Bronte Appreciation Day

As a teenager, my mother took me to Victoria, British Columbia to stay at a lovely English-style inn. There were beveled windows and antiques everywhere, and I remember how thrilled I was to see a darkly-stained dining table that had once belonged to the Bronte family. This period piece was cordoned off to protect it from further ruin, but I stood at the table for a long while imagining Charlotte, Emily, Anne, and their brother Branwell. I saw them with their glasses, cutlery, and plates, perhaps commenting on the food or the brisk Yorkshire weather, completely unaware of their greatness, of the spell they would later cast upon future generations.

Here is the church in the historic, West Yorkshire village of Thornton where the Bronte children were born. Their family then moved to Haworth. This is Bronte Country. No, seriously, that's what it's called today.
Branwell Bronte painted this portrait of his sisters, Anne, Charlotte and Emily. Originally, he was in the painting as well, but later removed himself so as not to crowd the scene. I like the warm, smooth tone of the colors he used. Branwell was also a poet and created fantasy worlds with his sisters which they wrote about for many years. Troubled with alcohol and opium addictions, he died of tuberculosis at 31.

Lesser known than her sisters, Anne wrote the novels Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. She died at 29, also of tuberculosis. This disease tragically plagued the Bronte family. Most of the six siblings died of it.
I love this portrait of Charlotte. She's lovely, isn't she? And doesn't she look kind and intelligent? One of my favorite writers ever, I like to think of this remarkable lady as a friend from another era. Jane Eyre brought Charlotte great literary success, yet she remained quiet and shy with strangers. Fair, delicate and small, Charlotte died at 38 while expecting her first child. Her cause of death was recorded as tuberculosis, though further research suggests that it might have been typhus.
This is the title page of the original Jane Eyre. Notice that Charlotte wrote under the pen name of Currer Bell. The subtitle An Autobiography is interesting, isn't it? Charlotte Bronte lived through much of what Jane did. She attended a harsh boarding school similar to Lowood and also served as a governess. While teaching, Charlotte developed deep feelings for a married man, but later, separated herself from him and married another. That scenario reminds me a bit of the whole Rochester-Jane-Mr. Rivers triangle.

I do not have a picture of Emily Bronte, but from recorded descriptions, she was attractive and very much a homebody. This Yorkshire rose ventured out from her family many times, but always returned, struck with loneliness and a longing for the familiar. Wuthering Heights was not the swift success that Jane Eyre was, but today, it is considered a literary masterpiece. (Saying the name Wuthering Heights aloud takes me vicariously to Catherine and Heathcliff's solitary manor on the moor. Emily's title isn't just the name of a book, it's a frame of mind.) Ms. Bronte's influence was felt strongly among those who knew her, but her life was cut short. What started as a bad cold evolved into a wasting disease. Thin and weak, Emily never recovered and died at 30.

Thank you for joining me in this brief tribute to a brilliant family. I'll conclude with some of my favorite Bronte quotes . . .

~Charlotte~

"Who has words at the right moment?"

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"Am I hideous, Jane?

Very, sir. You always were, you know." Jane Eyre

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"There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad."

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"I'm just going to write because I cannot help it."

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"Reader, I married him." Jane Eyre

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~Emily~

"I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after."

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"Terror made me cruel."

............................................................ Wuthering Heights

". . . he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."

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"Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you."

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" . . . lying from morning 'til evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly."

Beautiful words that sink into your mind and make you happy you can read and think and learn. Next week's Author Appreciation Day? Maybe the mad, bad, and dangerous Lord Byron. Tennyson or Hemingway anyone?

So many choices . . .