Patrick Branwell, their only brother, was a boy of remarkable promise, and, in some ways, of extraordinary precocity of talent. Mr. Brontë’s friends advised him to send his son to school; but, remembering both the strength of will of his own youth and his mode of employing it, he believed that Patrick was better at home, and that he himself could teach him well, as he had taught others before. So Patrick, or as his family called him, Branwell, remained at Haworth, working hard for some hours a day with his father; but, when the time of the latter was taken up with his parochial duties, the boy was thrown into chance companionship with the lads of the village—for youth will to youth, and boys will to boys.
Still, he was associated in many of his sisters’ plays and amusements. These were mostly of a sedentary and intellectual nature. I have had a curious packet confided to me, containing an immense amount of manuscript, in an inconceivably small space; tales, dramas, poems, romances, written principally by Charlotte, in a hand which it is almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass. No description will give so good an idea of the extreme minuteness of the writing as the annexed fac-simile of a page.
FAC-SIMILE OF A PAGE OF M.S.
Among these papers there is a list of her works, which I copy, as a curious proof how early the rage for literary composition had seized upon her:—
Catalogue of My Books, with the Period of their Completion up to August 3rd, 1830.
Two romantic tales in one volume; viz., The Twelve Adventurers and the Adventures in Ireland, April 2nd, 1829.
The Search after Happiness, a Tale, Aug. 1st, 1829.
Leisure Hours, a Tale, and two Fragments, July 6th, 1829.
The Adventures of Edward de Crack, a Tale, Feb. 2nd, 1830.
The Adventures of Ernest Alembert, a Tale, May 26th, 1830.
An interesting Incident in the Lives of some of the most eminent Persons of the Age, a Tale, June 10th, 1830.
Tales of the Islanders, in four volumes. Contents of the 1st Vol.:—1. An Account of their Origin; 2. A Description of Vision Island; 3. Ratten’s Attempt; 4. Lord Charles Wellesley and the Marquis of Douro’s Adventure; completed June 31st, 1829. 2nd Vol.:—1. The School-rebellion; 2. The strange Incident in the Duke of Wellington’s Life; 3. Tale to his Sons; 4. The Marquis of Douro and Lord Charles Wellesley’s Tale to his little King and Queens; completed Dec. 2nd, 1829. 3rd Vol.:—1.The Duke of Wellington’s Adventure in the Cavern; 2. The Duke of Wellington and the little King’s and Queen’s visit to the Horse-Guards; completed May 8th, 1830. 4th Vol.:—1. The three old Washerwomen of Strathfieldsaye; 2. Lord C. Wellesley’s Tale to his Brother; completed July 30th, 1830.
Characters of Great Men of the Present Age, Dec. 17th, 1829.
The Young Men’s Magazines, in Six Numbers, from August to December, the latter months’ double number, completed December the 12th, 1829. General index to their contents:—1. A True Story; 2. Causes of the War; 3. A Song; 4. Conversations; 5. A True Story continued; 6. The Spirit of Cawdor; 7. Interior of a Pothouse, a Poem; 8. The Glass Town, a Song; 9. The Silver Cup, a Tale; 10. The Table and Vase in the Desert, a Song; 11. Conversations; 12. Scene on the Great Bridge; 13. Song of the Ancient Britons; 14. Scene in my Tun, a Tale; 15. An American Tale; 16. Lines written on seeing the Garden of a Genius; 17. The Lay of the Glass Town; 18. The Swiss Artist, a Tale; 19. Lines on the transfer of this Magazine; 20. On the Same, by a different hand; 21. Chief Geni in Council; 22. Harvest in Spain; 23 . The Swiss Artist continued; 24. Conversations.
The Poetaster, a Drama, in 2 volumes, July 12th, 1830.
A Book of Rhymes, finished December 17th, 1829; Contents:—1. The Beauty of Nature; 2. A Short Poem; 3. Meditations while Journeying in a Canadian Forest; 4. A Song of an Exile; 5. On Seeing the Ruins of the Tower of Babel; 6. A Thing of 14 lines; 7. Lines written on the Bank of a River one fine Summer Evening; 8. Spring, a Song; 9. Autumn, a Song.
Miscellaneous Poems, finished May 30th, 1830. Contents:—1. The Churchyard; 2. Descriptions of the Duke of Wellington’s Palace on the Pleasant Banks of the Lusiva; this article is a small prose tale or incident; 3. Pleasure; 4. Lines written on the Summit of a high Mountain of the North of England; 5. Winter; 6. Two Fragments, namely, 1st, The Vision; 2nd, A Short untitled Poem; The Evening Walk, a Poem, June 23rd, 1830.
Making in the whole twenty-two volumes.
C. BRONTË, August 3, 1830.
As each volume contains from sixty to a hundred pages, and the size of the page lithographed is rather less than the average, the amount of the whole seems very great, if we remember that it was all written in about fifteen months. So much for the quantity; the quality strikes me as of singular merit for a girl of thirteen or fourteen. Both as a specimen of her prose style at this time, and also as revealing something of the quiet domestic life led by these children, I take an extract from the introduction to “Tales of the Islanders,” the title of one of their “Little Magazines:”—
“June the 31 st, 1829.
“The play of the ‘Islanders’ was formed in December, 1827, in the following manner. One night, about the time when the cold sleet and stormy fogs of November are succeeded by the snow-storms, and high piercing night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting round the warm blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby concerning the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she came off victorious, no candle having been produced. A long pause succeeded, which was at last broken by Branwell saying, in a lazy manner, ‘I don’t know what to do.’ This was echoed by Emily and Anne.
“Tabby. ‘Wha ya may go t’ bed.’
“Branwell. ‘I’d rather do any thing than that.’
“Charlotte. ‘Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?
Oh! suppose we had each an island of our own.’
“Branwell. ‘If we had I would choose the Island of Man.’
“Charlotte. ‘And I would choose the Isle of Wight.’
“Emily. ‘The Isle of Arran for me.’
“Anne. ‘And mine should be Guernsey.’
“We then chose who should be chief men in our islands.2 Branwell chose John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter Scott, Mr. Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord Bentinck, Sir Henry Halford. I chose the Duke of Wellington and two sons, 3 Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy. Here our conversation was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the clock striking seven, and we were summoned off to bed. The next day we added many others to our list of men, till we got almost all the chief men of the kingdom. After this, for a long time, nothing worth noticing occurred. In June, 1828, we erected a school on a fictitious island, which was to contain 1,000 children. The manner of the building was as follows. The Island was fifty miles in circumference, and certainly appeared more like the work of enchantment than any thing real,” &c.
Two or three things strike me much in this fragment; one is the graphic vividness with which the time of the year, the hour of the evening, the feeling of cold and darkness outside, the sound of the night-winds sweeping over the desolate snow-covered moors, coming nearer and nearer, and at last shaking the very door of the room where they were sitting—for it opened out directly on that bleak, wide expanse—is contrasted with the glow, and busy brightness of the cheerful kitchen where these remarkable children are grouped. Tabby moves about in her quaint country-dress, frugal, peremptory, prone to find fault pretty sharply, yet allowing no one else to blame her children, we may feel sure. Another noticeable fact is the intelligent partisanship with which they choose their great men, who are almost all stanch Tories of the time. Moreover, they do not confine themselves to local heroes; their range of choice has been widened by hearing much of what is not usually considered to interest children. Little Anne, aged scarcely eight, picks out the politicians of the day for her chief men.