The Bront? Family, Vol. 2 of 2

ate of the Case?-?Charlotte Illustrates it in her Poem of 'Preference' ?-?She alludes to Branwell's Condition in 'The Professor'?-

s than the stormy ebullitions which had preceded it. There is evidence that his family at this time misunderstood the actual state of his mind, and that their very anxiety about him caused them-but more especially

one subject, and one only, his mind had given way; and that was in his conception of the undoubted love which the lady of his heart bore him. They also saw, notwithstanding this morbid perversion of the ordinary powers of his mind in one particular illusion, that he was not affected in his faculty of reasoning correctly and consistently on all other subjects. They kne

ve lamented the misery and mental prostration which it entails. Lucy Snowe suffers from it severely, as I have mentioned. But, in 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' one of the characters charges Gilbert Markham-whose circumstances are precisely those of Branwell in regard to his love for a married lady-with m

, by letter, that, in consequence of this persecution, the suffering lady 'had placed herself under his protection!' and many other stories, equally unfounded, extravagant, and impossible, were circulated. In a word, he went about among his friends, telling to each, in strict confidence, the woes under which he suffered, and painting in gloomy colours the miseries which the lady of his love had been compelled to undergo. If all other proof were wan

and by brooding upon particular evils, her mind gave way on one point; and she made, in the full belief of their truth, the most horrible of charges against her dead husband and his sister. These charges were, by some people, believed for a time; but a very little reflection showed that Lady Byron's mind must have been unhinged, for all the acts of her life went to disprove the statements she made. It was not in the nature of things possible

impressions and misinterpretations of facts grew upon him, and he made, with all the certainty of belief, statements of circumstances relating to the lady of his dearest aff

pressed virtue, rushed into print, in 'Macmillan' of September, 1869, with the literary bonne-bouche she had received; so did Mrs. Gaskell, clad in like panoply, with anger far over-riding discretion, publish to the world the scandal she had collected from the busy gobe-mouches of Haworth, to the utter undoing of the fair fame of Patrick Branwell Bront?, and of the lady on whom he h

of disappointed love into scandals unfit to be detailed, when Mrs. Gaskell, eager for information, visited Haworth, and coll

etter to place before the reader much of what she has said in direct reference to it, so that the whole matter may be made

of guilty love, from any dread of shame. He gave passionate way to his feelings; he shocked and distressed those loving sisters inexpressibly; the

onths were now explained. There was a reason deeper than any mere indulgence of appetite, to

oung man, even to the very last of his miserable days. The case presents the reverse of the usual features: the man became the victim; the man's life was blighted, and crushed out of him by suffering, and guilt entailed by guilt; the man's family were stung by keenest shame. The woman-to think of her father's pious name-the blood of honourable families mixed in her veins-her early home, underneath whose roof-tree sat those whose names are held saint-li

ems, the young man still loved her passionately, and now he imagined the time was come when they might look forward to being married, and live together without reproach or blame. She had offered to elope with him; she had written to him perpetually; she

no reason for doubting the absolute truth of what she had heard; and, with an overweening confidence, and

nwell again; and she adds that, on the death of her husband, the lady sent her coachman to Haworth; for, at the very time when the will was being read, she did not know but that Branwell might be on his way to her

r return from Brussels, Charlotte told her friend 'E' that Anne and Branwell were 'both wonderfully valued in their situations.' And again, writing of the year 1845, Mrs. Gaskell says: 'He was so beguiled by this mature and wicked woman, that he went home for his holidays reluctantly, stayed there as short a time as possible, perplexing and distressing them all by his extraordinary conduct-at one time in the highest spirits; at another, in the deepest depression-accusing himself of blackest guilt and treachery, without specifying what they were; and altogether evincing an irritability of disposition bordering on insanity. Charlotte and her sister suffered acutely from his mysterious behaviour … an indistinct dread was creeping over their minds that he might turn out their deep disgrace.'[14

t on his return,' being entirely omitted. Mr. Wemyss Reid, in publishing this letter, points out the circumstance, and says that 'Mrs. Gaskell could not bring herself to speak of such flagrant sins as those of which young Bront? had been guilty under the name of folly, nor could she conceive that there was any possibility of amendment on the part of one who had fall

wished entirely absent. Moreover he had, as we have seen, become wildly in love. Reluctantly at first, and, from what we know of him, he may, probably, in his latest vacation have accused himself of 'bl

be said here that it is clear the lady never wrote letters to Branwell at all. She carefully avoided doing anything that might implicate her in the matter of Branwell's strange passion, and

om it that Charlotte herself never believed the stories concerning Mrs. -- which were in circulation at the time, and that she has left, in this production of her pen, her version of how the circumstances truly stood. The lady is

orn do I r

de thy vow

, I could no

rince, and

affection for him, and that her coldness towards him is assumed. She appeal

and, thou s

alm, for

n? Does my

eye a tro

call a mome

ehead-to

inge their t

ttering, fev

dwill for him is siste

ge not, wrath

ot change

the feeli

irls in pas

e? Oh, de

ndly-but

ve is ans

equal

ounded with books, and employing his 'unresting pen.' Here Charlotte places the 'rival' in an alcove, in the grounds of his mansion, priv

sits-the f

science-ma

chance, bu

hood, wrong,

ield and vi

inker, fir

s truth-ma

on-proof t

e founder

; for, while God reigns in earth and heaven, she will be faithful to the man of her heart

f her feeling as to the affairs which caused so much injurious gossip at the time. Yet, however desirous Charlotte might, be, in this poem, to clear the character of the lady who has been so cruelly aspersed, she appears to

idious deception, and a body depraved by the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered much from the forced and prolonged view of this spectacle; those sufferings I did not now regret, for their simple recollection acted as a most wholesome antidote to temptation. They had inscribed on my reason the conviction that unlawful pleasure, trenching on another's rights, is delus

e did not, however, allow the effect of her first assumption of guilt, or the moral of the tale, to be lost. She inserted a few sentences intended to convey to the reader that something

ot substantiate her statements, and that, as the book could not therefore be reprinted as it stood, and its circulation was consequently limited, it were better to let the matter rest, rather than incur the wide-spread reports o

the letter containing Charlotte's account of Branwell's disgrace, and has also considerably enlarged upon the supposed contents of the letters of Anne. Much diffidence has been felt in dealing with this subject so closely; but, after the discussion of i

es on fire. The smell of burning attracted attention, and the sisters rushed into the room to extinguish the smouldering material. This accident would, doubtless, have been lost sight of, had it not been for the researches of Miss Robinson, to whom the public is indebted for an account of the circumstance, which closely reminds u

hus he writes in the midst of his distress. The vision of his hopes had become a haunting picture of misery, the prospect of the lady becoming f

, August

ar

have a tolerably heavy load on my mind just now, and would look to an hour sp

my absence that, wherever I went, a certain woman robed in black, and calling herself "MISE

bands, I could have

most si

. Bro

him, though his health, and consequently his temper, have been somewhat better this last day or two, because he is now 'forced to abstain.' And again, on the 18th

e says, 'As to my own affairs, I only wish I could see one glea