Charlotte Bronte in London

She set about marshalling a small trousseau for the visit. November 1849 Charlotte sent out for London, armed with her new wardrobe, including the sable boa and cuffs that she had commissioned Ellen to buy for her that summer with money from Jane Eyre, along with a squirrel tipped for every day.

She went straight to the Smiths' house in Westbourne Place.

George Smith had assembled an illustrious party of guests.

I bought this book.

One of the pictures gives an idea about this kind of social event.

Elizabeth Gaskell   ""The Life of Charlotte Brontë"":

At 7 o'clock Tackeray was announced.

"As to being happy, I am under scenes and circumstances of excitement; but I suffer acute pain sometimes, - mental pain, I mean. At the moment Mr. Thackeray presented himself, I was thoroughly faint from inanition, having eaten nothing since a very slight breakfast, and it was then seven o'clock in the evening. Excitement and exhaustion made savage work of me that evening. What he thought of me I cannot tell."

She told me how difficult she found it, this first time of meeting Mr. Thackeray, to decide whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest, and that she had (she believed) completely misunderstood an inquiry of his, made on the gentlemen's coming into the drawing-room. He asked her "if she had perceived the secret of their cigars;" to which she replied literally, discovering in a minute afterwards, by the smile on several faces, that he was alluding to a passage in Jane Eyre. Her hosts took pleasure in showing her the sights of London. On one of the days which had been set apart for some of these pleasant excursions, a severe review of Shirley was published in the Times. She had heard that her book would be noticed by it, and guessed that there was some particular reason for the care with which her hosts mislaid it on that particular morning. She told them that she was aware why she might not see the paper. Mrs. Smith at once admitted that her conjecture was right, and said that they had wished her to go to the day's engagement before reading it. But she quietly persisted in her request to be allowed to have the paper. Mrs. Smith took her work, and tried not to observe the countenance, which the other tried to hide between the large sheets; but she could not help becoming aware of tears stealing down the face and dropping on the lap. The first remark Miss Brontë made was to express her fear lest so severe a notice should check the sale of the book, and injuriously affect her publishers. Wounded as she was, her first thought was for others. Later on (I think that very afternoon) Mr. Thackeray called; she suspected (she said) that he came to see how she bore the attack on Shirley; but she had recovered her composure, and conversed very quietly with him: he only learnt from the answer to his direct inquiry that she had read the Times' article.

William Makepeace Thackeray

George Smith and his mother took her to the Theatre, to the new Houses of Parliament, to the National Gallery, where Charlotte enjoyed the exhibition of Turner's paintings.
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Turner

Charlotte sent a note to Harriet Martineau, she wants to visit here.

Harriet Martineau
 

By the end of her stay Charlotte was exhausted by the whirl of social life.
---------------------------------------
Later she wrote to Ellen Nussey:

‘Haworth, December 19th, 1849.
‘Dear Ellen,—Here I am at Haworth once more. I feel as if I had come out of an exciting whirl. Not that the hurry or stimulus would have seemed much to one accustomed to society and change, but to me they were very marked. My strength and spirits too often proved quite insufficient for the demand on their exertions. I used to bear up as well and as long as I possibly could, for, whenever I flagged, I could see Mr. Smith became disturbed; he always thought that something had been said or done to annoy me, which never once happened, for I met with perfect good breeding even from antagonists—men who had done their best or worst to write me down. I explained to him, over and over again, that my occasional silence was only failure of the power to talk, never of the will, but still he always seemed to fear there was another cause underneath.
‘Mrs. Smith is rather stern, but she has sense and discrimination; she watched me very narrowly. When surrounded by gentlemen she never took her eye from me. I liked the surveillance, both when it kept guard over me amongst many, or only with her cherished one. She soon, I am convinced, saw in what light I received all, Thackeray included. Her “George” is a very fine specimen of a young English man of business; so I regard him, and I am proud to be one of his props.
‘Thackeray is a Titan of mind. His presence and powers impress me deeply in an intellectual sense; I do not see him or know him as a man. All the others are subordinate to these. I have esteem for some, and, I trust, courtesy for all. I do not, of course, know what they thought of me, but I believe most of them expected me to come out in a more marked eccentric, striking light. I believe they desired more to admire and more to blame. I felt sufficiently at my ease with all except Thackeray, and with him I was painfully stupid.

‘Now, dear Nell, when can you come to Haworth? Settle, and let me know as soon as you can. Give my best love to all.—Yours,

‘C. B.’
www.gutenberg.org

----------------------------------------------

More photo's of London at that time.
 

Charlotte Bronte ugly?

This drawing is from a letter Charlotte sent tot Ellen Nussey.

The person in the right is Ellen, the small figure at the left is Charlotte herself.......

Why did Charlotte Bronte thought she is ugly?

On her portraits

she is certainly not

 

Juliet Barker in her book: Richmond captured the beauty of her large hazel eyes and played down the size of her prominent nose and mouth, he reduces the squareness of her lower jaw.

Mary Taylor was later to comment the portrait:

'It must upset most people's notions of beauty

 to be told that the portrait at the beginning is that of an ugly woman.

I do not altogether like the idea of publishing a flattered  likeness.

I had rather the mouth and eyes had been nearer together

and shown the veritable square face and large disproportionate nose'

 

Of all the actresses playing Jane Eyre,

Ruth Wilson seems in my opinion

a look alike of

Charlotte Bronte

The cobble stones of Haworth

I received an email from Jar Bancroft from the weblog Bancrofts from Yorkshire
Jar is living in Yorkshire and when he sees an interesting article in the media he makes me aware of this. I like this very much.

Hi Geri,
Here's an interesting article about The Setts in Haworth Main Street. Just in case you have not come across the word "Setts", it's the Yorkshire word for the cobble stones which make up Haworth Main Street.
Jar
 
Work to restore Haworth’s historic setts will halt shortly before next month’s 1940s Weekend celebration, then begin again in October.
Bradford Council’s principal traffic and highways officer, Keith Escritt, said the workers had been lucky with the weather since they began the job on Main Street in January.
He said: “They’ve been cleaning out the joints between the setts around the bottom of the street.
“They should get as far as the Fleece pub by the end of this month.” This year’s 1940s Weekend will take place on May 14 and 15. Mr Escritt said the workers would make sure they removed their material from Weaver’s Hill car park in time for the event. He said: “When we restart in October we hope to complete the stretch from the Butt Lane area to the top of Main Street, depending on the weather.
“We’ve got to relay a lot of the setts on West Lane. “Then we’ve got the asphalt stretch between the car park there and North Street. “We’re thinking of removing the asphalt and revealing the setts underneath.”
Coun Huxley said: “I think they’ve done a first class job on the setts. “Bradford Council deserves some praise because it’s really got on with it and this is something that will last for a long time.” In response to a query from Mike Hutchinson, of the Haworth Village Association, Mr Escritt said: “I’ve been told that we’ve got funding for this scheme for the next two years.”

HAPPY EASTER
TO
ALL MY READERS

FIJNE PAASDAGEN
VOOR AL MIJN LEZERS

21-04-1816 Charlotte Bronte was born at Thornton.

Drawing of Charlotte Bronte

Today is the birthday of Charlotte Bronte.

The woman who wrote these famous words:

“Do you think I can stay to become nothing to you? Do you think I am an automation? A machine without feelings? And can you bear to have my morsel of bread snatched from my lips and my drop of living water dashed from my cup? Do you think because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soul and heartless? You think wrong! – I have as much soul as you, – and full as much heart … I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; — it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal, — as we are!”

Jane Eyre
-----------------
Charlotte Brontë was less than five feet tall and slightly built. She wore spectacles to correct her myopia, and she thought herself plain. Politically a Tory, she was strong minded, clever and ambitious. She held high moral principles, and, despite her shyness in company, she was always prepared to argue her beliefs.

Charlotte's writing desk

The next day Miss Brontë told me how the unexpected sight of a strange face had affected her.
It was now two or three years since I had witnessed a similar effect produced on her, in anticipation of a quiet evening at Fox-How; and since then she had seen many and various people in London: but the physical sensations produced by shyness were still the same; and on the following day she laboured under severe headache. I had several opportunities of perceiving how this nervousness was ingrained in her constitution, and how acutely she suffered in striving to overcome it.

Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857):
--------------------------
 
In 1831, she was a quiet, thoughtful girl, of nearly fifteen years of age, very small in figure--"stunted" was the word she applied to herself,--but as her limbs and head were in just proportion to the slight, fragile body, no word in ever so slight a degree suggestive of deformity could properly be applied to her; with soft, thick, brown hair, and peculiar eyes, of which I find it difficult to give a description, as they appeared to me in her later life. They were large, and well shaped; their colour a reddish brown; but if the iris was closely examined, it appeared to be composed of a great variety of tints. The usual expression was of quiet, listening intelligence; but now and then, on some just occasion for vivid interest or wholesome indignation, a light would shine out, as if some spiritual lamp had been kindled, which glowed behind those expressive orbs. I never saw the like in any other human creature. As for the rest of her features, they were plain, large, and ill set; but, unless you began to catalogue them, you were hardly aware of the fact, for the eyes and power of the countenance overbalanced every physical defect; the crooked mouth and the large nose were forgotten, and the whole face arrested the attention, and presently attracted all those whom she herself would have cared to attract. Her hands and feet were the smallest I ever saw; when one of the former was placed in mine, it was like the soft touch of a bird in the middle of my palm. The delicate long fingers had a peculiar fineness of sensation, which was one reason why all her handiwork, of whatever kind--writing, sewing, knitting--was so clear in its minuteness. She was remarkably neat in her whole personal attire; but she was dainty as to the fit of her shoes and gloves.
  ------------------------
She used to draw much better, and more quickly, than anything we had seen before, and knew much about celebrated pictures and painters. Whenever an opportunity offered of examining a picture or cut of any kind, she went over it piecemeal, with her eyes close to the paper, looking so long that we used to ask her 'what she saw in it.' She could always see plenty, and explained it very well. She made poetry and drawing, at least exceedingly interesting to me; and then I got the habit, which I have yet, of referring mentally to her opinion on all matters of that kind, along with many more, resolving to describe such and such things to her, until I start at the recollection that I never shall."
---------------------------------
Towards the end of January, the time came for Charlotte to return to Brussels. Her journey thither was rather disastrous. She had to make her way alone; and the train from Leeds to London, which should have reached Euston-square early in the afternoon, was so much delayed that it did not get in till ten at night. She had intended to seek out the Chapter Coffee-house, where she had stayed before, and which would have been near the place where the steam-boats lay; but she seems to have been frightened by the idea of arriving at an hour which, to Yorkshire notions, was so late and unseemly; and taking a cab, therefore, at the station, she drove straight to the London Bridge Wharf, and desired a waterman to row her to the Ostend packet, which was to sail the next morning. She described to me, pretty much as she has since described it in Villette her sense of loneliness, and yet her strange pleasure in the excitement of the situation, as in the dead of that winter's night she went swiftly over the dark river to the black hull's side, and was at first refused leave to ascend to the deck. "No passengers might sleep on board," they said, with some appearance of disrespect. She looked back to the lights and subdued noises of London--that "Mighty Heart" in which she had no place--and, standing up in the rocking boat, she asked to speak to some one in authority on board the packet. He came, and her quiet simple statement of her wish, and her reason for it, quelled the feeling of sneering distrust in those who had first heard her request; and impressed the authority so favourably that he allowed her to come on board, and take possession of a berth. The next morning she sailed; and at seven on Sunday evening she reached the Rue d'Isabelle once more; having only left Haworth on Friday morning at an early hour.
-------------------------
Charlotte was more than commonly tender in her treatment of all dumb creatures, and they, with that fine instinct so often noticed, were invariably attracted towards her. The deep and exaggerated consciousness of her personal defects--the constitutional absence of hope, which made her slow to trust in human affection, and consequently slow to respond to any manifestation of it--made her manner shy and constrained to men and women, and even to children. We have seen something of this trembling distrust of her own capability of inspiring affection, in the grateful surprise she expresses at the regret felt by her Belgian pupils at her departure. But not merely were her actions kind, her words and tones were ever gentle and caressing, towards animals. 
--------------------------
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

On this day 20-04-1820

various

The Bronte family

moved from

Thornton to Haworth Parsonage.

The procession of seven carts

and one covered wagon

led up the Main St

(then known as Kirkgate)

finishing at Parsonage Lane

(now Church St).

Bronte sounds brought to life

JARLATH BANCROFT from the weblog Bancrofts from Yorkshire send me the following information:
It’s sounding good at the Brontë Parsonage as the museum launches its new arts programme.
A sound installation by Gateshead artist Catherine Bertola will open this Saturday.
Visitors will hear haunting sounds as they walk through the dining room once used by the Brontë sisters. Natural sounds from the room itself have been mixed with readings from the sisters’ letters.
An accompanying display of photographs, Residual Hauntings, shows Catherine recreating domestic rituals from the Brontës’ time.
The sound installation, entitled “To be forever known”, was commissioned by the Brontë Society, which runs the Haworth museum.
Catherine Bertola is renowned for creating installations, objects and drawings which respond to particular sites, collections or historic contexts.
She looks beyond the surface of objects and buildings to uncover the “invisible histories” of places and people. She often draws on the historic role of women in society, craft production or labour.
Catherine, who grew up in Halifax, has created installations for the Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, Sheffield’s Millennium Gallery and the National Trust.
Jenna Holmes, the museum’s arts officer, said the Brontë installation drew on the history of Haworth Parsonage and its famous occupants.
She said: “The artist recorded herself reading aloud extracts from the Brontë sisters’ letters.
“These recordings have been played and re-recorded over and over again into the space, until the words become whispers and the resonances of the room are revealed; the sisters’ thoughts and feelings once again echoing within the walls of the house.”
Catherine has also created three Conversaziones at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, recreating a pastime from Victorian times.
She will bring together expert speakers with a small intimate audience to discuss themes relating to the Brontës. The Conversaziones, supported by Art in Yorkshire and Tate, starts with Radical Women, on May 12, in which Lucasta Miller and Jane Robinson discuss women from the original Bluestockings to the 20th-century suffragettes.
Tickets for the Conversaziones cost £14 from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk or 01535 640188
.keighleynews.co.uk/

What did the Bronte Sisters look like?

National Portrait Gallery

There are two official portraits of the Bronte Sisters.

Both painted by their brother Branwell Brontë (His own image in the picture has been painted out).

 

This is an actual photograph of 'The Gun-Group' portrait - an oil painting produced by Branwell around 1833/34. The photograph is now in extremely poor condition. The subjects are, from left to right: Anne, Charlotte, Branwell and Emily. Shortly after Patrick Brontë's death in 1861, Charlotte's husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls (pictured on right), took the painting back with him to his home town of Banaghar, in southern Ireland. He tore off the section showing Emily and destroyed the remainder believing the likenesses of the other three to be so poor. The original 'Emily' section is now on display in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

Mary Taylor discribes Charlotte when she arrived at Roe Head:

I first saw her coming out of a coverd cast,in very old-fashioned clothes, looking very cold and miserable She looked a little, old woman.

Ellen Nussey: She never seemed to me the unattractivelittle person others designated her, but certainly she was at that tme anything but pretty, even her good points were lost. Her naturally beautiful hair of soft sily browb being then dry and frizzy-looking, screwed up in tight little curls. 

Ellen Nussey July 1833, her first stay at the Parsonage:  

Emily was the tallest person in the house, except her father. Her hair, which was naturally as beautiful as Charlotte's, was in the same unbecoming tight curl and frizz, and there was the same want of complexion. She had very beautiful eyes – kind, kindling, liquid eyes; but she did not often look at you; she was too reserved. Their colour might be said to be dark grey, at other times dark blue, they varied so. She talked very little. She and Anne were like twins – inseparable companions, and in the very closest sympathy, which never had any interruption.

 

Anne, dear gentle Anne, was quite different in appearance to the others. She was her Aunt’s favourite. Her hair was a very pretty light brown and in falling curls fell on her neck in graceful curls. She had lovely violet blue eyes, fine pencilled eye-brows, a clear, almost transparent complexion."

 

Juliet Barker: Anne's hair was actually darker then Ellen remebered: a little plait, cut off and cerefully preserved by Patrick on 22-05-1833 suggests that it had deepened to a rich brown with a hint of auburn, though it remained fairer than her sisters.

http://bjtanke.com/BRONTE/pagex.htm

 

Victorian society was of no interest to Emily. Having taken a fancy to the romantic, gigot sleeves of the 1830s- she wore them long after they’d gone out of style. On the other hand, she had no use for false embellishment. While attending Madame Heger’s school in Brussels, she was teased by the fashionable girls for not wearing a corset. Fellow pupil, Laetitia Wheelwright, recollected that Emily always answered their jokes with, “I wish to be as God made me.”

 Charlotte Bronte made these portraits of Anne:

 

George Smith: Charlotte’s friend and publisher:

 

'I must confess that my first impression of Charlotte Brontë’s personal appearance was that it was interesting rather than attractive. She was very small, and had a quaint old-fashioned look. Her head seemed too large for her body. She had fine eyes, but her face was marred by the shape of the mouth and by the complexion. There was but little feminine charm about her; and of this fact she herself was uneasily and perpetually conscious. It may seem strange that the possession of genius did not lift her above the weakness of an excessive anxiety about her personal appearance. But I believe that she would have given all her genius and her fame to have been beautiful. Perhaps few women ever existed more anxious to be pretty than she, or more angrily conscious of the circumstance that she was not pretty.'

 

On the website of the National Portrait Gallery

I found these portraits: 

 

Charlotte Brontë (Mrs A.B. Nicholls)

by George Richmond
chalk, 1850
23 5/8 in. x 18 3/4 in. (600 mm x 476 mm)
Bequeathed by the sitter's husband, Rev A.B. Nicholls, 1906

Artist
George Richmond (1809-1896), Portrait painter and draughtsman; son of Thomas Richmond. Artist associated with 320 portraits, Sitter in 13 portraits.
Brontë's publisher, George Smith, commissioned this portrait of the novelist from Richmond as a gift for her father, who saw in it 'strong indications of the genius of the author'. Elizabeth Gaskell recalled seeing the portrait hung in the parlour of the Haworth parsonage, and a copy of it appeared in her biography.

Juliet Barker: Richmond captered the beauty of her large hazel eyes and played the size of her prominent nose and mouth.
 ---------------------------------------

It was during this visit in the summer of 1850 that the Smiths persuaded Charlotte Bronte to sit to George Richmond for a portrait, and she agreed, as the drawing was to be framed and presented to her father, and Ellen Nussey had also wished for a portrait of her friend. Richmond found Charlotte Bronte by no means a good subject; it is well known that he was keen about having a good picture as well as a faithful likeness. Richmond found Charlotte Bronte very depressed, and after she had given him two sittings he lost hope. It was her melancholy expression, as well as her irregular features that troubled him. On her third visit, the Duke of Wellington's servant was just leaving the studio as she entered, which caused Richmond to say in welcoming her, " If you had been here a quarter of an hour sooner, you would have seen the Duke of Wellington." Whereupon she broke out into eager talking about the Duke, and the artist caught the wistful expression given in her portrait.

When Richmond was getting on well with the drawing, Charlotte Bronte stood behind him, looking at it,  he heard a sob, and on turning round she said to him, " Excuse me it is so like my sister Emily."

When the drawing was finished, Mr. George Smith says in his paper, " In the Early Forties," " She burst into tears, and said it was so like her sister Anne, who had died the year before." The fact was, there was a family likeness between the three sisters, but Charlotte was not so good-looking as Emily and Anne. Mrs. Gaskell considered the drawing an excellent likeness, as did others who knew her in 1850.

Mr. Smith sent the drawing, and also a framed portrait of the Duke of Wellington as a present for Mr. Bronte, whom, as an Irishman, he greatly admired.

This portrait of Charlotte Bronte I never saw before.

Unknown woman, formerly known as Charlotte Brontë (Mrs A.B. Nicholls)

by Unknown artist
watercolour, 1850
urchased, 1906
for more information about this portrait read this

Thackeray’s daughter, the writer Anne Isabella Thackeray Ritchie recalled a visit to her father by Charlotte Brontë:

…two gentlemen come in, leading a tiny, delicate, serious, little lady, with fair straight hair, and steady eyes. She may be a little over thirty; she is dressed in a little barège dress with a pattern of faint green moss.  

 

Barège dress = (a lightweight fabric woven of silk or cotton and wool) 

---------------------------------

A lot of discussion is going on about this portrait of Landseer. Read more on these weblogs:

Landseer could have travelled through the Brontes' home town of Haworth whilst visiting his friend John Nussey at Bolton Hall in Yorkshire. Nussey was the also brother of Charlotte Bronte's friend Ellen.

http://abigailsateliers.wordpress.com/2011/04/17/the-new-bronte-portrait/

http://soeursbronte.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/les-bronte-par-edwin-landseer-un-portrait-controverse/

http://bronteblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/new-bronte-portrait.html

http://bookstains.wordpress.com/2011/03/16/did-the-real-charlotte-bronte-just-stand-up-the-debate/

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/bradford/8196844.stm

Funny information on these weblogs

http://soeursbronte.wordpress.com/2011/03/10/a-la-recherche-des-soeurs-bronte-2/

http://bjtanke.com/BRONTE/

http://bjtanke.com/BRONTE/page%209.htm

Ruring a visit to London Charlotte visit the Royal Academie and is looking to a painting of Landseer. This is the only official occasion that the Bronte name is connected with Landseer.

I am going on in my search for more information about the Richmond and Landseer portraits and Charlotte's photo's.

 

A photograph believed

to be that of Charlotte Brontë

taken in the last year

 of her life in 1854.

Courtesy Brontë Parsonage Museum
 

Artist not known
Brontë Parsonage Museum
circa 1839

A head and shoulders portrait of Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855) showing her wearing a bonnet. It is possible that this is the portrait Charlotte writes about while on her second visit to Brussels in 1843. This would suggest the artist is Mary Dixon.

Medium: ink, crayon, chalk & wash
Dimensions: diameter: 15.5cm
Vendor: Sotheby's
Provenance
Martha Brown (a servant in the Bronte household), 1855; William Law; Sotheby's, 2004.

Recently restored chalk drawing of Charlotte Bronte which was purchased at Sotherbys in 2004 and carefully restored to its former glory by experts.

When I see these portraits
I wonder
Why did Charlotte think she is ugly?

 

This is the latest discussed portrait

I have a problem with the hat of  ""Emily""

I think it is of a later period

 

But sure this portrait

 shows the kind of wild and imagenary beauty I imagine the sisters could have

More info on brontesisters

15 april 1813 Patrick Bronte for Maria Branwell

Maria, let us walk, and breathe, the morning air,

And hear the cuckoo sing,-

And every tuneful bird, that woos the gentle spring.

Troughout the budding grove,

Softly coos the turtle-dove,

The primrose pale,

perfumes the gale

The modest daisy, and the violet blue,

Inviting, spread their charms for you.

15 april 1813

 Patrick Bronte for Maria Branwell

This day is the birthday of Maria Branwell 15th April 1783

Maria Branwell was born at Penzance, Cornwall.

Maria Branwell was the eighth child of twelve born to Thomas Branwell and Anne Carne in Penzance, Cornwall, though only five daughters and one son grew to adulthood. Thomas Branwell was a successful merchant and owned many properties throughout the town. The Branwell family was involved with local politics, several serving as Mayor in the 19th century and other civic offices. The family were prominent Methodists,Thomas's sister and two of his daughters marrying clergymen of Wesleyan leanings. With the Carne family and others, they initiated and developed the first Wesleyan Methodist Chapel in Penzance.

/methodism-cornwall[

Branwell Family House

At the seaward end of Chapel Street is Branwell House. This house was the Branwell family home, the mother and aunt of Charlotte, Anne, Emily and Branwell.

This house was built in the 1780s. It has a brick front which has not been painted but kept as a feature. It must remembered that at that time using granite for the facade was considered vulgar. Brick frontage displayed social standing. Having five rooms at each floor,two attic rooms and a south facingwalled garden. The impression one gets of the life there, when Maria and her sisters were young, is of a whirl of social entertainment and visiting of the sort  so vividly discribed by Jane Austin.

St/chapel_Street.

http://st-marys-church.chapelstreet.co.uk/

Maria was petite, plain, pious, intelligent and well read with a ready wit. She made friends easily, and the friends that the Brontë's made in Thornton remained life-long friends to Patrick and his children. Her only extant written work, apart from letters, is the tract, The Advantages of Poverty, In Religious Concerns, but it was never published.

Between 1808 and 1811 four family deaths (including Maria's mother and father) effectively broke up Maria's immediate family and she looked for employment. Her father's sister Jane was the wife of John Fennell, a Methodist minister who, in 1812, was appointed Headmaster of the newly opened Woodhouse Grove School at Rawdon, between Leeds and Bradford in Yorkshire. Jane Fennell acted as housekeeper at the school and she invited her niece to assist her. In the summer of 1812 Maria Branwell travelled to Yorkshire to start a new life.

Maria in a letter to Patrick Bronte

Surely after this you can have no doubt

 that you posess all my heart.

Two month ago

 I could not possibly have believed
that you would ever engross so much

of my thoughts and effections

and far less could I have thought

that I should be so forward

as to tell you so

I feel that my hearth

is more ready to attach itself

to earth than heaven.

Maria had an annuity of £50 a year, which would have been a great help to Patrick Brontë who had nothing but his stipend. Their first home was Clough House, Hightown, near Hartshead, and their first two children, Maria and Elizabeth were born there in 1814 and 1815. In 1815 Mr. Brontë moved to a larger living at Thornton, three miles north of Bradford, where, in a house in Market Street, the other four children were born, Charlotte (1816), Patrick Branwell (1817), Emily Jane (1818) and Anne (1820). In 1820 the family moved to Haworth, and within a year Maria developed cancer (probably of the uterus), and after a harrowing seven and a half month illness, she died on the 15th September 1821.

 

Patrick Bronte preserved the letters Maria had written during their courtship. And long after Maria's death, he gave Charlotte some of her mothers letters. An experience she founddeeply moving.

Feb. 16th, 1850, writing to one of her friends, Charlotte Bronte wrote:

'A few days since, a little incident happened which curiously touched me. Papa put into my hands a little packet of letters and papers, telling me that they were mamma's, and that I might read them. I did read them, in a frame of mind I cannot describe. The papers were yellow with time, all having been written before I was born. It was strange now to peruse, for the first time, the records of a mind whence my own sprang; and most strange, and at once sad and sweet, to find that mind of a truly fine, pure, and elevated order. They were written to papa before they were married. There is a rectitude, a refinement, a constancy, a modesty, a sense, a gentleness about them indescribable. I wish she had lived, and that I had known her.'

Here is one of them:

TO REV. PATRICK BRONTE, A.B. HARTSHEAD.

'Wood House GROVE, September 18, 1812.

'How readily do I comply with my dear Mr. B's request! You see, you have only to express your wishes and as far as my power extends I hesitate not to fulfil them. My heart tells me that it will always be my pride and pleasure to contribute to your happiness, nor do I fear that this will ever be inconsistent with my duty as a Christian. My esteem for you and my confidence in you is so great, that I firmly believe you will never exact anything from me which I could not conscientiously perform. I shall in future look to you for assistance and instruction whenever I may need them, and hope you will never withhold from me any advice or caution you may see necessary.

'For some years I have been perfectly my own mistress, subject to no control whatever-- so far from it, that my sisters who are many years older than myself, and even my dear mother, used to consult me in every case of importance, and scarcely ever doubted the propriety of my opinions and actions. Perhaps you will be ready to accuse me of vanity in mentioning this, but you must consider that I do not boast of it, I have many times felt it a disadvantage; and although, I thank God, it never led me into error, yet in circumstances of perplexity and doubt, I have deeply felt the want of a guide and instructor.

'At such times I have seen and felt the necessity of supernatural aid, and by fervent applications to the throne of grace I have experienced that my heavenly Father is able and willing to supply the place of every earthly friend. I shall now no longer feel this want, this sense of helpless weakness, for I believe a kind Providence has intended that I shall find in you ever earthly friend united; nor do I fear to trust myself under your protection, or shrink from your control. It is pleasant to be subject to those we love, especially when they never exert their authority but for the good of the subject. How few would write in this way! But I do not fear that you will make a bad use of it. You tell me to write my thoughts, and thus as they occur I freely let my pen run away with them.

'Sat. Morn. -- I do not know whether you dare show your face here again or not after the blunder you have committed. When we got to the house on Thursday evening, even before we were within doors, we found that Mr. and Mrs. Bedford had been there, and that they had requested you to mention their intention of coming-- a single hint of which you never gave! Poor I too came in for a share in the had words which were bestowed upon you, for they all agreed that I was the cause of it. Mr. Fennell said you were certainly mazed, and talked of sending you to York, etc. And even I begin to think that this, together with the note, bears some marks of insanity! However, I shall suspend my judgement until I hear what excuse you can make for yourself, I suppose you will be quite ready to make one of some kind or another.

'Yesterday I performed a difficult and yet pleasing task in writing to my sisters. I thought I never should accomplish the end for which the letter was designed; but after a good deal of perambulation I gave them to understand the nature of my engagement with you, with the motives and inducements which led me to form such an engagement, and that in consequence of it I should not see them again so soon as I had intended. I concluded by expressing a hope that they would not be less pleased with the information than wew my friends here. I think they will not suspect me to have made a wrong step, their partiality for me is so great. And their affection for me will lead them to rejoice in my welfare, even though it should diminish somewhat of their own. I shall think the time tedious till I hear from you, and must beg you will write as soon as possible. Pardon me, my dear friend, if I again caution you against giving way to a weakness of which I have heard you complain. When you find your heart oppressed and your thoughts too much engrossed by one subject, let prayer be your refuge-- this you no doubt know by experience to be a sure remedy, and a relief from every care and error. Oh, that we had more of the spirit in prayer! I feel that I need it much.

'Breakfast time is near, I must bid you farewell for the time, but rest assured you will always share in the prayers and heart of your own

MARIA.

'Mr. Fennell has crossed my letter to my sisters. With his usual goodness he has supplied my deficiencies and spoken of me in terms of commendation of which I wish I were more worthy. Your character he has likewise displayed in the most favourable light; and I am sure they will not fail to love and esteem you though unknown.

'All here unite in kind regards. Adieu.'

Regency Up-Do

Victorian Hairstyle

The Bronte Sisters and Flowers

Daniel Bellinger a retired engineer breeds daffodils, or narcissus, at his home near Akron. He's named 19 of his own breeds, including 'Tilden,' noted for its orange petals and red corona, and 'Anne Bronte,' which charms with tiny red cups.

/2011/04/daffodils_of_all_varieties_

March Birth Flower – Daffodil

The daffodil is the March birth flower.

The daffodil's meaning

 is rebirth with a promise of happiness and joy.

godenspijs

 

I wonder, the Bronte sisters and flowers. If I search, what shall I find?

                                      Charlotte Bronte's watercolor sketch of wild roses

“But he that dares not grasp the thorn

Should never crave the rose.”

Anne Bronte

My sister Emily loved the moors.

Flowers brighter than the rose bloomed

in the blackest of the heath for her

Charlotte Bronte
 

The Bluebell is the sweetest flower

That waves in summer air

Its blossoms have the mightiest power

To soothe my spirit's care

Emily Bronte

O, that lone flower recalled to me
My happy childhood's hours
When bluebells seemed like fairy gifts
A prize among the flowers
Anne Bronte
 
All the flowers are praying
For sun before they close,
And he prays too, unknowing,
That sunless human rose
Emily Bronte
 

Its garden, too, glowed with flowers: hollyhocks had sprung up tall as trees, lilies had opened, tulips and roses were in bloom; the borders of the little beds were gay with pink thrift and crimson double daisies; the sweetbriars gave out, morning and evening, their scent of spice and apples; and these fragrant treasures were all useless for most of the inmates of Lowood, except to furnish now and then a handful of herbs and blossoms to put in a coffin.

Jane Eyre Charlotte Bronte

Pink roses Charlotte Bronte

I will go on searching for eamples of

the Bronte Sisters and FLOWERS

Maybe you know

are there flowers with the name of the Bronte Sisters?

14-/04-/1845 Emily Bronte wrote the poem Stars:

Stars

Ah! why, because the dazzling sun

Restored our Earth to joy,

Have you departed, every one,

And left a desert sky?

All through the night, your glorious eyes

Were gazing down in mine,

And, with a full heart's thankful sighs,

I blessed that watch divine.

I was at peace, and drank your beams

As they were life to me;

And revelled in my changeful dreams,

Like petrel on the sea.

Thought followed thought, star followed star,

Through boundless regions, on;

While one sweet influence, near and far,

Thrilled through, and proved us one!

Why did the morning dawn to break

So great, so pure, a spell;

And scorch with fire the tranquil cheek,

Where your cool radiance fell?

Blood-red, he rose, and, arrow-straight,

His fierce beams struck my brow;

The soul of nature sprang, elate,

But mine sank sad and low!

My lids closed down, yet through their veil

I saw him, blazing, still,

And steep in gold the misty dale,

And flash upon the hill.

I turned me to the pillow, then,

To call back night, and see

Your worlds of solemn light, again,

Throb with my heart, and me!

It would not do--the pillow glowed,

And glowed both roof and floor;

And birds sang loudly in the wood,

And fresh winds shook the door;

The curtains waved, the wakened flies

Were murmuring round my room,

Imprisoned there, till I should rise,

And give them leave to roam.

Oh, stars, and dreams, and gentle night;

Oh, night and stars, return!

And hide me from the hostile light

That does not warm, but burn;

That drains the blood of suffering men;

Drinks tears, instead of dew;

Let me sleep through his blinding reign,

And only wake with you!

Ay--there it is! it wakes to-night

Deep feelings I thought dead;

Strong in the blast--quick gathering light--

The heart's flame kindles red.

"Now I can tell by thine altered cheek,

And by thine eyes' full gaze,

And by the words thou scarce dost speak,

How wildly fancy plays.

"Yes--I could swear that glorious wind

Has swept the world aside,

Has dashed its memory from thy mind

Like foam-bells from the tide:

"And thou art now a spirit pouring

Thy presence into all:

The thunder of the tempest's roaring,

The whisper of its fall:

"An universal influence,

From thine own influence free;

A principle of life--intense--

Lost to mortality.

"Thus truly, when that breast is cold,

Thy prisoned soul shall rise;

The dungeon mingle with the mould--

The captive with the skies.

Nature's deep being, thine shall hold,

Her spirit all thy spirit fold,

Her breath absorb thy sighs.

Mortal! though soon life's tale is told;

Who once lives, never dies!"

~Emily Bronte