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ning wild he was! what glorious talent he had still to waste! That Rector of Haworth little knew how to bring up and bring out his clever family, and the boy least of all. He was a hard, matter-of-fact man. So the girls worked their own way to fame and death, the boy to death only! I knew them all. The father-upright, handsome, distantly courteous, white haired, tall; knowing me as his son's friend, he would treat me in the Grandisonian fashion, coming himself down to the little inn to invite me, a boy, up to his house, where I would be coldly uncomfortable until I could escape with Patrick Branwell to the moors. The daughters-distant and distrait, large of nose, small of figure, red of hair, prominent of spectacles; showing great intellectual development, but with eyes constantly cast down, very silent, painfully retiring. This was about the time of their first literary adventures, I suppose-say 1843 or 1844. Branwell was very like them, almost insignificantly small -one of his life's trials. He had a mass of red hair, which he wore brushed high off his forehead-to help his height, I fancy-a great, bumpy, intellectual forehead, nearly half the size of the whole facial contour; small, ferrety eyes, deep sunk, and still further hidden by the neverremoved spectacles; prominent nose, but weak lower features. He had a downcast look, which never varied, save for a rapid, momentary glance at long intervals. Small and thin of person, he was the reverse of attractive at first sight.

This plain specimen of humanity, who died unhonored, might have made the world of literature and art ring with the name of which he was so proud. When I first met him, he was station-master at a small roadside place on the Manchester and Leeds Railway, Luddendenfoot by name. The line was only just opened. This station was a rude wooden hut, and there was no village near at hand. Had a position been chosen for this strange creature for the express purpose of driving him several steps to the bad, this must have been it. Alone in the wilds of Yorkshire, with few books, little to do, no prospects, and wretched pay, with no society congenial to his better tastes, but plenty of wild, rollicking, hard-headed, half-educated manufacturers, who would welcome him to their houses, and drink with him as often as he chose to come-what was this morbid man, who couldn't bear to be alone, to do?

I always have liked scamps with brains. Here was one, as great a scamp as could be desired, and with an unexpected stock of brains, indeed. He took to me amazingly-I suppose from my difference to his then enforced companions, for I was very young, and had the ideas and habits of a gentleman. Nay, I could meet

him sometimes with quotation for quotation, even in the languages, other than English, which he most affected. On his side, he had a fund of information, experience, and anecdote, which he poured forth freely for my benefit, not at first showing me anything of the rough side of his nature.

Now, this Luddendenfoot was but three or four miles from my place by rail, of which I was free and he, too, so that we saw one another frequently enough. This man of the world of twenty-two had already played parts. He had been usher in a school, which he left in disgust; the lads, I think, ridiculed his downcast smallness. He had been private tutor also, and, when that failed (such was this man's versatility), he had established himself in Bradford, at nineteen or twenty years of age, as a portrait-painter selftaught, and had achieved considerable success, till eccentricity or desire of change removed him. Then came a short time of which I never heard an explanation; but I fancy that he "gave it best," as colonials say, for a time, and then probably moped, and gave trouble at home. I am sure, indeed, that he must have done so; for he had at that time been studying De Quincey, and, with the obstinate determination of doing himself whatever any one else had done, he positively began the practice of opium-eating. He did this until it became a habit, and when it had seized upon his nervous system he underwent the torture of the damned, or of De Quincey at least.

Then Brontë came to Luddendenfoot. I think I did him so much good that he recovered himself of his habits there after my advent. But he was ever in extremes, gloriously great or as ingloriously small. He would discourse with wondrous knowledge upon subjects, moral, intellectual, philosophical, for hours, and afterward accompany his audience to the nearest publichouse, and recruit his exhausted powers by copious libations. He was proud of his name, his strength, and his abilities. In his fits of passion I have seen him drive his doubled fist through the panel of a door: it seemed to soothe him; it certainly bruised his knuckles. At times we would drive over in a gig to Haworth (twelve miles), and visit his people. He was then at his best, and would be eloquent and amusing, although sometimes he would burst into tears when returning, and swear that he meant to amend. I believe, however, that he was half mad, and could not control himself. On one occasion he thought I was disposed to treat him distantly at a party, and he retired in great dudgeon. When I arrived at my lodgings the same evening I found the following, necessarily an impromptu:

"The man who will not know another,

Whose heart can never sympathize, Who loves not comrade, friend, or brother, Unhonored lives-unnoticed dies. His frozen eye, his bloodless heart, Nature, repugnant, bids depart.

"O Grundy! born for nobler aim,

Be thine the task to shun such shame; And henceforth never think that he

Who gives his hand in courtesy To one who kindly feels to him, His gentle birth or name can dim.

"However mean a man may be,

Know man is man as well as thee; However high thy gentle line,

Know he who writes can rank with thine
And though his frame be worn and dead,
Some light still glitters round his head.
"Yes! though his tottering limbs seem old,
His heart and blood are not yet cold.
Ah, Grundy! shun his evil ways,

His restless nights, his troubled days;
But never slight his mind, which flies,
Instinct with noble sympathies,
Afar from spleen and treachery,
To thought, to kindness, and to thee.

"P. B. BRONTË."

One of Brontë's peculiarities was a habit of making use of the word "sir" when addressing even his most intimate friends and acquaintances; and if he made a quotation in Greek, Latin, or French, he always translated it: “Fiat justitia, ruat cœlum'; that means, 'Justice must be done though the heavens fall.' I beg your pardon, sir, but I have been so much among the barbarians of the hills that I forgot," etc., etc. He one day sketched a likeness of me, which my mother kept until her death, and which is perhaps treasured in a more moderate manner among my sisterhood now. He wrote a poem called "Bronte," illustrative of the life of Nelson, which, at his special request, I submitted for criticism to Leigh Hunt, Miss Martineau, and others. All spoke in high terms of it. He gave it to me only about two or three weeks before his death, and Frank Fowler, a literary aspirant, got possession of it for his Sydney magazine known as The Month." He did not publish it, but when he left for England he kept the manuscript. Brontë drew a finished elevation of one portion of Westminster Abbey from memory, having been but once in London some years before. It was no mean achievement, for the sketch was correct in every particular. He once wrote an epitaph upon me, with a drawing of a marble mausoleum at its head. My mother kept that too, and I remember nothing of it except that I wrote one in reply to it.

One very important statement which he 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 wellnigh incredible that a book so marvelous in its strength, and in its dissection of the most morbid passions of diseased minds, could have been written by a young girl like Emily Brontë, who never saw much of the world or knew much of mankind, and whose studies of life and character, if they are entirely her own, must have been chiefly evolved from her own imagination. Patrick Brontë 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 Luddendenfoot, reappear in the pages of the novel, and I am inclined to believe that the very plot was his invention rather than his sister's.

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There was an old fortune-teller at Haworth, ninety-five years of age, and Branwell and the "three curates used often to go and consult her. She was a wonderful old soul, and, I think, believed thoroughly in her arts. At any rate, she was visited, either in jest or earnest, by the "carriage-people" of two counties; and we often took our day's spree on horseback or in "trap" thitherward. Nay, she entirely altered the life of a friend of mine, a draughtsman, who was so impressed by her wonderful knowledge of him and his doings, that he went home from an interview with her and carried out all she had told him, even to marrying a girl toward whom he had not previously been attracted.

To return to " 'Brontë." After a long time something went wrong. How could it be otherwise? It was never the special forte of a genius to manage sixpences. He left the railway; and my work in that part of Yorkshire also came to a close for a time. I went to Manchester, Rugby, London, Rochester, Warwick, Maidstone, as my profession demanded, and we lost sight of each other. After three years, however, fate sent me once again into Yorkshire, and I found myself within seven miles of Haworth. The first letter which I received was from Brontë. He was ill and unhappy. I offer no apology for giving extracts from some of the letters of this lifewrecked brother of great sisters, both because he was one of a house of noble intellect in the world of England's history; because there may be yet, here and there, one who believes in his memory; and chiefly because those letters show the struggles of a man very different, at worst, from the social demon of Mrs. Gaskell's creation.

Although the earlier of these letters was written at a period antecedent to that at which my history is now arrived, I have, for the sake of convenience, placed them here consecutively.

HAWORTH, June 9, 1842.

DEAR SIR: Any feeling of disappointment which the perusal of your letter might otherwise have caused, was allayed by its kindly and considerate tone; but I should have been a fool, under present circumstances, to entertain any sanguine hopes respecting situations, etc. You ask me why I do not turn my attention elsewhere; and so I would have done, but that most of my relatives and more immediate connections are clergymen, or by a private life somewhat removed from this busy world. As for the Church-I have not one mental qualification, save, perhaps, hypocrisy, which would make me cut a figure in its pulpits. Mr. James Montgomery and another literary gentleman, who have lately seen something of my "head-work," wish me to turn my attention to literature, and, along with that advice, they give me plenty of puff and praise. All very well, but I have little conceit of myself, and great desire for activity. You say that you write with feelings similar to those with which you last left me; keep them no longer. I trust I am somewhat changed, or should not be worth a thought; and though nothing could ever give me your buoyant spirits and an outward man corresponding therewith, I may, in dress and appearance, emulate something like ordinary decency. And now, wherever coming years may lead—Greenland's snows or sands of Afric -I trust, etc.

October 25, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR: There is no misunderstanding. I have had a long attendance at the death-bed of the Rev. Mr. Weightman, one of my dearest 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. Give my most sincere respects to Mr. Stephenson, and excuse this scrawl; my eyes are too dim with sorrow to see well. Believe me, your not very happy but obliged friend and servant, P. B. BRONTE.

October 29, 1842.

MY DEAR SIR: As I don't want to lose a real friend, I write in deprecation of the tone of your letter. Death only has made me neglectful of your kindness, and I have lately had so much experience with him, that your sister would not now blame me

for indulging in gloomy visions either of this world
or another. I am incoherent, I fear, but I have been
waking two nights witnessing such agonizing suffer-
ing as I would not wish my worst enemy to endure;
and I have now lost the pride and director of all the
happy days connected with my childhood. I have
suffered such sorrow since I last saw you at Ha-
worth, that I do not now care if I were fighting in
India or —, since, when the mind is depressed,
like croaking, I know well; only I request you to
danger is the most effectual cure. But you don't
understand from my two notes that I have not for-
Yours, etc.
gotten you, but myself.

The gap here of two and a half years is that previously mentioned when I had left Yorkshire.

HAWORTH, NEar Bradford, May 22, 1845. DEAR SIR: I can not avoid the temptation to cheer my spirits by scribbling a few lines to you while I sit here alone-all the household being at church-the sole occupant of an ancient parsonage among lonely hills, which probably will never hear the whistle of an engine till I am in my grave.

After experiencing, since my return home, exthan either, I have at length acquired health and treme pain and illness, with mental depression worse trust, to anything shown by that miserable wreck you strength and soundness of mind, far superior, I used to know under my name. I can now speak out the stimulus of six glasses of whisky; I can cheerfully, and enjoy the company of another withwrite, think, and act with some apparent approach to resolution, and I only want a motive for exertion to be happier than I have been for years. But I feel my recovery from almost insanity to be retarded by having nothing to listen to except the wind moaning among old chimneys and older ash-trees-nothing to look at except heathery hills, walked over when life had all to hope for and nothing to regret with me— no one to speak to except crabbed old Greeks and Romans who have been dust the last five thousand years. And yet this quiet life, from its contrast, makes the year passed at Luddendenfoot appear like a nightmare, for I would rather give my hand than undergo again the groveling carelessness, the malignant yet cold debauchery, the determination to find how far mind could carry body without both being chucked into hell, which too often marked my conduct when there, lost as I was to all I really liked, and seeking relief in the indulgence of feelings which form the black spot on my character.

Yet I have something still left in me which may do me service. But I ought not to remain too long in solitude, for the world soon forgets those who have bidden it "Good-by." Quiet is an excellent cure, but no medicine should be continued after a patient's recovery; so I am about, though ashamed of the business, to dun you for answers to (Here follow inquiries as to obtaining some appointment.)

Excuse the trouble I am giving to one on whose kindness I have no claim, and for whose services I am offering no return except gratitude and thankful

ness, which are already due to you. Give my sincere regards to Mr. Stephenson. A word or two, to show that you have not altogether forgotten me, will greatly please yours, etc., P. B. BRONTE.

But Bronte got no situation with us. Indeed, it was altogether improbable, for the cause of his leaving his appointment had been too notoriously glaring. His absence, carousing with con

pened into declarations of more than ordinary feeling. My admiration of her mental and personal attractions, my knowledge of her unselfish sincerity, her sweet temper, and unwearied care for others, with but unrequited return where most should have been given, . . . although she is seventeen years my senior, all combined to an attachment on my part, and led to reciprocations which I had little looked for. During nearly three years I had daily "troubled pleasure, soon chastised by fear." Three months

threatening to shoot me if I returned from my vacation, which I was passing at home; and letters from her lady's-maid and physician informed me of the outbreak, only checked by her firm courage and resolution that, whatever harm came to her, none should come to me. . . . I have lain during nine long weeks utterly shattered in body and broken down in mind. The probability of her becoming free to give me herself and estate never rose to drive away the prospect of her decline under her present grief. I dreaded, too, the wreck of my mind and body, which, God knows, during a short life have been severely tried. Eleven continuous nights of sleepless horror reduced me to almost the sweet scenery, the sea, the sound of music, blindness, and, being taken into Wales to recover, caused me fits of unspeakable distress. You will

genial drinkers (anything rather than "congenial since I received a furious letter from my employer, spirits" were those rough, coarse, half-educated men), had been of days' continuance. He had a porter at the insignificant station where he was to whom he left all the work, and the result was that very serious defalcations were discovered, and the inquiry which succeeded brought out everything. Brontë was not suspected of the theft himself, but was convicted of constant and culpable carelessness, so that it was almost hopeless to seek for work with us again. He remained a year longer at home, and then came the beginning of the end. I had one or two desponding letters during 1845 and 1846, and then he wrote to tell me that he was appointed tutor to This information was followed by a silence upon any subject of interest to the public of some two years, during which time fate was weaving her web and enshrouding him in its meshes. The next letter, and the others which followed quickly, are all without dates, but must have been written within a few months of January, 1848:

I fear you will burn my present letter on recognizing the handwriting; but, if you will read it through, you will perhaps rather pity than spurn the distress of mind which could prompt my communication after a silence of nearly three (to me) eventful years. While very ill and confined to my room, I wrote to you two months ago, hearing that you were resident engineer of the Skipton Railway, to the inn at Skipton. I never received any reply; and, as my letter asked only for one day of your society, to ease a very weary mind in the company of a friend who always had what I always wanted, but most want now, cheerfulness, I am sure you never received my letter, or your heart would have prompted an answer. Since I last shook hands with you in Halifax, two summers ago, my life till lately has been one of apparent happiness and indulgence. You will ask, "Why does he complain, then?" I can only reply by showing the undercurrent of distress which bore my bark to a whirlpool, despite the surface-waves of life that seemed floating me to peace. In a letter begun in the spring of 1848, and never finished, owing to incessant attacks of illness, I tried to tell you that I was tutor to the son of —, a wealthy gentleman whose wife is sister to the wife of M. P. for the county of, and the cousin of Lord This lady (though her husband detested me) showed me a degree of kindness which, when I was deeply grieved one day at her husband's conduct, ri

say, "What a fool!" but, if you knew the many at here, you would perhaps pity as well as blame. At the kind request of Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Baines, I have striven to arouse my mind by writing something worthy of being read, but I really can not do so. Of course, you will despise the writer of all this. I can only answer that the writer does the same, and would not wish to live if he did not hope that work and change may yet restore him.

causes I have for sorrow which I can not even hint

Apologizing sincerely for what seems like whining egotism, and hardly daring to hint about days when in your company I could sometimes sink the thoughts which "remind me of departed days," I fear departed never to return, I remain, etc.

HAWORTH, BRADFORD, YORK.

DEAR SIR: I must again trouble you with[Here comes another prayer for employment, with, at the same time, a confession that his health alone renders the wish all but hopeless]. Subsequently he says: The gentleman with whom I have been is dead. His property is left in trust for the family, provided I do not see the widow; and, if I do, it reverts to the executing trustees, with ruin to her. She is now distracted with sorrows and agonies; and the statement of her case, as given by her coachman, who has come to see me at Haworth, fills me with inexpressible grief. Her mind is distracted to the verge of insanity, and mine is so wearied that I wish I were in my grave. Yours very sincerely, P. B. BRONTË.

Soon there is another letter, wearying for work, although illness of body and mind have

brought on sleeplessness and disordered action uncut hair, wildly floating round a great, gaunt of the heart:

Since I saw Mr. George Gooch I have suffered much from the accounts of the declining health of her whom I must love most in this world, and who, for my fault, suffers sorrows which surely were never her due. My father, too, is now quite blind, and from such causes literary pursuits have become matters I have no heart to wield. If I could see you it would be a sincere pleasure, but . . . . Perhaps your memory of me may be dimmed, for you have known little in me worth remembering; but I still think often with pleasure of yourself, though so dif

ferent from me in head and mind.

I invited him to come to me at the Devonshire Hotel, Skipton, a distance of some seventeen miles, and in reply received the last letter he ever wrote:

If I have strength enough for the journey, and the weather be tolerable, I shall feel happy in visiting you at the Devonshire on Friday, the 31st of this month. The sight of a face I have been accustomed to see and like when I was happier and stronger, now proves my best medicine.

As he never came to see me, I shortly made up my mind to visit him at Haworth, and was shocked at the wrecked and wretched appearance he presented. Yet he still craved for an appointment of any kind, in order that he might try the excitement of change-of course uselessly. I now heard his painful history from his own lips-his happiness, his misery, and the sad story which was the end. He was miserable. At home the sternness of his father had never relaxed, and he was unfitted for outside social companionship. He was lost now, for he had taken again to opium.

Very soon I went to Haworth again to see him, for the last time. From the little inn I sent for him to the great, square, cold-looking Rectory. I had ordered a dinner for two, and the room looked cozy and warm, the bright glass and silver pleasantly reflecting the sparkling firelight, deeply toned by the red curtains. While I waited his appearance, his father was shown in. Much of the Rector's old stiffness of manner was gone. He spoke of Branwell with more affection than I had ever heretofore heard him express, but he also spoke almost hopelessly. He said that when my message came Branwell was in bed, and had been almost too weak for the last few days to leave it; nevertheless, he had insisted upon coming, and would be there immediately. We parted, and I never saw him again.

Presently the door opened cautiously, and a head appeared. It was a mass of red, unkempt,

forehead; the cheeks yellow and hollow, the mouth fallen, the thin white lips not trembling but shaking, the sunken eyes, once small, now glaring with the light of madness-all told the sad tale but too surely. I hastened to my friend, greeted him in my gayest manner, as I knew he best liked, drew him quickly into the room, and Under its influence, and that of the bright, cheerforced upon him a stiff glass of hot brandy. ful surroundings, he looked frightened—frightened of himself. He glanced at me a moment, and muttered something of leaving a warm bed to come out into the cold night. Another glass of brandy, and returning warmth gradually brought him back to something like the Brontë of old. He even ate some dinner, a thing which he said he had not done for long; so our last interview was pleasant, though grave. I never knew his intellect clearer. He described himself as waiting anxiously for death-indeed, longing for it, and happy, in these his sane moments, to think that it was so near. He once again declared that that death would be due to the story I knew, and to nothing else.

When at last I was compelled to leave, he quietly drew from his coat-sleeve a carving-knife, placed it on the table, and, holding me by both hands, said that, having given up all thoughts of ever seeing me again, he imagined when my message came that it was a call from Satan. Dressing himself, he took the knife, which he had long had secreted, and came to the inn, with a full determination to rush into the room and stab the occupant. In the excited state of his mind he did not recognize me when he opened the door, but my voice and manner conquered him, and

brought him home to himself," as he expressed it. I left him standing bareheaded in the road, with bowed form and dropping tears. A few days afterward he died.

Poor fellow! this short story by a weak hand is all the biography his memory will know. His age was twenty-eight. I have always been of opinion that it remained for me to clear his name from the weight of accusation heaped upon it. I knew him, and indeed, I believe, all the family, better than Mrs. Gaskell did. He was a dear old friend, who from the rich storehouse of his knowledge taught me much. I make my humble effort to do my duty to his memory. His letters to me revealed more of his soul's struggles than probably was known to any other. Patrick Branwell Brontë was no domestic demon-he was just a man moving in a mist, who lost his way. More sinned against, mayhap, than sinning, at least he proved the reality of his sorrows. They killed him, and it needed not that his memory should have been tarnished, much, as I think, to

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