Anne Bronte and Scarlborough

 

This picture, which dates from about the turn of the century, shows the view down 'Westborough', the road that was, in Anne's time, named 'Falsgrave Walk'. On the right is the Scarborough Railway Station, and the large imposing building in the picture-centre is the Pavilion Hotel. This was built in 1870 and survived for just over a hundred years - being demolished in 1973. Just to the left of this, in the distance, can be seen the castle. The rail-line from York to Scarborough was opened in 1845; and it was here, in the early afternoon7n of Friday, 25th May 1849, that Anne, Charlotte, and Ellen Nussey arrived on the fateful visit. From here, they made their way, by horse drawn carriage, to Wood's Lodgings, situated about a quarter of a mile beyond the large buildings on the right (behind the railway tower).

 

Anne's collection of pebbles which she gathered from Scarborough's South Sands. These are currently housed in the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and are often on show to visitors.

The old sketch shows St. Nicholas Cliff around 1840. Above are Wood's Lodgings, beyond and behind which is Scarborough's South Bay. It was in these buildings where Anne stayed during her first few years at Scarborough with the Robinson family. The smaller buildings (in the centre of the block) were demolished in 1842, and a larger structure erected in their place (see 'Wood's Lodgings (2)' - link below). The photograph shows the same view today with the Grand Hotel standing on the site of Wood's Lodgings

This drawing is titled 'New Buildings, Cliff, Scarborough', and dated 1843.59 It shows Wood's Lodgings viewed from the sea, with its new 'central block' and 'down-the-cliff' extension - in the year of Anne's third visit to the resort.60n On the left is the Spa Bridge, and a number of bathing huts are in evidence along the beach.

Reminiscences of Charlotte Bronte Ellen Nussey

Ellen Nussey (20 April 1817 – 26 November 1897), was a lifelong friend and correspondent of British author Charlotte Brontë and, through more than 500 letters received from her, was a major source for Elizabeth Gaskell's 1857 biography The Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Nussey was the twelfth child of John Nussey (1760–1826), a cloth merchant of Birstall Smithies, near Gomersal in the West Riding of Yorkshire, and his wife Ellen, née Wade (c.1771–1857). Nussey first attended a small local school before progressing to the Gomersal Moravian Ladies Academy. Nussey and Brontë first met in January 1831, when they were both pupils at Roe Head School, near Dewsbury in Yorkshire. They corresponded with each other regularly over the next 24 years, each writing hundreds of letters to the other. In 1839, Ellen Nussey's brother, Henry, proposed marriage to Brontë, but she found him dull and refused him

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Through her frequent visits to the Parsonage at Haworth Nussey also became a friend of Anne and Emily Brontë, and was accepted as a suitable friend for his daughters by the Reverend Patrick Brontë. Indeed, when in May 1849, Anne decided to make a visit to Scarborough in the hope that the change of location and fresh sea air might be good for her failing health, and give her a chance to live, she went with Charlotte and Nussey. En route, the three spent a day and a night in York, where, escorting Anne around in a wheelchair, they did some shopping, and at Anne's request, visited the colossal York Minster. However, it was clear that Anne had little strength left.

On Sunday, 27 May 1849, Anne asked Charlotte whether it would be easier for her to come home to die instead of remaining at Scarborough. A doctor, consulted the next day, indicated that death was already close. Anne received the news quietly. She expressed her love and concern for Nussey and Charlotte, and seeing Charlotte's distress, whispered to her to "take courage.  Nussey's presence during the weeks following gave comfort to Charlotte Brontë, who was writing her novel Shirley at the time. Nussey believed that the character Caroline Helstone was based on herself. but most writers dispute this, believing that Caroline was actually based on Anne Brontë.

When Charlotte Brontë married her father's Curate, the Rev. Arthur Bell Nichols, at Haworth in Yorkshire in June, 1854, Nussey was one of two witnesses present. Their engagement had caused a cooling in the friendship on Nussey's part, who was probably jealous of Brontë's attachment to Nicholls, having thought they would both live as spinsters. After her death, Brontë's husband, the Rev. Arthur Bell Nichols became concerned that her letters to Nussey might damage his late wife's reputation if they were misused, and he asked Nussey to destroy them, but she refused. Some scholars have claimed that this may have been to a struggle between Nicholls and Nussey over who had control over Charlotte Brontë's legacy [citation needed]. However, after over 350 letters from Charlotte Brontë to Nussey were used in Gaskell's The Life of Charlotte Brontë he prevented at least one other publication from using them.

After the death of Charlotte Brontë in 1855 Nussey devoted the rest of her life to maintaining the memory of her friend, and she was often sought out by Brontë enthusiasts and biographers.

Ellen Nussey died in 1897, aged 80, at Moor Lane House in Gomersal in Yorkshire. Following her death, her possessions and letters were dispersed at auction, and many of Charlotte Brontë's letters to her eventually made their way through donation or purchase to the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth in Yorkshire.

Nussey was the great-aunt of Helen Georgiana Nussey (1875–1965) the welfare worker.

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Title: The Cat Author: Emily Bronte

The Cat
I can say with sincerity that I like cats; also I can give very good reasons why those who despise them are wrong.
A cat is an animal who has more human feelings than almost any other being. We cannot sustain a comparison with the dog, it is infinitely too good; but the cat, although it differs in some physical points, is extremely like us in disposition.
There may be people, in truth, who would say that this resemblance extends only to the most wicked men; that it is limited to their excessive hypocrisy, cruelty, and ingratitude; detestable vices in our race and equally odious in that of cats.
Without disputing the limits that those individuals set on our affinity, I answer that if hypocrisy, cruelty, and ingratitude are exclusively the domain of the wicked, that class comprises everyone. Our education develops one of those qualities in great perfection; the others flourish without nurture, and far from condemning them, we regard all three with great complacency. A cat, in its own interest, sometimes hides its misanthropy under the guise of amiable gentleness; instead of tearing what it desires from its master's hand, it approaches with a caressing air, rubs its pretty little head against him, and advances a paw whose touch is soft as down. When it has gained its end, it reseumes its character of Timon; and that artfulness in it is called hypocrisy. In ourselves, we give it another name, politeness, and he who did not use it to hide his real feelings would soon be driven from society.

"But," says some delicate lady, who has murdered a half-dozen lapdogs through pure affection, "the cat is such a cruel beast, he is not content to kill his prey, he torments it before its death; you cannot make that accusation against us." More or less, Madame. Your husband, for example, likes hunting very much, but foxes being rare on his land, he would not have the means to pursue this amusement often, it he did not manage his supplies thus: once he has run an animal to its las breath, he snatches it from the jaws of the hounds and saves it to suffer the same infliction two or three more times, ending finally in death. You yourself avoid the bloody spectacle because it wounds your weak nerves. But I have seen you embrace your child in transports, when he came to show you a beautiful butterfly crushed between his cruel fingers; and at that moment, I really wanted to have a cat, with the tail of a half-devoured rat hanging from its mouth, to present as the image, the true copy, of your angel. You could not refuse to kiss him, and it he scratches us both in revenge, so much the better. Little boys are rather liable to acknowledge their friends' caresses in that way, and the resemblance would be more perfect. They know how to value our favours at their true price, because they guess the motives that prompt us to grant them, and if those motives might sometimes be good, undoubtedly they remember always that they owe all their misery and all their evil qualities to the great ancestor of humankind. For assuredly, the cat was not wicked in Paradise.

May 15th, 1842

verhalen van de Brontes/ click hierop

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Elizabeth Gaskell: A Connected Life

Elizabeth Gaskell’s inkstand, letters and miniature

Elizabeth Gaskell: A Connected Life

Christie Gallery

15 July to 28 November 2010Elizabeth Gaskell was a prolific correspondent and stood at the centre of a wide and varied social network. Her personal connections extended to people from many different walks of life – from some of the most famous figures of the day to the poorest factory workers in her home town of Manchester.

This exhibition, which marks the bicentenary of her birth, draws on the Library’s world-class Gaskell

collections to explore her place in these diverse communities. It looks at how Gaskell’s social

networks influenced her fiction and the worlds she depicted in her books. It also considers the

worldwide community of readers past and present who have found enjoyment in Gaskell’s work.

Some items from the Library’s collections will be on public display for the first time, including letters
from Elizabeth Gaskell to her friends and family.

Other highlights include extracts from Gaskell’s autograph collection, her passport and a family

portrait kindly loaned by descendants of the Gaskell family.