Merry Christmas

to all of you

Haworth Main St

 

Haworth Main St

Festivities celebrated in Yorkshire in the 19th century

Christmas with the Bronte Family, and a look at the festivities celebrated in Yorkshire in the 19th century. The fellow countrymen of the Brontes are quite hard to please when it comes to literature about their famous local heroines. But the reviewer of the YORKSHIRE DALES Magazine was fulsome in his praise, to the point of making the book the prize for their Christmas competition last year! "Christmas in the Bronte Household; vessel maids and spice cake and Christmas accounts from the Bronte novels - all these and more are described in The Brontes Christmas. Dip into the pages of this engaging anthology and discover customs long forgotten. The Brontes Christmas by Maria Hubert is published by Suttons publishing and available from all good bookshops."

Christmas 1854.

Visiting the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth, Mike [Harding, author of Beautiful North] is surprised to discover that the traditional image of a cosy Victorian Christmas wasn’t quite the reality for the Brontë family. Brontë expert Dr Juliet Barker tells him there’s barely a mention of Christmas in letters documenting the Brontës’ lives. The only documented festive fact is a newly-married Charlotte and her husband distributing Christmas money around the village in 1854.

21-12-1848 Funeral of Emily and Keeper, her dog.

Emily Bronte was buried

in the family vault

at Haworth Parish Church.

She had died on 19th December

aged 30.

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On December 19, 1848, Emily, 29 years old, died of tuberculosis. She had become ill three months earlier at Branwell's funeral. Branwell died of tuberculosis aggravated by his dissolute life style. According to Charlotte, as Emily slowly withdrew from life, Keeper continually “lay at the side of her dying-bed” ( Barker, 1998, p. 240).

By the time of Emily's death, the power struggles between them were long over. Even as her strength waned, Emily was determined to continue caring for both Keeper and Flossey. Barker (1994) wrote, “The evening before her death she insisted on feeding the dogs...as she had always done. As she stepped from the warmth of the kitchen into the cold air of the damp, stone-flagged passage, she staggered and almost fell against the wall” (p. 576). The next afternoon Emily died.

The accounts of Emily's funeral all mention Keeper (Garber, 1996). Charlotte wrote that Keeper “followed her funeral to the vault,” and then came into the church with the family, “lying in the pew couched at [their] feet while the burial service was being read”( Barker, 1998, p. 240). According to Gaskell (1975), Keeper “walked first among the mourners to her funeral; he slept moaning for nights at the door of her empty room, and never, so to speak, rejoiced, dog fashion after her death” (p. 269). In her visits with Mrs. Gaskell after Emily's death, Charlotte seemed to find reassurance in talking about the funeral. Mrs. Gaskell noted how often Charlotte spoke about Keeper walking “side by side with her father” toward the graveyard and how often she mentioned Keeper sleeping every night at the door of Emily's empty room, “snuffing under it, and whining every morning” ( Wise, 1980, vol. 4, p. 87).

Tuesday morning 19-12-1848

On Tuesday morning

Emily insisted on dressing herself.

When it was almost noon

she said to Charlotte

"If you will send for a docter, I will see him now"

About two o' clock she died.
She was 30 years old.

I remember Miss Brontë's shiver at recalling the pang she felt when, after having searched in the little hollows and sheltered crevices of the moors for a lingering spray of heather - just one spray, however withered - to take in to Emily, she saw that the flower was not recognised by the dim and indifferent eyes. (Elizabeth Gaskell, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, ch. XVI)

Charlotte wrote:

My sister Emily first declined. The details of her illness are deep-branded in my memory, but to dwell on them, either in thought or narrative, is not in my power. Never in all her life had she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not linger now. She sank rapidly. She made haste to leave us. Yet, while physically she perished, mentally she grew stronger than we had yet known her. Day by day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with an anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing like it; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone. The awful point was, that while full of ruth for others, on herself she had no pity; the spirit was inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling hand, the unnerved limbs, the faded eyes, the same service was exacted as they had rendered in health. To stand by and witness this, and not dare to remonstrate, was a pain no words can render.

Two cruel months of hope and fear passed painfully by, and the day came at last when the terrors and pains of death were to be undergone by this treasure, which had grown dearer and dearer to our hearts as it wasted before our eyes. Towards the decline of that day, we had nothing of Emily but her mortal remains as consumption left them. She died December 19, 1848.

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162 anniversary of Emily Brontë's death

Published in the 1846 collection Poems By Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell under Emily's nom de plume 'Ellis Bell'.
(The Gondal title of this poem was "Rosina Alcona to Julius Brenzaida." )

Death! that struck when I was most confiding.

In my certain faith of joy to be--

Strike again, Time's withered branch dividing

From the fresh root of Eternity!
Leaves, upon Time's branch, were growing brightly,

Full of sap, and full of silver dew;

Birds beneath its shelter gathered nightly;

Daily round its flowers the wild bees flew.

Sorrow passed, and plucked the golden blossom;

Guilt stripped off the foliage in its pride

But, within its parent's kindly bosom,

Flowed for ever Life's restoring tide.

Little mourned I for the parted gladness,

For the vacant nest and silent song--

Hope was there, and laughed me out of sadness;

Whispering, "Winter will not linger long!"

And, behold! with tenfold increase blessing,

Spring adorned the beauty-burdened spray;

Wind and rain and fervent heat, caressing,

Lavished glory on that second May!

High it rose--no winged grief could sweep it;

Sin was scared to distance with its shine;

Love, and its own life, had power to keep it

From all wrong--from every blight but thine!

Cruel Death! The young leaves droop and languish;

Evening's gentle air may still restore--

No! the morning sunshine mocks my anguish-

Time, for me, must never blossom more!

Strike it down, that other boughs may flourish

Where that perished sapling used to be;

Thus, at least, its mouldering corpse will nourish

That from which it sprung--Eternity.