the Brontë Sisters: 01-03-2015

vrijdag 6 maart 2015

Charlotte Brontë Quotes for Independent Readers

March 5, 1839 is the date atop a letter penned by Charlotte Brontë that would prove a defining moment in the life of the Jane Eyre author. In the letter, Charlotte, eldest of the famous poet sisters, refuses a promising offer of marriage from the Reverend Henry Nussey. Clergyman and brother of her good friend Ellen Nussey, Reverend Nussey embodied many of the traits of a practical marriage -- namely stability and accessibility to friends and family -- something of which the twenty-three-year-old Charlotte would have been all too aware. But with a rather impressive amount of self-awareness, Brontë turned him down with a gentle hand, assuring him that her temperament and his role in the church would be a poor fit. The letter itself harkens back to all of the best aspects of Brontë's writing: her passion, sagacity, honesty, and above all her free spirit. This week in history, Biographile pays tribute to one woman's refusal to let social standards dictate her life choices by featuring some of her most independent and self-reliant words.

1. "I will never for the sake of attaining the distinction of matrimony and escaping the stigma of an old maid take a worthy man whom I am conscious I cannot render happy." (Letter to Reverend Henry Nussey, 1839)

2. "I care for myself. The more solitary, the more friendless, the more unsustained I am, the more I will respect myself." (Jane Eyre, 1847)

3. "I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you."(Jane Eyre, 1847)

4. "No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure." (Villette, 1853)

5. "God did not give me my life to throw away." (Jane Eyre, 1847)

6. "Conventionality is not morality." (Jane Eyre, 1847)

7. "Liberty lends us her wings and Hope guides us by her star." (Villette, 1853)

8. "School-rules, school-duties, school-habits and notions, and voices, and faces, and phrases, and costumes, and preferences, and antipathies — such was what I knew of existence. And now I felt that it was not enough; I tired of the routine of eight years in one afternoon. I desired liberty; for liberty I gasped; for liberty I uttered a prayer; it seemed scattered on the wind then faintly blowing." (Jane Eyre, 1847)

9. "I don't think, sir, that you have a right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience." (Jane Eyre, 1847)

10. "I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward." (Qtd Elizabeth Gaskill, The Life of Charlotte Brontë,1870)

11. "If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends." (Jane Eyre, 1847)
biographile-charlotte-bronte

Brontë Society Gazette. Issue 65

Letter from the Editor by Belinda Hakes and Helen Krispien
Brontë Society Conference 2014 by Julie Akhurst
Report from the Leadership Team at the Brontë Parsonage Museum
Brontë Society Literary Lunch. Saturday 11 October 2014 by Kathleen Shortt
Bernard Herrmann returns to Haworth by Charissa E. Hutchins
"The Death of Keeldar" by Kathleen Shortt, Representative of the Brontë Society Scottish Branch
Secrets and spies at Brussels Brontë talk on Villette by Emily Waterfield, Brussels Brontë Group
Membership News: New developments; Improving communication.
Emily Brontë writes a Critical Thinking Exercise from When Critical Thinking Met English Literature by Belinda Hakes.Brontë Society Gazette. Issue 65

donderdag 5 maart 2015

William Gaskell's study

Today is World Book Day - this is a peek inside William Gaskell's study which is full of books for visitors to browse. Why not share with us your favourite book by Elizabeth Gaskell and why

Elizabeth Gaskell's House

woensdag 4 maart 2015

Andrew James Galloway 's photographes of Haworth

Andrew James Galloway putted some of the photographes he made on the Facebookpage Haworth & Top Withens 2007.

His comment: ""some from eight years ago ... how time flies!!""

Thank you that I can share them on this weblog, Andrew
I love the photo's special the ones with the horse and with the sheep!!!

dinsdag 3 maart 2015

test: Which-bronte-are-you

maandag 2 maart 2015

Nice reaction om my blog

I received a nice email from Tony. I always love it when someone who is reading my blog gives a reaction. I love it too when it is someone who is living in the neigbourhood of Haworth or one of the other places known by the Brontes. Tony is living in Scarborough, so the place Anne Bronte loved and also the place she died in and it is the place she is buried in. Tony sent me some of the pictures he made. I am showing them here. Thank you so much Tony.

Hallo There,

I have just come across your webpage about the Bronte's and I find it very interesting. I have had a great interest after watching the DVD (about 8 times so far) and reading the Book (I am now on my 2nd. reading) Images of both attached I have visited the Parsonage and Anne Bronte's grave at Scarborough (Image attached ) and I shall be visiting it again in May, (the month she died) as I live just 32 miles north of Scarborough.

Hi Geri,

I have a full set of the books dated 1895 including Mr's Gaskells biography of Charlotte. Unfortunate The Grand Hotel is now on the spot where they lodged in Scarborough.

and the church where Ann's funeral was held is now gone replaced by a Supermarket. The notice about Ann' death is in St. Marys Church which is next to the graveyard this was being renovated at the time of her death and could not be used for the funeral. Did you see the pictures I sent of the DVD and Book ? if you do not have them I really recommend you and any of your readers get them as they are excellent the DVD was filmed in the 1970's and stays very close to the real facts of the Bronte story

Tony

The book I have it myself, Tony

I use it almost as a Bronte ""bible"", the book is full of marvelous information

(Once in Christmas time I participated in a contest of the Bronte Blog

The price I could win this book

and...... I won

It happened several years ago, but I am happy with the book till now)

The DVD I saw it on the site of the Bronte Parsonage. I was doubting, do I buy it or not

Till now I didn't buy it

but you are making me excited again

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.

the Brontë Sisters