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

dinsdag 25 maart 2014

The top 75 Yorkshire icons

75 William Wilberforce
73= Stainless steel
73= Dame Judi Dench
72 Yorkshire Sculpture Park
71 Rhubarb
70 Ashley Jackson
68= Whitby Whalebone Arch
68= Rugby League
67 Henderson’s Relish
66 Halifax Piece Hall
62= Roseberry Topping
62= Keighley & Worth Valley Railway
62= Heartbeat
62= Dracula
61= Emmerdale
60 Rievaulx Abbey
59 Kes
58 Wentworth Woodhouse
57 Wuthering Heights
56 Whitby jet
55 Cow and Calf rocks
54 Swaledale sheep
53 Salt’s Mill
51= Sir Patrick Stewart
51= Alan Titchmarsh
50 Yorkshire County Cricket Club
49 Harry Ramsden’s
47= Yorkshire coastline
47= Black Sheep Brewery
46 Flamborough Head
45 Pennines
44 Three Peaks
43 Arctic Monkeys
41= Richard III
41= Dickie Bird
40 Brian Blessed
39 Great Yorkshire Show
38 Settle-Carlisle Railway
37 Last of the Summer Wine
36 Whitby fish and chips
35 Fred Trueman
34 National Railway Museum
33 Bill Mitchell
32 Brimham Rocks
31 Emley Moor Mast
30 Castle Howard
29 Humber bridge
28 Flat cap
27 Ribblehead Viaduct
26 Yorkshire dialect
24= On Ilkla Moor Baht ‘at
24= David Hockney
23 Aysgarth Falls
21= North Yorkshire Moors Railway
21= Ilkley Moor
20 James Herriot
19 Geoffrey Boycott
17= White Rose of York
17= Brass bands
16 Bettys Tea Rooms
15 Shambles, York
14 Captain James Cook
13 Bolton Abbey
12 Drystone walls
11 Malham Cove
10 Yorkshire Tea
9 Whitby Abbey
8 Wensleydale cheese
7 Alan Bennett
6 Fountains Abbey & Studley Royal
5 North York Moors
4  Brontë sisters
3 Yorkshire Dales
2 York Minster
1 Yorkshire pudding
 
 
 

Emily Brontë vs Jane Austen

The Keighley News now has an article on the Emily Brontë vs Jane Austen debate that took place in London a few weeks ago. Emily Brontë narrowly lost to Jane Austen in a prestigious debate over who was the best novelist. Popular modern novelist Kate Mosse led the fight to declare Emily the top writer during the gathering at the Royal Geographic Society. Leading English literature professor John Mullan put the case for Jane Austen during the event in London earlier this month.  Professional actors including Sam West, who played Mr Elliot in the 1995 film version of Jane Austen’s Persuasion, performed scenes from both writers’ work. On entering the venue the audience were asked to vote for their favourite author, with Jane receiving 55 cent of the vote and Emily receiving only 24 per cent. After the debate, a new vote gave 51 per cent to Jane and 47 per cent to Emily, with only two per cent remaining undecided. Prof Mullan passionately defended Jane Austen, saying she had a wonderful ability to write simple prose that was actually incredibly complicated. He praised Austen’s descriptive ability, particularly of her characters, and described her mastery at observation and putting an artistic gloss on the world. Kate Mosse described Austen as witty and wonderful, but said she wanted more from a book than romantic characters in pursuit of marriage. She said Wuthering Heights was one of the most effectively set-up novels in the English language, balancing light with dark and calm with chaos. She said the novel was not in love story, but a story of obsession and ghosts, as well as exploring what it meant to be human and to have a soul. bronteblog

maandag 24 maart 2014

Charlotte owned a number of rings.


From the Treasure Trove

Charlotte owned a number of rings. This one is decorated with pearls and turquoise and measures 18mm in diameter.

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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