, or answer any questions, even had Charlotte
dared to put them. We gather the impression
that Charlotte was not a little frightened by her
younger sister, of whom she significantly observes
in her biographical introduction to the work :
" My sister Emily was not a person of demonstra-
tive character, nor one on the recesses of whose
mind and feelings even those nearest and dearest
to her could, with impunity, intrude unlicensed " ;
and elsewhere, in a letter to Miss Nussey, we find
her complaining that "it is useless to question
her — you get no answers."

Yet the fact remains that, when Charlotte
appealed to Emily for a novel to offer for publica-

Patrick Branivell Bronte 131

tion, Emily produced " Wuthering Heights,"
and that, after Emily's death, Charlotte, by
arrangement with her own publishers, wrote a
special Preface to it, claiming the work as Emily's.
How then can we account for Charlotte's positive
affirmation of her sister's authorship, made in
good faith, and duly, if tardily, accepted by the
public ? If Emily did not write it, then how or
why did she " produce " it ? For its appearance
as coming from Emily Bronte is only less mar-
vellous than Jove's reputed pr oduction of Minerva
from his brain : on the other hand, if Branwell
wrote it, there is no marvel.

It is not incompatible with what we know of
Emily Bronte's espousal of aU weak and helpless
things and causes that she should strain every
nerve to rouse and encourage her weak and nerve-
wracked brother's ambitions and genius. We
have, at any rate, good reason to believe that
Emily and Branwell were peculiarly attached to
each other, and that her care of him came to absorb
a great part of her life. In this we have the support
of Miss Mary F. Robinson's account of Emily's

132 Patrick Branwell Bronte

devotion, and she probably got it from Miss Nussey ;
there is also the strong village tradition referred
to by Mrs. Chadwick. According to Miss
Robinson, it was Emily who waited up for him at
night, and let him into the Parsonage long after
the other members of the family had retired to
bed. After his death, too, according to the old
servants, it was Emily who mourned most for
her brother. " She died of a broken heart for love
of her brother," is the report of Martha Brown's
sister.* In the close intimacy obtaining between
them at this time, it is inconceivable that Branwell
should not have confided to a beloved and loyal
sister the project of a novel upon which, we shall
show later, he was concentrating his efforts. I
think on the evidence we are justified in sketching
out what really happened something on these lines.
He read it to her as he went along ; gave her the
parts he had already completed, told her what
plot and sequel he had planned. After the first
burst of energy in its creation was spent, his
volatile nature flagged in the determination to
* Chadwick, " In the Footsteps of the Brontes," p. 361.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 133

complete. Emily urged him to continue, and
offered to help him with the copying or with the
more tedious parts of composition, and finally
pressed him to end it on that note of hopefulness
which flashes like evening sunlight through the
general gloom in which the story is shrouded.

We may believe," moreover, that Emily was
deeply impressed with the work, and pressed her
brother to show it, or to let her show it to Charlotte,
who was so full of literary projects for the family
— Branwell excepted ; and we may equally believe
that Branwell, smarting under the sting of
Charlotte's reproaches, refused ; that keenly
resenting Charlotte's neglect, and the fact of her
ignoring his " Poems " when she arranged for the
publication of her own and her sisters' efforts,
his pride was roused ; that one of the conditions
he made with Emily, when he showed her his work,
was that it should be kept a secret from the rest
of the family, especially from Charlotte. Only
Emily should know ; he was certain he could
trust her. Had he even wished to let Charlotte
see his handiwork, he would never have dared

134 Patrick Br anw ell Bronte

to face her with the subject of that work. The
whole terrible story of one man's infatuation for
the wife of another, his cold-blooded schemes to
get possession of her, his deliberate revenge upon
the family of the man and woman who had
wronged and thwarted him, if presented by
a brother who had just been dismissed in disgrace
for a similar unlawful passion, with which Charlotte
was completely out of sympathy, would have
made the work abhorrent to her ; she would have
indignantly refused to have anything to do with
it. Reading into her brother's character much
of Heathcliff' s depravity of mind ; viewing the
work as the outcome of his low or coarse associa-
tions ; drawing consequently the worst possible
conclusions as to the company he frequented ;
arguing that from these sources alone could he
have gleaned the dreadful details and horrible
language found in the book : obviously a frank
and open appeal to Charlotte was entirely out of
the question, and Emily was probably induced
to see this.

Yet her great fear was that Branwell should

I'atkick's Chaik. "

Hrainvell's favourite seat in the parlour of the Bhick Bull Inn.

Ha worth.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 135

throw up the book. Emily knew it was important,
above all things, for him to find an interest in
life, something to take him out of himself, and to
keep him from brooding. Her interest stimulated
him afresh, difficult though it was to keep him up
to it. Charlotte's suggestion in the winter of
1845 or early 1846, that each of her sisters and she
herself should write a novel and offer them for
publication, gave Emily, in a flash, the lead, the
opening she was seeking for Branwell. Why
not urge him to finish it and leave it to her to get
it offered for publication ? She, at all events,
would have no hesitation in producing it under a
pseudonym, the one which Charlotte had already
invented for her, and Charlotte should not be
allowed to ask any questions. She had herself
no novel to offer, but here was this fine story of
Branwell's. His need was great, and Emily was
not the one to shrink from a likely attempt. She
would shoulder the responsibility, if only he would
finish it.

Of course, we do not and cannot know what
precisely happened : we can only conjecture.

136 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

But, where so many conjectures have been already
hazarded about the Brontes, it is not very far-
fetched to suppose that this generous sister under-
took to help him, both by making a fresh copy
of what he had done, and by copying out the re-
mainder until he had finished it : she may have
written some connecting portions of the work.
Having done all this and being determined that,
evading Charlotte's boycott, the novel should have
its chance, her only course lay in adopting the work,
with her brother's full approbation and gratitude,
and becoming its patron and foster-mother. At
worst it was only a ruse to keep Bran well's author-
ship from Charlotte, a pious fraud, completely
justified by the very exceptional circumstances.
There was no thought of " trickery " in the
matter. It was a private arrangement between
herself and the author, in fact a kind of literary
partnership. There was no fraud in helping
to get a brother's book published, acting entirely
n his interest and with his consent. It was her
secret and BranweU's just as the " Gondal "
writings were her secret and Anne's. A mystery.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 137

if you like, but as we have seen, all the Brontes
were inclined to make a mystery of their
writings, especially Emily.

Charlotte, indeed, carried this foible farthest
in trying to conceal her authorship of " Jane
Eyre " from even her bosom friend, Ellen Nussey :
" Though twenty books were ascribed to me, I
should own none. I scout the idea utterly.
Whoever, after I have distinctly rejected the
charge, urges it upon me, will do an unkind and
ill-bred thing. If, then, any B-an, or G-an, should
presume to bore you on the subject, to ask you
what ' novel ' Miss Bronte has been ' publishing,'
you may just say, with that firmness of which
you are the perfect mistress when you choose,
that you are authorized by Miss Bronte to say
that she repels and disowns every accusation of
the kind."*

This denial of publication was a much greater
departure from the truth than what we ascribe to
Emily ; but, in Charlotte's case, the excuse was
furnished by Mrs. Gaskell that she had pledged

* " Life," p. 245.

188 Patrick Branwell Bronte

her word to her sisters not to reveal it. Had not
Emily a better excuse for preserving BranweU's
secret ?

Furthermore, we must remember that, in dealing
with Emily Bronte, we are up against a strong
and exceedingly peculiar personality, a personality
so strong indeed that she deemed herself account-
able to no one for any course or attitude she chose
to pursue or assume. Miss Nussey has said of
her that " she was in the strictest sense a law
unto herself, and a heroine in keeping to her law."*
If Emily thought it right to help Branwell in his
urgent need of encouragement, and saw no other
way but this, she would pursue it ; nothing
would stop her ; for those she loved she would
risk anything. No one dared question her,
Charlotte least of all, and she herself volunteered
nothing. She declined to enter into any corres-
pondence with the publishers, but treated with
them through Charlotte or Anne. With that
independence of character which shrank from no
issue, she was willing to take on her shoulders all
* " The Brontes and their Circle."

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 13U

the consequences of this daring action. If the
book failed to find a publisher, as it might well do
from the strange and tragic character of its con-
tents, no harm was done ; if, after pubhcation,
it attracted no attention, or was roundly abused, or
brought little credit to its author — no matter :
" Ellis Bell " would bear the blame, and, as we
know, " Ellis " did bear it.

The book had no success in Branwell's lifetime ;
he only lived eight months after its publication,
and was then too far gone in consumption and
despair to take any interest in its fate ; for by
that time the once bright flame of his ambition had
sunk so low that scarcely even its embers remained
— all his desire for fame was now but as dust and
ashes within him. Certainly after its publication
he had few opportunities of discussing it with
his friends, nor perhaps, till after his death, were
they aware of its existence. It was many years
before it obtained much, if any, circulation in the
neighbourhood of Haworth or Halifax. And, but
for Emily, " Wuthering Heights " would never
have reached the press, would have been cast

1 40 Patrick Branwell Bronte

into the limbo of Branwell's other unfinished
efforts.

Charlotte, however, shocked and mystified by
the work itself, had no reason to doubt Emily's
authorship of the novel she " produced," though
she had no direct evidence from Emily herself.
As even her stout champion. Miss Sinclair, has
to admit : " She left no record, not a note or a worid
to prove her authorship."

VI

WUTHERING HEIGHTS— By Branwell ?

We must now examine the evidences of Branwell's
actual known literary power and achievements,
and the particular reasons for believing that
he was the author of " Wuthering Heights."

It will be necessary to turn back again to the
year 1845, and to the close of the month of July,
when Branwell, summarily dismissed from his
tutorship, had returned home, because it was
during the months immediately following his
return that his literary activities, already alluded
to, have a special significance in connection with
our enquiry.

During the time when so many of Branwell's
critics suppose that he was giving his entire leisure
to drink and dissipation, we have his own evidence,
taken from a letter he wrote to his friend Leyland
in September, 1845, less than two months after
he left Thorp Green, that he had long been turning

141

142 Patrick Branwell Bronte

over a great literary project in his mind. This
was the preparation of a novel in three volumes.
His own words are as follows :

" I have, since I saw you at Halifax, devoted
my hours of time, snatched from downright
illness, to the composition of a three-volume
novel, one volume of which is completed,
and, along with the two forthcoming ones, has
been really the result of half a dozen by-past
years of thoughts about, and experience in, this
crooked path of life. I feel that I must rouse
myself to attempt something, while roasting
daily and nightly over a slow fire, to while away
my torments ; and I know that, in the present
state of the publishing and reading world, a
novel is the most saleable article. . . . My
novel is the result of years of thought ; and if
it gives the vivid picture of human feehngs for
good and evil, veiled by the cloak of deceit which
must enwrap man and woman ; if it records as
faithfully as the pages that unveil man's heart
in ' Hamlet ' or ' Lear ' the conflicting feelings
and clashing pursuits in our uncertain path

Patrick Branwell Bronte 143

through life, I shall be as much gratified (and as
much astonished) as I should be if, in betting
that I could jump the Mersey, I jumped over the
Irish Sea. It would not be more pleasant to
light on Dublin instead of Birkenhead than to
leap from the present bathos of fictitious litera-
ture to the firmly fixed rock honoured by the
foot of a Smollett or a Fielding.

" That jump I expect to take when I can
model a rival to your noble Theseus, who haunted
my dreams when I slept after seeing him. But
meanwhile I can try my utmost to rouse myself
from almost killing cares, and that alone will be
its own reward."*

In commenting upon this letter there are
several points to notice. First of all, it is evident
that for many months before he left Thorp Green,
Branwell had been working on a novel, seeing
that the first volume of it was completed by
September, 1845. This would mean then that
the idea of a novel as the most profitable and
saleable species of literature had in all probability
• " Leyland." II, p. 83-84.

144 Patrick Branwell Bronte

been suggested by him to Charlotte or Anne in
their Christmas or other gathering at the Par-
sonage, and Charlotte had been quick to take
up the idea, and had commenced operations
already, privately of course, with the " Pro-
fessor." Anne also had started on her " Passages
in the Life of an Individual," afterwards pro-
duced as " Agnes Grey."

Another point is that, as Branwell's novel
was one inspired by " half a dozen by-past
years of thoughts about and experience in
this crooked path of life," it was obviously a
recital of some of the things in his own life.
But his story was, he tells us, " veiled by
the cloak of deceit which must enwTap man
and woman," which may be taken to mean
that, though he had used his own real experiences
and those of some other person, he had covered
up these experiences in such a " veiled " wrapping
that they would not be easily recognized. That
the story was a tragic revelation of the passions
of the human heart, morbid, unhappy, despairing
and stormy, may be deduced from the com-

Patrick Branwell Bronte 145

parison with such revelations as those of " Lear "
and " Hamlet." The presentation of the picture
was " vivid," and it was not written in the current
style of " fictitious " literature, but in the simple,
realistic style of Smollett or Fielding. All these
characteristics of Branwell's novel apply to the
tragic story of " Wuthering Heights." It will
further be noticed that Branwell refers to the
remaining volumes as " forthcoming," an ex-
pression that may be taken to imply that, though
not, like the first volume, completed, they were
actually in hand. Branwell then was working
hard at this novel, in the autumn of 1845, to
" rouse himself from killing cares " and " while
roasting over a slow fire " of mental torment,
in which his recent experiences at Thorp Green
would be continually present to his mind, and
would indubitably colour his narrative. And he
was thus steadily and passionately employed on this
work, in which he gave free play to his feelings,
at the very time when he is represented by his
detractors, encouraged by Charlotte's reports, as
being entirely given up to the consumption of
drink and opium.

146 Patrick Branwell Bronte

We get other glimpses of Branwell's novel,
and his tragic subject, from an account given by
a friend of his, Mr. William Dearden, who was
induced many years later, by a query concerning
the authorship of " Wuthering Heights," to
communicate to the Halifax Guardian, of June,
1867, some " facts within his personal knowledge "
relating to the authorship of that work. Having
entered on a friendly poetic contest with Branwell,
they were to meet at a small hostelry on the road
to Keighley, where, under the presidency of Mr.
Leyland, each was in turn to read his production.
By an annoying mischance Branwell had brought
the wrong papers with him, and drew from his hat,
where it was convenient to carry notes, the MSS.
of a novel he was writing. " Chagrined at the
disappointment he had caused," says Mr. Dear-
den, " he was about to return the papers to his
hat, when both friends earnestly pressed him to
read them, as they felt a curiosity to see how he
could wield the pen of a novelist. After some
hesitation he complied with the request, and
riveted our attention for about an hour. . . .

Patrick Br unwell Bronte 147

The story broke off abruptly in the middle of a
sentence, and he gave us the sequel viva voce,
together with the real names of the prototypes
of his characters ; but, as some of these person-
ages are still living, I refrain from pointing them
out to the public. He said he had not yet fixed
upon a title for his production, and was afraid
he should never be able to meet with a publisher
who would have the hardihood to usher it into
the world. The scene of the fragment which
Branwell read, and the characters introduced
into it — so far as then developed — were the same
as those in " Wuthering Heights," which Char-
lotte Bronte confidently asserts was the pro-
duction of her sister Emily."*

Now, Branwell 's emphatic remark that he feared
he would never meet with a publisher who would
have the " hardihood " to print his novel indicates
that the story was of a terrible nature, one which
it would require some courage to publish. Further,
from Mr. Dearden's identification of some of the
characters, as given him by Branwell, we gather
• " Leyland," II, p. 186-188.

148 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

that the scene was laid somewhere in the neigh-
bourhood of Keighley or Hahfax. Such indeed
was the setting of " Wuthering Heights," on a
wild moorland-side, overlooking a valley.

But there is further evidence concerning this
novel of Branwell's. Another friend of his,
Mr. Edward Sloane, of Hahfax, author of some
"Essays, Tales and Sketches " (1849), declared to
Mr. Dearden that Branwell had read to him, portion
by portion, the novel as it was produced at the
time, insomuch that he no sooner began the
perusal of " Wuthering Heights," when published,
than he was able to anticipate the characters and
incidents to be disclosed."*

All this seems convincing testimony, and cannot
by any species of critical jugglery be got out of the
way. Even if Branwell's own statement were to
be called in question, it would be ridiculous to
suppose that there was a conspiracy on the part
of several witnesses at different times and places
to assert his authorship. These men were of known
position and integrity, Yorkshiremen too, with the
* Quoted " Leylaiid," II, p. 188.

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Patrick Branwell Bronte 149

characteristic Yorkshire straightforwardness of
character, and hatred of fabrication. It is im-
possible they can all have been mistaken, and
their statements, added to Mr Grundy's report of
Branwell 's claim, which his sister verified, form
consecutive links in a strong chain of evidence.
In ordinary circumstances this evidence would
have been considered sufficiently substantial to
prove Branwell's case. How then, it may be asked,
does it come about that his claim has lain so long
in abeyance and not been more urgently pressed ?

The reason is not far to seek. The first point is
Mrs. Gaskell's impeachment of him, directed, as
even Miss Sinclair admits, to account for what
seemed, to the prudish mid- Victorian mind, the
" coarseness " of " Jane Eyre." To explain
Charlotte's apparent aberrations from the path of
modesty, it had to be revealed that she had a
shocking brother, no wonder her mind dwelt on
such ideas, and so forth. Therefore, as Miss
Sinclair admirably* points out, " Branwell must
be made as iniquitious as it is possible for a young

* Preface to Mrs. Gaskell's " Life of Charlotte Bronte."

150 Patrick Br anw ell Bronte

man to be." Consequently, when the glory of the
book began to dawn on its more discriminating
readers, it was felt that such a reprobate as Branwell
should not be credited with anything so fine. It was
out of the question that such a miserable speci-
men of humanity as he was continually repre-
sented to be could by any possibility have con-
ceived and carried through so great a literary
project. Further, Mr. Dearden's challenge in
the above-quoted evidence was not available till
the 'sixties and 'seventies, when Charlotte was dead ;
and Charlotte, in her preface to the 1850 edition,
had given the stamp of her authority to Emily
Bronte's authorship, which was henceforth accep-
ted, though rather grudgingly, by many of the
critics, who still averred it could never have been
written by a woman, and indeed only by a very
exceptional man. To many it resembled the
dream of an opium-eater* rather than a tale of
human flesh and blood.

But, with Charlotte's preface, the authorship
seemed settled. Many who had read it in the
* Sir Wemyss Reid, Lecture on the Brontes.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 161

original edition did not perhaps see this ascription,
and, with the interest attached to Emily's Poems,
she began to be regarded as something very
exceptional from the common rank of authors,
capable perhaps of so daring and, on the face of it,
so improbable a flight as this. For her " Poems "
were beginning to bring her fame. Men Hke
Arnold and Swinburne studied her, and recorded
their verdict upon her greatness. The great men
of the nineteenth century were chivalrously
sympathetic to feminine genius. They remem-
bered Miss Burney, Miss Austen, George Eliot and
George Sand, and here now in their midst were
these wonderful Brontes. When the protests of
the Yorkshire friends of Branwell appeared, they
probably never reached the great literary world
of London, or, if they did, they passed unheeded,
being regarded merely as the personal opinions of
local provincials who did not count in the world
of letters. In 1883, Miss Mary F. Robinson
(Madame Duclaux), pubhshed her " Emily Bronte,"
and other writers have followed her. Sir Wemyss
Reid lectured upon the Brontes, and especially

152 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

upon " Wuthering Heights." With all this great
authority behind the ascription of the novel to
Emily's pen, how was it possible to put in a claim
for Branwell, a man whose reputation had been
given away by his own sister's letters, and whose
character was regarded by the leading men of the
day as beneath contempt.

At length, however, a champion came forward
for poor Branwell in the person of Mr. Francis
A. Leyland, the brother of Branwell's friend, the
sculptor. In his work on " The Bronte Family,"
published in 1886, he especially took up the study
of Branwell, and on the minds of many thoughtful
readers must have left the impression that Char-
lotte's brother had been very unfairly dealt with.
But his account is very diffidently given, and his
story of Branwell is so mixed up with the history
of the sisters that it has failed to carry due con-
viction. Mr. Shorter, scenting danger to his
heroine, attempted no specific answer to Mr.
Leyland's theories and evidence, but tried to
minimize any possible effect by the indifferent
remark : " it is a dull book, readable only by the

Patrick Br a nw ell Bronte 153

Bronte enthusiast." Following his lead, Miss
Sinclair adopted the same attitude. With such
redoubtable adversaries in the path it is no easy
matter to overthrow or even throw doubts upon
the popular legend of the authorship of " Wuther-
ing Heights."

The first reason for identifying the book with
that novel on which no one disputes that Branwell
was actually engaged, is very significant, though
indirect. Just at the time when it ought to have
been completed, this strange, wild story, " Wuther-
ing Heights " — a story answering so well to the
tale Branwell was basing on the experience of
human passions as tragic as those of " Lear "
or " Hamlet " — suddenly appears from apparently
nowhere, sheltered under the aegis of the literary
pseudon}^! of " Ellis Bell." Surely this is more
than a remarkable coincidence ?

Of Branwell's capacity to write " Wuthering
Heights " none of his intimate friends, those at
least who were acquainted with his marked
abilities, had any doubt whatever. Miss Sinclair
dismisses his pretensions with a flippancy deplor-

154 Patrick Branwell Bronte

able in so accomplished a writer. Mrs. Gaskeli
acknowledges that he " was a boy of remarkable
promise, and, in some ways, of extraordinary pre-
cocity of talent." Her remark has already been
quoted : " He was very clever, no doubt ; per-
haps, to begin with, the greatest genius in this rare
family."* Mr. Francis A. Leyland, who had met
him on one or two occasions, and who heard much
of him from his brother and his friends, writes
of Branwell's intellectual powers as something
quite outstanding. If it be contended that he
was so besotted by drink that his natural gifts
were squandered, it must be answered that there
is no shred of evidence to support this theory.
Branwell was, we know, often intemperate, but
never, Mr. Leyland insists, habitually so. And
when, it may be asked, has occasional inebriety
been an obstacle to literary creation ? It was
assuredly not so with the great Elizabethans, who
were notorious for their joyous drinking bouts,
nor was it so in the still more dissipated days of
the great Augustans, the days of poor Dick Steele,
* " Life," p. 86.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 155

of Sheridan and his boon companions, nor has it
proved so in instances well known in our own day.
But to return to Branwell : it is incontestable
that up to the autumn of 1845, when he was busy
with his novel, he was not habitually intemperate.
Apart from the breakdown following the announce-
ment of his dismissal from Thorpe Green, he was
steadily employed in literary creation. He was,
as he declares to Leyland, " trying his ut-
most."

We have, on the contrary, evidence from his
personal friends that he was at this time at the
meridian of his powers. But he was by nature
diffident and modest, and probably, like more than
one genius who has preceded or followed him,
he had no idea how exceptional those powers were,
both for masterly observation and the recording
of passionate emotion. That these powers had
a large field for expression in the novel he was
writing is evident from the account of it we have
read in his letter to Leyland : it was an attempt
to express " a vivid picture of human feelings for
good and evil," a picture that should be drawn

156 Patrick Branwell Bronte

realistically in the great literary school of Smollett
or Fielding.

Let us now turn to the internal evidence of the
book itself, and examine how far and in what
respects it shows signs of distinctively masculine
authorship, and of Branwell 's authorship in
particular. The very character of this terrible
tale should convince any thoughtful or closelj^
observant reader that no woman's hand ever penned
" Wuthering Heights." Such, indeed, was the
universal opinion of the Press when it first ap-
peared, and it may yet return to that opinion.
The internal evidence is all against a woman's
authorship, for over every page there hangs
an unmistakable air of masculinity that cannot
be evaded. If the story takes on a feminine
aspect at times it is merely because the recital
is for the time being put in the mouth of the old
housekeeper, Mrs. Dean ; and, in respect to the
part dealing with the upbringing of the younger
Catharine, I willingly concede that Emily Bronte
may have helped considerably. But the whole
conception of the story is, from start to finish,

Patrick Branwell Bronte 157

a man's, particularly so whenever Mr. Lockwood
is represented as dealing directly with the story
and nowhere is this more evident than in the first
two or three chapters. Before examining these
pages I would draw the reader's attention to the
description of Thrush Cross Grange, as given by
young Heathcliff, who had, of course, never seen
any place more civilized than the Heights Farm.
" Ah ! it was beautiful," he exclaims, " a splendid
place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered
chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered
by gold, a shower of glass drops hanging in silver
chains from the centre and shimmering with
little soft tapers." Now this description is so
detailed that it must have been copied from a
house visited by the writer. Branwell was well
acquainted with such a drawing-room at Thorp
Green, and it should also be noticed as a curious
coincidence that the names of both these houses
begin with the same two letters, so that either

of them might be blanked as Th Gr .

Searching closely for minuter traces of masculine
authorship, even in the first chapter we come

158 Patrick Branwell Bronte

across tiny pieces of evidence pointing to the fact
that the writer was not only a man but a scholar.
Literally on the very threshold not merely of the
story, but of the house itself, we meet with a
Latin word which would scarcely be known to any-
one not conversant with his Livy or his Virgil : I
refer to the word " penetralium." I do not think
Emily Bronte knew much Latin, if any. Assuredly
she was not an advanced student in the classics,
as we know Branwell was. Only a classical
scholar would have used the term to signify the
interior of the house he was about to enter. Other
Latin or classical allusions are : the " indigenae,"*
referring to the surly natives of the country-side,
and Catharine Earnshaw's remark that those who
attempted to separate her from Heathcliff would
" meet the fate of Milo ! "f Which " Milo " is
here referred to is not clear, but the athlete of
Crotona was probably in the author's mind. The
allusion would be natural to a student of Ovid or
Cicero, and familiar enough to Branwell, though
not, I submit, to Emily Bronte, who was not

* " Wuthering Heights," (Cassell) Chap. IV., p. 47.
t ib. p. 280.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 159

" learned," so Charlotte tells us. We know from
Mr. Grundy how fond Branwell was of introducing
Greek, Latin or French words into his correspond-
ence. Some other masculine expressions occur
in the first chapters which no gentlewoman of
the prim and prudish 'forties would have dreamt
of using : the reference to the figures of Loves or
Cupids over the doorway as " shameless little
boys " ; the account of the " ruffianly bitch "
who tore Lockwood's " heels and coat-laps " ;
the term applied by Heathcliff to Isabella Linton —
" pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brack " ; the
curious exclamation of Catharine Linton, " Oh !
I'm tired — I'm stalled, Hareton ! "*

The curses, the brutal language, Heathcliff's
outbursts about " painting the house-front with
Hindley's blood ! " ; the reference to " a beast
of a servant," Mrs. Dean's remark, " I could not
half tell what an infernal house we had " ; all these
could never have been introduced into a first
novel by a quiet, reserved young woman like
Emily Bronte. These coarse and wild expressions

* ib. p. 280.

160 Patrick Br anw ell Bronte

were written by a man who had heard many of
them used, for they flow naturally from the mouths
of his characters.

There are also some touches in the meditations
of Mr. Lockwood which particularly suggest
Branwell's personal experiences, and which would
never occur to a woman-writer ; the passage
referring to Lockwood's little adventure at the
" seaside," where he was " thrown into the
company of a most fascinating creature," and,
continues the description, " a real goddess in my
eyes, as long as she took notice of me. I ' never
told my love ' vocally ; still, if looks have language,
the merest idiot might have guessed I was over
head and ears, she understood me at last, and
looked a return, the sweetest of all imaginable
looks. And what did I do ? I confess it with
shame — shrunk icily into myself like a snail ;
at every glance retired colder and farther, till
finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own
senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her
supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to
decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I

Patrick Branivell Bronte 161

have gained the reputation of dehberate heartless-
ness ; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate."*
Now, could this have been written by a woman :
more than this, can anyone imagine it to have
been written by Emily Bronte ? Other passages
pointedly suggest Branwell's authorship ; the
description of the class of yeoman farmer, with
many of whom he was undoubtedly acquainted,
" with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart
limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and
gaiters. Such an individual seated in his arm-chair,
his mug of ale frothing on the round table before
him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles
among these hills, if you go at the right time after
dinner."!

Branwell knew the kind of men well, and had often
visited them at the congenial hour, when he was
strolling across the moors around Haworth. One
feels this touch is direct from his hand. And
what more likely than that, on some such visit, he
had been overtaken by one of the pitiless snow-
storms he here so graphically describes, and had

* " Wuthering Heights," p. 24. t '^•. P- 23.

L

162 Patrick Branwell Bronte

to wade home, like Mr. Lockwood, " sinking up
to the neck in snow, a predicament which only
those who have experienced it can appreciate."*
Who but one famihar with the appliances of a
farm would have referred to Hindley Earnshaw,
threatening Heathcliff with " an iron weight
used for weighing potatoes and hay " ?

It is noticeable how the writer dallies — as it
were — ^with the subject of consumption, just as
Branwell does in his " Poems to Caroline." This
dwelling on the marks of death and decay was a
very marked characteristic of Branwell's work,
but we can hardly imagine Emily lingering over
the description of disease, she who scorned its
very existence, and utterly refused to acknow-
ledge herself ill when to the eyes of others she was
visibly dying.

One very marked feature of the book is its
almost vicious attack upon the canting hypocrisy
of the extreme Methodists. The scathing satire
on the interminable discourses of these Ranters,
and their endless personal exhortations, from
* "Wuthering Heights," p. 46.

Patrick Br anwell Bronte 163

which Branwcll may often have been the
victim, occupies a couple of pages in the third
chapter. The subject is raised in Mr. Lockwood's
dream, induced by the perusal of Catharine
Earnshaw's books, one of which is entitled " A
Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez
Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough."
" In my dream, Jabes had a full and attentive
congregation ; and he preached — good God !
what a sermon : divided into four hundred and
ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary
address from the pulpit, and each discussing a
separate sin. Where he searched for them I
cannot tell. He had his private manner of inter-
preting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the
brother should sin different sins on every occasion.
Oh, how weary I grew. How I writhed and yawned,
and nodded and revived ! How I pinched and
pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up,
and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform
me if he would ever have done."* But I need
not quote further, the readers will be familiar
* " Wuthering Heights," p. 39.

164 Patrick Branwell Bronte

with the most vivid parody of a Ranter's sermon
to be found in our language.

Yet another feature of the work is the grim
humour inspiring the writer's satirical sketch of
Joseph. An illustration of this occurs almost in
the first page, in the comment made by Lockwood
upon Joseph's ejaculation, " The Lord help us ! "
while " looking meantime in my face so sourly
that I charitably conjectured he must have need
of Divine aid to digest his dinner." Again,
another touch is given us in the description of the
" immense consolation " Joseph derived from the
thought that, although Hareton's soul was destined
to perdition, " Heathcliff must answer for it,"
whereby the ultimate avenging would be at
Heathcliff's expense : this saturnine humour is
not a woman's, least of all Emily's.

The whole delineation of Joseph is indeed so
obviously studied from the life, built up from a
model with which the writer was intimately
acquainted, created almost with real joy as if to
work off some personal grudge against a person
of the ranting, Methodist type, from whose pious

Patrick Bramvell Bronte 165

adjurations the writer had perhaps suffered,
that it may be taken as a notable instance of
Branwell Bronte's known power of caricature.
How well he was able to hit off, in a few lines,
certain rough types of character is illustrated
for us quite remarkably in a letter he wrote in the
beginning of 1840 and to which I have already
referred. This letter has been quoted, especially
by Miss Robinson, as a sign of Branwell's early
depravity, but I propose to quote it here for a
quite different purpose. Written by a boy of
twenty-one in a roystering vein of merriment,
never intended to be seen by any other than
his old friend, John Brown, the sexton, to whom
it was addressed, it runs as follows :

Broughton-in-Furness,
March 13/A, 1840.
Old Knave of Trumps,

Don't think I have forgotten you, though I
have delayed so long in writing to you. It was
my purpose to send you a yarn as soon as I could
find materials to spin one with, and it is only

166 Patrick Br anw ell Bronte

just now that I have had time to turn myself
round and know where I am. If you saw me
now, you would not know me, and you would
laugh to hear the character the people give me.
Oh, the falsehood and hypocrisy of this world !
I am fixed in a little retired town by the sea-
shore, among wild woody hills that rise round
me — huge, rocky, and capped with clouds. My
employer is a retired county magistrate, a large
landowner, and of a right hearty and generous
disposition. His wife is a quiet, silent, and
amiable woman, and his two sons are fine, spirited
lads. My landlord is a respectable surgeon, and
six days out of seven is as drunk as a lord ! His
wife is a bustling, chattering, kind-hearted soul ;
and his daughter ! — oh ! death and damnation !
Well, what am I ? That is, what do they think
I am ? A most calm, sedate, sober, abstemious,
patient, mild-hearted, virtuous, gentlemanly philos-
opher,— the picture of good works, and the
treasure-house of religious thought. Cards are
shuffled under the table-cloth, glasses are thrust
into the cupboard, if I enter the room. I take

Patrick Branwell Bronte 167

neither spirits, wine or malt liquors. I dress in
black, and smile like a saint or martyr. Every-
body says, ' What a good young gentleman is
Mr. Postlethwaite's tutor ! ' This is a fact, as I
am a living soul, and right comfortably do I laugh
at them. I mean to continue in their good
opinion. I took a half-year's farewell of old
friend whiskey at Kendal on the night after I
left. There was a party of gentlemen at the
Royal Hotel, and I joined them. We ordered
in supper and whiskey-toddy as ' hot as hell ' !
They thought I was a physician, and put me in
the chair. I gave sundry toasts, that were washed
down at the same time, till the room spun round,
and the candles danced in our eyes. One of the
guests was a respectable old gentleman with
powdered hair, rosy cheeks, fat paunch and
ringed fingers. He gave ' The Ladies ' , . .
after which he brayed off with a speech ; and in
two minutes, in the middle of a sentence, he
stopped, wiped his head, looked wildly round,
stammered, coughed, stopped again, and called
for his slippers. The waiter helped him to bed.

168 Patrick Br anw ell Bronte

Next a tall Irish squire and a native of the land
of Israel began to quarrel about their countries ;
and, in the warmth of argument, discharged their
glasses each at his neighbour's throat instead of
his own. I recommended bleeding, purging and
blistering ; but they administered each other a
real ' Jem Warder,' so I flung m}- tumbler on the
floor too, and swore I'd join ' Old Ireland ! ' A
regular rumpus ensued, but we were tamed at
last. I found myself in bed next morning, with
a bottle of porter, a glass and a corkscrew beside
me. Since then I have not tasted anything
stronger than milk-and-water, nor, I hope, shall,
till I return at midsummer ; when we will see
about it. I am getting as fat as Prince WiUiam
at Springhead, and as godly as his friend. Parson
Winterbotham. My hand shakes no longer, I
ride to the banker's at Ulverston with Mr. Postle-
thwaite, and sit drinking tea, and talking scandal
with old ladies. As to the young ones ! I have
one sitting by me just now — fair-faced, blue-eyed,
dark-haired, sweet eighteen — she httle thinks
the devil is so near her !

Patrick Branwell Bronte 169

I was delighted to see thy note, old squire,
but I do not understand one sentence — you will
perhaps know what I mean. . . . How are
all about you ? I long to see and hear them again.
How is ' The Devil's Thumb,' whom men call

, and the ' Devil in Mourning,' whom they

call . How are , and , and

the Doctor ; and him who will be used as the
tongs of hell — he whose eyes Satan looks out of,

as from windows — I mean , esquire ? How

are little , — ' Longshanks,' , and

the rest of them ? Are they married, buried,
devilled, and damned ? \Vlien I come I'll give
them a good squeeze of the hand ; till then, I am
too godly for them to think of. That bow-
legged devil used to ask me impertinent questions
which I answered him in kind. Beelzebub will
make of him a walking-stick ! Keep to thy
teetotahsm, old squire, till I return ; it will mend
thy body. , , . Does ' Little Nosey ' think I
have forgotten him ? No, by Jupiter ! nor his
clock either. I'll send him a remembrancer some
of these days ! But I must talk to someone

170 Patrick Branwell Bronte

prettier than thee ; so goodnight, old boy,

and

Beheve me thine.

The Philosopher.

Write directly. Of course you won't show this
letter ; and, for Heaven's sake, blot out all the
lines scored with red ink."*

This letter, written in the vein of Prince Hal to
his jolly old boon-companion Falstaff, is merely
a natural outburst of youth and exceeding high
spirits, compelled for the sake of earning a stipend
to don the decorous garb of the staid young
tutor. Branwell, as he says more than once,
hated hypocrisy : he disliked having to be other
than he naturally was, just as his sisters suffered
from having to adopt the irksome work of gover-
nessing. He was very young, and felt he must
let himself " go " to somebody, hence this letter,
as good as anything in Smollett, Dickens or
Fielding, an example of wild, rollicking, natural
human spirits trying to escape from the toils of
propriety and unnatural decorum.

♦ " Leyland," I., p. 255-9.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 1 7 1

It is amazing that readers of this racy and
forcible epistle have failed to discover in it a strong
vein of that rich but sardonic humour, that head-
long torrent of denunciation which pervades the
pages of " Wuthering Heights." In his con-
tempt for hypocrisy and irritation at the med-
dlesome impertinence of some " bow-legged devil "
(possibly some local ranting Dissenter, whose
sermonizing was particularly distasteful) lies the
germ of the subsequent delineation of Joseph, in
whose character the author revels with a kind of
triumphant maliciousness for which no woman
could have had even a faint incentive.

Of the remaining references in the letter we can
identify none, but there is one of which we must
take special notice, inasmuch as it furnishes
decided evidence for Branwell's authorship. The
reference I mean is to him " who will be used as
the tongs of hell — he whose eyes Satan looks out
of, as from windows, I mean esquire ?

It is obvious that even at this date — 1840 —
Branwell Bronte's imagination was playing round
some fierce, lowering, gloomy personality with

172 Patrick Branivell Bronte

whom he was well acquainted and who was in
this letter the object of this damning allusion.
Now if we recall his letter to Leyland. already
quoted, we remember that the project of this
novel was the outcome of observations and re-
flections made during the previous half-dozen
years, which would bring us back to the years
1839-40, when this letter to John Brown was
written. The project was but dimly outhned in
his mind as yet, but with the passing years the
conception began to take shape, until, during
his two years' residence at Thorp Green, the hot
flame of his passion for another man's wife vita-
lized and brought it forth in the half-human,
half-demon shape we know as Heathchff, con-
cerning whose eyes the very same simile is used :
" that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried
who never open their windows boldly, but lurk
glinting under them like devil's spies," or else-
where, where Isabella says : " The clouded windows
of hell flashed a moment towards me : the fiend
which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed
and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another

Patrick Branwell Bronte 173

sound of derision." Viewed from this stand-
point, the importance of this letter can scarcely
be overrated, for it displays not merely the
torrential force of Branwell's opinions upon
certain hostile personalities, but it reveals the
original moulds already prepared in his mind,
whence some of the rough casts for the characters
in his projected novel were taken.

This view is supported by the opinion of Mr.
Leyland, a dispassionate and fair-minded man,
writing from a close personal acquaintance with
the friends of Branwell Bronte. " Those who have
heard fall from the lips of Branwell Bronte — and
they are few now — all those weird stories, strange
imaginings, and vivid and brilliant disquisitions
on the life of the people of the West Riding, will
recognize that there was at least no opposition
between the tendency of his thoughts and those
of the author of ' Wuthering Heights.' As to
special points in the story, it may be said that
Branwell Bronte had tasted most of the passions,
weaknesses and emotions there depicted ; had
loved in frenzied delusion as Heathcliff loved ;

174 Patrick Branwell Bronte

as with Hindley Earnshaw, too, in the pain of
loss when his ship struck ; the captain abandoned
his post ; and the crew, instead of trying to save
her, rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no
hope for their luckless vessel. He had too, indeed,
manifested much of the doating folly of the un-
happy master of the ' Heights ' ; and finally,
there is no doubt that he possessed, nevertheless,
almost as much force of character, determination,
and energy as Heathcliff himself."*

Sir Wemyss Reid — quite unwittingly, because
he was counsel engaged on the side of Emily —
gives evidence which confirms Mr. Leyland's
view and my own. The lecturer's contention is
that Branwell provided the study for his sister's
work, a suggestion which has been shown, I hope,
to be an outrage on all we know of Emily Bronte.
But his contention that the delineation of Heath-
cliff's passion for another man's wife found its
counterpart in Branwell's experiences is valuable
evidence for his authorship of the work, " Whole
pages of the story," he says, " are filled with the
* " Leyland, II, p. 192-193.

Patrick Branwell Bronte 175

ravings and ragings of the villain against the man
whose life stands between him and the woman he
loves. Similar ravings are to be found in all the
letters of BranweU Bronte written at this period
of his career ; and w^e may be sure that similar
ravings were always on his lips, as moody and
more than haJf mad, he wandered about the
rooms of the parsonage at Haworth."* This
last assertion, totally unsupported by evidence,
may be left out of account. It is just the kind of
gratuitious suggestion, with no foundation in fact,
that is so scandalously and seditiously suppUed
by the detractors of Branwell Bronte, and which,
alas ! has obtained credence simply through its
audacity.

But, to continue our quotation : " Nay," he
goes on to say, " I have found striking verbal
coincidences between Branwell's own language
and passages in ' Wuthering Heights.' In one
of his own letters there are these words in reference
to the object of his passion : ' My own life without
her will be hell. What can the so-cadled love of

* Quoted " Leyland," II, p. 193-4.

176 Patrick Br anivell Bronte

her wretched, sickly husband be to her compared
with mine ? ' Now," continues Sir Wemyss,
" turn to ' Wuthering Heights,' and you will read
these words : ' Two words would comprehend my
future — death and hell : existence after losing
her would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for
a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attach-
ment more than mine. If he loved with all the
powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much
in eighty years as I could in a day.' " Sir Wemyss
Reid has reaUy proved too much, and his damag-
ing admissions not only give his case away, but
greatly strengthen the case for Branwell's author-
ship from the resemblance between Heathcliff's
expression of his passion and Branwell's own
experience.

Mr. Clement Shorter has apologized for taking
any notice of Branwell at all, adducing the reason
that he was obliged to do so in the face of his
" preposterous statement that he wrote ' Wuther-
ing Heights.' " But with all the evidence we have
of Branwell's own completion of the first volume
of a novel which it would require hardihood to

Patrick Branwell Bronte 177

publish ; of the fact that he was engaged on it
just at the time of his great mental struggle with
the passion that devastated him ; that his suffer-
ings are, even by a hostile critic, admitted to be
just such as are depicted in the soul of Heath-
cliff ; that his powers of caricature and delineation
of character were great ; that he was, at the time
when he began his novel, full of literary ambition
and at the zenith of his powers which, by all
contemporary accounts, were very uncommon :
what, it may be asked, was there " preposterous "
in such a statement ?

Anyone possessed of unprejudiced judgment
must see that the book is the work of one who
has actually gone through the " hell " which was
slowly consuming Heathcliff ; of one who, as
Branwell Bronte wrote to Leyland, was writing
the book to while away his torments. To have
produced the work under such conditions would
be far from " preposterous " ; would, on the
contrary, be extremely natural. The truly " pre-
posterous " theory is that Emily Bronte wrote it.

There still remains the problem as to why

M

178 Patrick Br unwell Bronte

Branwell did not come boldly forward as the
author of " Wuthering Heights " in his own
remaining lifetime. To this it may be answered
that, as the evidence already quoted proves, he
did so come forward among his most intimate
friends, who probably regarded " Ellis Bell " as
his nom de plume, and never associated it with
Emily Bronte. Also we have seen that in the
presence of Mr. Grundy, and before his sister
Emily, he did claim the greater portion of the
novel as his own work. I have already tried to
show that his pecuhar position with regard to
Charlotte was a sufficient barrier to any open
declaration of authorship among his own family ;
and also we have to remember that, since it was
written just at the time of Branwell's love story,
he would naturally shrink from any open acknow-
ledgment of having portrayed his unhappy
infatuation for a woman well known in the county,
whose family would have been greatly incensed
at any possible identification that might ensue.

Of these obstacles to open acknowledgment
the chief was Charlotte's complete estrangement

Patrick Branwell Bro7ite 179

from her brother. Her entire ignorance of any
collaboration between BranweU and Emily led her
to assert in later years that her brother knew
nothing of his sisters' work.

There is a further point in connection with
Branwell's concealment of his authorship from
the family. We have to remember that for a
year and a half, according to Charlotte, the MS.
of " Wuthering Heights " went the round of the
publishing houses, only to meet with abrupt and
ignominious dismissal, and when at last in Septem-
ber, 1847, it was finally accepted by Mr. Newby,
another four months elapsed before he issued it.
By this time Branwell had lost all interest in the
work. His own health was terribly shattered,
he was fast sinking into hopeless physical decline ;
we know from the letter he wrote to Leyland
at the close of 1847, or the opening of 1848, that
he was at the end of everything, and had long
since resigned any literary or other ambition.
After the novel was pubhshed, it met with little
but contumely from the press, and the notices
were for the most part so damaging to the author,

1 80 Patrick Branwell Bronte

who was taken to be a rough and brutal man,
that there was less temptation than ever for the
author to claim his offspring. Indeed, had Emily
revealed the truth, she would have set the seal
on Charlotte's condemnation of their brother,
and perhaps have called public attention to his
unhappy faihngs. So Emily held her peace,
as she was so well capable of doing.

This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter.
We are impressed by the brave, hopeful tone of
Emily's letters to Anne, by her obvious desire to
help everyone, including Branwell, and I submit
with much earnestness that this was not the woman
who could concoct in secret and launch into the
world a novel portraying the absolutely diabolical
scheme of vengeance developed by the author of
" Wuthering Heights," a novel not merely tinged
but saturated with the hopelessness of misery,
ruin and despair. All Emily's efforts were to
leave the world better than she found it, but
Branwell's case and character was totally different.
He had lived with forlorn hopes amid the rough
and tumble of the world immediately around him,

Patrick Branwell Bronte 181

in the village, in and out of the farmsteads, on the
railway, at Bradford, Halifax, and all about this
moorland neighbourhood, ever since he came to
manhood ; and, as he tells Leyland, he had for
half a dozen years back been pondering on all
these experiences until he had decided to embody
them in a novel. He had his vindictive feelings,
his scores to pay off upon some old tormenting
hypocrite, no doubt, and he gave us Joseph ;
he had his hate of Mr. Robinson and his passionate
love for his wife and, " veiled " by different
characters too far removed from reality to be
recognizable, he gave his sufferings to the world
under the guise of fiction. Having known the dark
passions of defeated love, he gave us Heathcliff ;
having seen men the victims of temptation,
despair and drink, he gave us Hindley Earnshaw,
I have tried to show how completely masculine is
the tone, nay, the very atmosphere, of " Wuthering
Heights," how obviously it is written by one who
has seen at close quarters events similar to those of
which he writes, by one who knew the old farm
manor-house he describes so accurately in Thrush-

182 Patrick Branwell Bronte

cross Grange, who had at some time or other visited
their inmates, and knew every corner of both.
I have tried to show that the book was written by
one closely acquainted with the classics, which
Emily Bronte was not, by one also who possessed
the fine, clear-cut style of which we have proof
that Branwell was capable. I have pointed out
that the date of the composition of the book
coincides with the date of Branwell's novel, that
its character coincides with the general outhne
given to Leyland of what he was attempting.
I have shown that it was written at the very time
when, like the hero, Heathcliff, he was going
through the torments of hell, burnt up by an
insensate passion for another man's wife ; and I
have quoted the evidence of his friends, all men of
repute, who aver that the story Branwell read to
them agreed in every particular, as far as they
heard it, with the tale afterwards published as
" Wuthering Heights." Last of all, there is the
direct evidence of Mr. Grundy. With all these
points in his favour, and nothing except Charlotte's
word in favour of Emily, it is surely difficult not

Patrick Branwell Bronte 183

to claim, as I most emphatically do, the authorship
for Patrick Branwell Bronte.

If Charlotte's affirmation is still a stumbling-
block to some, I would venture to point out that
none of the evidence I have tried to bring together
was available to Charlotte, who, with her limited
knowledge, had no alternative but to attribute
it to Emily, and did so in good faith. But, with
our fuller information, a reconsideration of the
authorship is imperative, nor is there anything
outrageous in claiming it for Branwell : on the
contrary, it is the simplest common sense. On
the other hand, it would require the greatest
stretch of probability to ascribe it to anyone who
had not closely experienced the anguish it de-
scribes : it is written as if in blood.

And, if Emily Bronte did not write " Wuthering
Heights," in helping her brother to finish and
publish it she did a far greater thing, and in so
doing surely she has won, beneath the eyes of the
Eternal Witness of whom Milton writes, a fame
more imperishable than any of those earthly
plaudits which she so despised.

184 Patrick Branwell Bronte

In ascribing " Wuthering Heights " to its true
author, it may be asked, who would have rejoiced
more than this devoted sister that her secret
toil and long burden of anxiety was not undertaken
in vain ? Who would have been more over-
joyed than Emily Bronte that this much loved
and deeply lamented brother should, even at long
last, have come into the fame which is his own ?

APPENDIX

A SELECTION FROM THE POEMS OF PATRICK
BRAN WELL BRONTE.

BLACK COMB.

Far off, and half revealed, 'mid shade and light,

Black Comb half smiles, half frowns ; his mighty form

Scarce bending into peace, more formed to fight

A thousand years of struggles with a storm

Than bask one hour subdued by sunshine warm

To bright and breezeless rest ; yet even his height

Towers not o'er this world's sympathies ; he smiles —

While many a human heart to pleasure's wiles

Can bear to bend, and still forget to rise —

As though he, huge and heath-clad on our sight.

Again rejoices in his stormy skies.

Man loses vigour in unstable joys.

Thus tempests find Black Comb invincible.

While we are lost, who should know life so well !

— {circa 1840).

185

186 Appendix

SONNET I.

ON LANDSEER'S PAINTING.

The Shepherd's Chief Mourner." — A dog keeping
watch at twihght over its master's grave.

The beams of Fame dry up afifection's tears ;

And those who rise forget from whom they spring ;

Wealth's golden glories — pleasure's glittering wing —

All that we follow through our chase of years —

All that our hope seeks — all our caution fears.

Dim or destroy those holy thoughts which chng

Round where the forms we loved lie slumbering ;

But, not with thee — our slave — whose joys or cares

We deem so grovelling — power nor pride are thine.

Nor our pursuits, nor ties ; yet, o'er this grave.

Where lately crowds the form of mourning gave,

I only hear thy low heart-broken whine —

I only see thee left long hours to pine

For him whom thou — if love had power — would'st save

SONNET II.

ON THE CALLOUSNESS PRODUCED BY CARE.

Why hold young eyes the fullest fount of tears ?

And why do youthful hearts the oftenest sigh.

When fancied friends forsake, or lovers fly.

Or fancied woes and dangers wake their fears ?

Ah ! he who asks has known but springtide years,

Or Time's rough voice and long since told him why I

Increase of days increases misery ;

And misery brings selfishness, which sears

The heart's first feelings : 'mid the battle's roar.

In Death's dread grasp, the soldier's eyes are blind

To comrades dying, and he whose hopes are o'er

Turns coldest from the sufferings of mankind ;

A bleeding spirit oft delights in gore :

A tortured heart oft makes a tyrant mind.

Appendix 187

SONNET III.

ON PEACEFUL DEATH AND PAINFUL LIFE.

Why dost thou sorrow for the happy dead ?
For, if their Ufe be lost, their toils are o'er.
And woe and want can trouble them no more ;
Nor ever slept they in an earthly bed
So sound as now they sleep, while dreamless laid
In the dark chambers of the unknown shore.
Where Night and Silence guard each sealed door.
So, turn from such as these thy drooping head.
And mourn the dead alive, whose spirit flies,
WTiose life departs, before his death has come ;
Who knows no heaven beneath Life's gloomy skies.
Who sees no Hope to brighten up that gloom —
'Tis He who feels the worm that never dies —
The real death and darkness of the tomb.

Note. — These three Sonnets were, according to Mr.
Leyland, written in the year 1842. It will be remembered
that in the autumn of this year Branwell attended the
deathbed not only of his aunt. Miss Branwell, but of
his friend, the Rev. W. Weightman.

188 Appendix

THE EPICUREAN'S SONG.

(1842)

The visits of Sorrow

Say, why should we mourn ?

Since the sun of to-morrow

May shine on its urn ;

And all that we think such pain

Will have departed — then

Bear for a moment what cannot return.

For past time has taken

Each hour that it gave,

And they never awaken

From yesterday's grave ;

So surely we may defy

Shadows, like memory,

Feeble and fleeting as midsummer wave.

From the depths where they're falling

Nor pleasure, nor pain,

Despite our recalling,

Can reach us again ;

Though we brood over them.

Naught can recover them.

Where they are laid they must ever remain.

Appendix 189

So seize we the present,

And gather its flowers,

For — mournful or pleasant —

'Tis all that is ours ;

WTiile daylight we're wzisting.

The evening is hasting,

And night follows fast on vanishing hours.

Yes — and we, when night comes.

Whatever betide.

Must die as our fate dooms,

And sleep by their side ;

For change is the only thing

Always continuing ;

And it sweeps creation away with its tide.

190 Appendix

REAL REST.

(1845-6)

I SEE a corpse upon the waters lie,

With eyes turned, swelled and sightless, to the sky.

And arms outstretched to move, as wave on wave

Upbears it in its boundless billowy grave.

Not time, but ocean, thins its flowing hair ;

Decay, not sorrow, lays its forehead bare ;

Its members move, but not in thankless toil.

For seas are milder than this world's turmoil ;

Corruption robs its lips and cheeks of red,

But wounded vanity grieves not the dead ;

And, though these members hasten to decay.

No pang of suffering takes their strength away.

With untormented eye, and heart and brain,

Through calm and storm it floats across the main ;

Though love and joy have perished long ago,

Its bosom suffers not one pang of woe ;

Though weeds and worms its cherished beauty hide.

It feels not wounded vanity nor pride ;

Though journeying towards some far-off shore.

It needs no care nor gold to float it o'er ;

Though launched in voyage for eternity,

It need not think upon what is to be ;

Though naked, helpless, and companionless

It feels not poverty, nor knows distress.

Appendix 191

Ah, corpse ! if thou could'st tell my aching mind

What scenes of sorrow thou hast left behind,

How sad the life which, breathing, thou hast led,

How free from strife thy sojourn with the dead ;

I would assume thy place — would long to be

A world-wide wanderer o'er the waves with thee !

I have a misery, where thou hast none ;

My heart beats, bursting, whilst thine lies Uke stone ;

My veins throb wild, whilst thine are dead and dry ;

And woes, not waters, dim my restless eye ;

Thou longest not with one well loved to be,

And absence does not break a chain with thee ;

No sudden agonies dart through thy breast ;

Thou hast what all men covet — real rest.

I have an outward frame, unlike to thine.

Warm with young hfe — not cold in death's decline

An eye that sees the sunny light of Heaven —

A heart by pleasure thrilled, by anguish riven —

But, in exchange for thy untroubled calm.

Thy gift of cold oblivion's healing balm,

I'd give my youth, my health, my life to come.

And share thy slumbers in thy ocean tomb.

192 Appendix

SONNET (April, 1S46).

When all our cheerful hours seem gone for ever,

All lost that caused the body or the mind

To nourish love or friendship for our kind.

And Charon's boat, prepared, o'er Lethe's river

Our souls to waft, and all our thoughts to sever

From what was once life's Light ; still there may be

Some well-loved bosom to whose pillow we

Could heartily our utter self deliver ;

And if, toward her grave — Death's dreary road —

Our Darling's feet should tread, each step by her

Would draw our own steps to the same abode,

And make a festival of sepulture ;

For what gave joy, and joy to us had owed,

Should Death affright us from, when he would her restore ?

Note. — ^The sentiment expressed in the last four lines
of this poem are markedly and strangely suggestive of
the feelings of Heathcliff in connection with the entomb-
ment of Catherine Linton.

BRISTOL : BURLEIGH LTD., AT THE BURLEIGH PRESS

PR

Law, Alice

4174

Patrick Branwell

B2L3

Bronte.

A. M. Philpot

([1923])

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