I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas: they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered the color of my mind.
Emily Bronte
Wuthering Heights

woensdag 23 juni 2010

Letter from Charlotte back to the parsonage.

The hammer has descended, and the letter from Charlotte Brontë to William Smith Williams, dated October 18, 1848 – is now on its way from the auction room in New York to the Parsonage. Written just after the death of Branwell and at a time when Emily was displaying distressing symptoms of Tuberculosis (she died three months later), the letter is highly significant, even though there are no references to these things.

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A letter written by Charlotte Brontë as she grieved over the death of her brother Branwell and fretted about the health of her younger sister Emily is on its way back to Haworth.
The Brontë Parsonage Museum outbid other collectors to get the letter for $55,000 (£39,000) at an auction in New York.
It will join a treasure trove of artifacts acquired by the museum in Haworth over the past six months.
This latest item was written by the author of Jane Eyre, on October 18, 1848, shortly after Branwell died. It was sent to William Smith William, the reader at her publisher Smith Elder and Co.
Ann Dinsdale, the museum’s collections manager, said: “This was a very sad period of her life. Branwell had just died and Emily was showing symptoms of the TB which would kill her three months later.
“The letter doesn’t refer to these things, but it talks about her being ill. I think her deep unhappiness was manifested in this ill health.”

Mr William became a friend to Charlotte having spotted her potential as a writer when she sent her first novel The Professor to the publishing house. It was not accepted but he encouraged her to write Jane Eyre, which the company published.
Mrs Dinsdale said staff followed the auction online and were very excited when they realised the hammer had gone down on their bid.
Once the letter arrives back in Haworth, it will join the other recently bought artifacts including a poetry manuscript written by Charlotte as a 13-year-old and Emily’s artist’s box.

maandag 21 juni 2010

The Bluebell, gedicht van Emily Bronte


The Bluebell is the sweetest flower
That waves in summer air
Its blossoms have the mightiest power
To soothe my spirit's care

There is a spell in purple heath
Too wildly, sadly dear
The violet has a fragrant breath
But fragrance will not cheer

The trees are bare, the sun is cold
And seldom, seldom seen
The heavens have lost their zone of gold
And earth her robe of green

And ice upon the glancing stream
Has cast its sombre shade
And distant hills and valleys seem
In frozen mist arrayed

The Bluebell cannot charm me now
The heath has lost its bloom
The violets in the glen below
They yield no sweet perfume
But, though I mourn the sweet Bluebell
'Tis better far away
I know how fast my tears would swell
To see it smile to-day

For, oh! when chill the sunbeams fall
Adown that dreary sky
And gild yon dank and darkened wall
With transient brilliancy
How do I weep, how do I pine
For the time of flowers to come
And turn me from that fading shine
To mourn the fields of home!

Brieven van Charlotte Bronte



Mooie website gevonden
Bovenstaande foto's staan hier op
brieven van Charlotte Bronte

Rebecca Fraser


Op dit moment lees ik
 met veel plezier
 het boek Charlotte Bronte
 van Rebecca Fraser
Ik dacht dat ik bijna alles wel wist
maar in dit boek
komen dingen naar voren die mij
onbekend waren
zoals
het adres
waar Charlotte haar brieven aan Monseigneur Heber naar toe stuurde
en was Branwell een blackmailer?
 
Rebecca Fraser has worked as a researcher, publisher's editor and journalist, and has written for many publications including Tatler, Vogue, The Times and the Spectator. She has also illustrated two children's books, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table and Robin Hood. She is married and has three daughters. Her first book, a biography of Charlotte Brontë-, was very well received, and she has recently become President of the Brontë- Society.

The Parlour

The Parlour

Parsonage

Parsonage

Charlotte Bronte

Presently the door opened, and in came a superannuated mastiff, followed by an old gentleman very like Miss Bronte, who shook hands with us, and then went to call his daughter. A long interval, during which we coaxed the old dog, and looked at a picture of Miss Bronte, by Richmond, the solitary ornament of the room, looking strangely out of place on the bare walls, and at the books on the little shelves, most of them evidently the gift of the authors since Miss Bronte's celebrity. Presently she came in, and welcomed us very kindly, and took me upstairs to take off my bonnet, and herself brought me water and towels. The uncarpeted stone stairs and floors, the old drawers propped on wood, were all scrupulously clean and neat. When we went into the parlour again, we began talking very comfortably, when the door opened and Mr. Bronte looked in; seeing his daughter there, I suppose he thought it was all right, and he retreated to his study on the opposite side of the passage; presently emerging again to bring W---- a country newspaper. This was his last appearance till we went. Miss Bronte spoke with the greatest warmth of Miss Martineau, and of the good she had gained from her. Well! we talked about various things; the character of the people, - about her solitude, etc., till she left the room to help about dinner, I suppose, for she did not return for an age. The old dog had vanished; a fat curly-haired dog honoured us with his company for some time, but finally manifested a wish to get out, so we were left alone. At last she returned, followed by the maid and dinner, which made us all more comfortable; and we had some very pleasant conversation, in the midst of which time passed quicker than we supposed, for at last W---- found that it was half-past three, and we had fourteen or fifteen miles before us. So we hurried off, having obtained from her a promise to pay us a visit in the spring... ------------------- "She cannot see well, and does little beside knitting. The way she weakened her eyesight was this: When she was sixteen or seventeen, she wanted much to draw; and she copied nimini-pimini copper-plate engravings out of annuals, ('stippling,' don't the artists call it?) every little point put in, till at the end of six months she had produced an exquisitely faithful copy of the engraving. She wanted to learn to express her ideas by drawing. After she had tried to draw stories, and not succeeded, she took the better mode of writing; but in so small a hand, that it is almost impossible to decipher what she wrote at this time.

I asked her whether she had ever taken opium, as the description given of its effects in Villette was so exactly like what I had experienced, - vivid and exaggerated presence of objects, of which the outlines were indistinct, or lost in golden mist, etc. She replied, that she had never, to her knowledge, taken a grain of it in any shape, but that she had followed the process she always adopted when she had to describe anything which had not fallen within her own experience; she had thought intently on it for many and many a night before falling to sleep, - wondering what it was like, or how it would be, - till at length, sometimes after the progress of her story had been arrested at this one point for weeks, she wakened up in the morning with all clear before her, as if she had in reality gone through the experience, and then could describe it, word for word, as it had happened. I cannot account for this psychologically; I only am sure that it was so, because she said it. ----------------------She thought much of her duty, and had loftier and clearer notions of it than most people, and held fast to them with more success. It was done, it seems to me, with much more difficulty than people have of stronger nerves, and better fortunes. All her life was but labour and pain; and she never threw down the burden for the sake of present pleasure. I don't know what use you can make of all I have said. I have written it with the strong desire to obtain appreciation for her. Yet, what does it matter? She herself appealed to the world's judgement for her use of some of the faculties she had, - not the best, - but still the only ones she could turn to strangers' benefit. They heartily, greedily enjoyed the fruits of her labours, and then found out she was much to be blamed for possessing such faculties. Why ask for a judgement on her from such a world?" elizabeth gaskell/charlotte bronte



Poem: No coward soul is mine

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the worlds storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heavens glories shine,
And faith shines equal, arming me from fear.


O God within my breast.
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life -- that in me has rest,
As I -- Undying Life -- have power in Thee!


Vain are the thousand creeds
That move mens hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,


To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast Rock of immortality.


With wide-embracing love
Thy Spirit animates eternal years,
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.


Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou wert left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.


There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void:
Thou -- Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.


--
Emily Bronte

Family tree

The Bronte Family

Grandparents - paternal
Hugh Brunty was born 1755 and died circa 1808. He married Eleanor McClory, known as Alice in 1776.

Grandparents - maternal
Thomas Branwell (born 1746 died 5th April 1808) was married in 1768 to Anne Carne (baptised 27th April 1744 and died 19th December 1809).

Parents
Father was Patrick Bronte, the eldest of 10 children born to Hugh Brunty and Eleanor (Alice) McClory. He was born 17th March 1777 and died on 7th June 1861. Mother was Maria Branwell, who was born on 15th April 1783 and died on 15th September 1821.

Maria had a sister, Elizabeth who was known as Aunt Branwell. She was born in 1776 and died on 29th October 1842.

Patrick Bronte married Maria Branwell on 29th December 1812.

The Bronte Children
Patrick and Maria Bronte had six children.
The first child was Maria, who was born in 1814 and died on 6th June 1825.
The second daughter, Elizabeth was born on 8th February 1815 and died shortly after Maria on 15th June 1825. Charlotte was the third daughter, born on 21st April 1816.

Charlotte married Arthur Bell Nicholls (born 1818) on 29th June 1854. Charlotte died on 31st March 1855. Arthur lived until 2nd December 1906.

The first and only son born to Patrick and Maria was Patrick Branwell, who was born on 26th June 1817 and died on 24th September 1848.

Emily Jane, the fourth daughter was born on 30th July 1818 and died on 19th December 1848.

The sixth and last child was Anne, born on 17th January 1820 who died on 28th May 1849.

Top Withens in the snow.

Top Withens in the snow.

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