A rare and important letter written by Charlotte Bronte

A rare and important letter written by Charlotte Bronte in between the deaths of her brother and a sister is expected to fetch up to $100,000 at an auction in New York later this month.
The letter, dated October 18, 1848, is to her publisher William Smith Williams, of Smith, Elder & Co, and will be up for auction on June 17 at Sotheby’s in New York, with a reserve of $70,000 to $100,000 (£50,000 to £71,000).

lees verder Bradford Telegraph and Argus


"My book—alas! is laid aside for the present; both head and hand seem to have lost their cunning; imagination is pale, stagnant, mute—this incapacity chagrins me; sometimes I have a feeling of cankering care on the subject—but I combat it as well as I can—it does no good.

"... Do not talk about being on a level with 'Currer Bell', or regard him as 'an awful person'; if you saw him now, sitting muffled at the fireside, shrinking before the east wind (which for some days has been blowing wild and keen over our cold hills)—and incapable of lifting a pen for any less formidible task than that of writing ... to an indulgent friend—you would be sorry not to deem yourself greatly his superior ....

"Thought and Conscience are, or ought to be, free, and at any rate, if your views were universally adopted there would be no persecution, no bigotry. But never try to proselytise—the world is not yet fit to receive what you and Emerson say: Man, as he now is, can no more do without creeds and forms in religion, than he can do without laws and rules of social intercourse. You and Emerson judge others by yourselves; all mankind are not like you, any more than every Israelite was like Nathaniel.

"'Is there a human being' you ask, 'so depraved that an act of kindness will not touch—nay, a word melt him?' There are hundreds of human beings who trample on acts of kindness, and mock at words of affection. I know this though I have seen but little of the world. I suppose I have something harsher in my nature than you have—something which every now and then tells me dreary secrets about my race, and I cannot believe the voice of the optimist, charm he never so wisely—on the other hand, I feel forced to listen when a Thackeray speaks: I know Truth is delivering her oracle by his lips ....

"The study of motives is a strange one; not to be pursued too far by one fallible human being in reference to his fellows. Do not condemn me as uncharitable. I have no wish to urge my convictions on you ...."

A remarkable letter, dating from the darkest, most difficult period of Charlotte Brontë's short life.

Concern over car parking near Anne Bronte's grave

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A MAN has set up a Facebook group after concerns were raised about cars parking close to Anne Bronte's grave in a former Scarborough churchyard.

David Selby, who is a regular visitor to the town, says he was shocked to see cars parked so close to the gravestones at the top end of the old graveyard next to St Mary's Church.

Lees verder in the Scarlborough Evening News

The Bronte Sisters

Sterfdag Anne Bronte

Anne had nog maar net haar zus Emily verloren aan tuberculose, toen dezelfde ziekte ook bij haar werd geconstateerd. In tegenstelling tot haar zus Emily wilde Anne wel behandeld worden. In mei 1849 vertrok ze met haar zus Charlotte naar de kust, naar Scarborough, om aan te sterken.

Op 28 mei 1849

161 jaar geleden

 overleed ze

Anne is als enige Brontë niet begraven in het familiegraf in Haworth, maar in St Mary’s Churchyard in Scarborough.

Pets of the Brontes

Flossy

The early pets are mainly known to us through pictures, and through Emily and Anne’s diary papers. They include Grasper (described in AOTB as an Irish terrier); Rainbow, Diamond, Snowflake (species unknown), and a pheasant called Jasper – possibly these were all wild birds who were fed regularly. Later the family acquired Keeper, the most famous and characterful of the Brontë pets (his fictional equivalent, Tartar in Shirley, is described in ch. 11 as “of a breed between mastiff and bull-dog”); Nero (often called Hero), a hawk, lost while Emily and Charlotte were in Brussels; Black Tom and Tiger (d. 1844), both cats; two geese, Victoria and Adelaide; and a cage bird, Little Dick, mentioned in Anne’s diary paper for 1845. Last of the major pets was Flossy, brought by Anne from Thorp Green in 1843 and painted by both her and Emily. Flossy sired a puppy, given to Ellen Nussey. In his last years Patrick acquired dogs called Cato and Plato. Charlotte’s comparative indifference to animals is evidenced by the lack of references to them in her early letters. In her last lonely years she was touched by the dogs’ display of affection, especially on her returns home.See also Flossy; Flossy Junior; Hero; Grasper; Keeper, Plato; Rainbow; Snowflake; Tiger; Tom; Victoria

Anne Bronte and Scarborough

Anne had already been suffering from what was believed to be a cold for the previous few weeks. Over Christmas, her symptoms intensified, and in early January, her father, Patrick sent for a Leeds physician 'who was an expert in consumptive cases'. On January 5th Dr. Teale examined Anne at the Parsonage. He diagnosed her condition as consumption, and intimated that it was quite advanced leaving little hope of a recovery. Unlike Emily, Anne took all the recommended medicines, and responded to all the advice she was given. Her health fluctuated as the months passed, but she progressively grew thinner and weaker. On 1 May, Charlotte wrote to Ellen Nussey, to report on Anne's condition:

""She is very much emaciated, far more so than when you were with us;
her arms are no thicker than a little child's. The least exertion brings a shortness of breath.
She goes out a little every day, but we creep rather than walk. . .'

By this time Anne had decided to make a return visit to Scarborough in the hope that the change of location and fresh sea air might initiate a recovery, and give her a chance to live: indeed, the doctors of the time had said that a

'change of air or removal to a better climate would hardly ever
fail of success in consumptive cases if the remedy were taken in time',

Dr. Teale had particularly approved of Anne's choice of Scarborough. Charlotte initially gave much opposition to the plan, fearing the journey would be too stressful for her ailing sister. However, Anne eventually convinced Charlotte that it was her last hope, and on Thursday, 24 May 1849, the two set off, accompanied by their friend Ellen Nussey, for Scarborough. En-route, the three spent a day and a night in York, where, escorting Anne around in a wheel chair, they did some shopping, and at Anne's request, visited the colossal York Minster. Anne had developed a strong affinity for the Minster from her visits there with the Robinsons when she worked at Thorp Green. Ellen later recorded that as Anne gazed up at the magnificent structure, she said:
 
"If finite power can do this, what is the . . . ?"

when emotion stayed her speech, and her companions quickly moved her to a less exciting scene.
The small party arrived at Scarborough on the Friday afternoon. Anne was now very weak and frail, but she appeared somewhat revived on being back in the place she so much loved. She gained great pleasure in pointing out the delights of the resort to Charlotte and Ellen. The party had booked rooms in Wood's Lodgings - the establishment where Anne had stayed with the Robinsons some five to nine years earlier. The morning after her arrival, she attended the nearby Indoor Sea-water Baths, and at her own insistence, was left to bathe there alone. However, on her return, she collapsed with exhaustion outside her lodgings. Not to alarm Charlotte and Ellen, Anne did not inform them of this incident until some considerable time later. In the afternoon, she drove herself in a donkey cart on the South Sands, and when Ellen arrived to meet her, she found Anne giving the donkey-boy a lecture on treating the animal well.

'She was ever fond of dumb things, and would give up her own comfort for them'

reported Ellen later.
On the Sunday afternoon, Anne enthusiastically chaperoned Charlotte and Ellen along the Spa Bridge, and the three enjoyed the spectacular open view of the bay from there. Later, overcome with exhaustion, she sat on a seat near the beach and urged her companions to walk on further. It was later this evening that she realised there was no hope left, and that she did not have long to live. She begun discussing, with Charlotte, the propriety of returning to Haworth. Not that she wanted to return for her own sake, she said, but she did not want to leave her companions with the problems, and distress of having to return her lifeless remains home. She spent the rest of the evening sat by her lodgings room window - looking out over the bay, and watching

 

'the most glorious sunset ever witnessed'

The night passed without incident, but the following morning she was so weak that Ellen had to carry her, like a baby, down the stairs for breakfast, which, for Anne, was a bowl of boiled milk that had been especially prepared for her.

The three spent the rest of the morning in their lounge; Anne sat in her easy chair by the window, looking out over the bay once more; the weather was glorious and the sea as 'calm as glass': she looked 'so serene and reliant', reported Ellen.

'Nothing occurred to incite alarm until about 11 a.m. when Anne announced that she felt a change: she believed she did not have long to live.'

A doctor was called, and Anne asked him

'how long he thought she might live - not to fear speaking the truth, for she was not afraid to die'.

The doctor admitted

'that the angel of death had already arrived and that life was ebbing fast.

She thanked him for his truthfulness . .

http://www.annebronte.scarborough.co.uk/

 

Wheelwright family

an English doctor, his wife and daughters, who made the acquaintance of Charlotte and Emily in Brussels in 1842. The reasons for their sojourn there are unclear, though perhaps the large family of daughters (five) and the cost of educating them is the answer. It was the girls’ presence among the small contingent of English pupils at the Pensionnat Heger that began the relationship. Their parents Thomas (1786–1861) and Elizabeth (d. 1882) were clearly regarded affectionately by Charlotte, but they were not individualized in her letters. They were subsumed into the generalized happy, energetic, slightly philistine air exuded by the younger members of the family. The three youngest girls, Frances (1831–1913), Sarah Ann (1834–1900), and Julia (1835–42) are remembered for having been taught piano by Emily Brontë in recreation time, so that she did not lose any of her lessons. These were sessions from which the young girls sometimes emerged in tears. Julia died in Brussels, and it may be that the “primitive and wholly inadequate” (Frances’s words) sanitation at the Pensionnat was to blame (CBL, v. 1, p. 301). Emily (1829–88), as well as being a strong Christian, was a fine pianist, but this was not due to Emily Brontë, for she never taught her.The pupil at the Pensionnat who was closest to Charlotte was naturally the eldest, Laetitia Elizabeth (1828–1911), who seems to have resumed contact ...

Interessante link

Ik vind zonet

een heel interessante link

naar informatie over the Brontes....

http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/search?query=bronte


http://web.search.cornell.edu/search?output=xml_no_dtd&client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&q=bronte%20sisters

Brontës’ piano

For the first time in over 160 years the Brontë family’s cabinet piano is to be heard again at their former home in Haworth. This historic occasion will take place at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in June following months of complex conservation work.

It is not known for certain when the Brontës acquired their piano. Branwell Brontë developed a talent for both piano and church organ and it was possibly at his instigation that the instrument was acquired. Emily was described as playing ‘with precision and brilliancy’, and during her time as a student in Brussels, her ability warranted the services of the best available professor of music. Anne preferred to sing, though she was able to accompany herself on the piano. The family exception was Charlotte, whose poor eyesight proved an impediment to sight reading.
The piano has an interesting history: it was lent to Mr Grant, the curate of Oxenhope by Patrick Brontë after his children’s deaths, and then sold at an auction of Brontë items in 1861. It then passed through numerous hands before being put up for sale at Sothebys in 1916 as part of the collection of J.H. Dixon. Dixon’s wife was not satisfied with the price offered and withdrew the piano from the sale, presenting it instead to the Brontë Museum in memory of her husband.

The piano was valued by many of these former owners as a relic of the remarkable Brontë family. Over the years little interest has been taken in it as a musical instrument and it was no longer in playable condition. Recently the piano has undergone a lengthy and complex restoration process carried out by a specialist conservator and made possible by the generosity of an American Brontë Society member. Many of the internal workings were either damaged or missing and the restoration was further complicated by the piano’s rarity and the lack of similar instruments available for comparison.

The piano will be back on display at the museum from Thursday 3 June. It will be played on the evening of Friday 4 June 2010, at a special event for Brontë Society members. Music has been carefully selected from the archive at the museum and will be played by Maya Irgalina from the Royal Northern College of Music. Further events are now being planned to allow the public to hear the piano played on a regular basis.

Victoria Brookland:

Friday 21 May - Sunday 18 July

A series of new paintings by artist Victoria Brookland, inspired by the dresses in the Brontë Parsonage Museum collection.

Victoria Brookland has been painting and exhibiting for over twenty years and has spent the past few years exploring the lives and writing of ninetheenth century women. Her first series of Brontë-inspiured paintings, Secret Self, was exhibited at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in 2007. Her most recent exhibbition, Seeing in the Night Time, was at the Mercer art Gallery in Harrogate and featured a series of works exploring the lives of the Brontës and Emily Dickinson.

The exhibition is free with admission to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.

Brontes' piano restored to former glory

Published Date: 22 May 2010
http://www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk/news/Brontes39-piano-restored-to-former.6312008.jp

The former home of the Brontë family will be filled with the sound of music after more than 160 years.
The family's piano was last played in the parsonage, now the Brontë Museum, in the mid-1800s but was sold following the deaths of Charlotte, Anne, Emily and their brother Branwell.

But now the ivories of the upright piano will be tinkled at a recital next month, following its restoration financed by a Brontë Society member living in America.
The piano will be back on display at the museum, in Haworth, from Thursday, June 3, and played at the next exclusive meeting for Brontë Society members.
The Brontës were the world's most famous literary family. Their works include Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

Wuthering Heights TV costumes visit Brontë Parsonage Museum at Haworth

Fans of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights might like to visit the Brontë Parsonage Museum in the coming months as it plays host to some of the costumes from the latest TV adaptation of the classic novel.

Outfits seen in ITV's bank holiday costume drama, including dresses worn by Charlotte Riley as Cathy and the dramatic long black coat of Heathcliff, played with suitably brooding menace by Tom Hardy, are being displayed within the period rooms of the Museum.

Emily Brontë's only novel, Wuthering Heights, tells the story of the passionate but thwarted love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw and, perhaps more than any novel of the Brontë sisters, draws upon the bleak backdrop of the Yorkshire Moors to create a desolate, Gothic atmosphere

The parlour

This is the room in Haworth Parsonage, variously known as the dining room, the drawing room or the parlour, in which the Brontë sisters used to write and discuss their work with each other. When the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte's friend and future biographer, first visited in September 1853, she was struck by its exquisite cleanliness and neatness. In contrast to the "bleak cold colours" of the Yorkshire moors outside, "the room looked the perfection of warmth, snugness and comfort, crimson predominating in the furniture".
Despite having published Jane Eyre, Shirley and Villette pseudonymously, Charlotte had, by that time, become a - somewhat reluctant - literary celebrity. Gaskell noted the portrait of her over the fireplace, commissioned by her publisher from the fashionable artist George Richmond. The experience of sitting for it had been a trial for the self-conscious Charlotte, who had collapsed into mortified tears when asked by the artist to remove something odd from the top of her head (he thought it was possibly a bit off the inside of her hat, but it may have been, even more embarrassingly, an unsuccessful hairpiece). Richmond nevertheless captured the fire in Charlotte's eyes, even if he flattered and conventionalised the rest of her face, which Gaskell found plain, with missing teeth and irregular features.

Despite the welcoming warmth of the décor, the parlour retained an aura of melancholy. Charlotte's sisters Emily and Anne had died in 1848 and 1849 - Emily is said to have died on the sofa in this room - and the space seemed to resonate with a sense of loss. After Gaskell had retired for bed in the room directly above, she could hear Charlotte's footsteps in the parlour. The servant told her how the three sisters had been used to walking round the table as they talked late into the night: "Miss Emily walked as long as she could, and when she died Miss Anne and Miss Brontë took it up - and now my heart aches to hear Miss Brontë walking, walking on alone."

Girl Power: de Brontë zusjes als actiefiguren

Film

Actrice Mia Wasikowska, die momenteel te zien is in Alice in Wonderland, speelt in de nieuwe verfilming van Jane Eyre de titelrol, zo werd in november vorig jaar bekend. Times Online heeft nu de primeur met de eerste foto van Wasikowska als Jane Eyre. De film wordt geregisseerd door Cary Fukanaga, die duidelijk voor een wat duistere uitstraling gaat.

Op het moment zijn de opnames nog in volle gang, de film komt naar verwachting in 2011 in de bioscoop. De cast is indrukwekkend: naast rijzende ster Wasikowska zullen ook Jamie Bell (Billy Elliot) als St. John Rivers, Michael Fassbender (Inglourious Basterds) als Mr. Rochester, Judi Dench als Mrs. Fairfax en Sally Hawkins (Happy-Go-Lucky, Persasion) als Mrs. Reed meespelen. Imogen Poots (Miss Austen Regrets) speelt Blanche Ingram.

(Bron: Firstshowing.net)