A study of gender

From A study of gender

In my current analysis of allusion to eight types of folklore in Charlotte Brontë’s (1816-1855) creative literature, I study the inter-relationship between popular belief and customary consciousness and gender in her novel, Jane Eyre (1847). She addresses the problems inherent in Victorian patriarchy by devising a code or system; the fairy and witch motif are symbolic of female power and as such are seen to subvert narrow cultural definitions of Victorian femininity. In their construction as beings living apart from the control of fathers and husbands and the indirect control of organised patriarchy or paternalism, Brontë creates a feminised literary landscape. Furthermore, the novel’s use of folklore appears to invert conventional gender relations as the hero identifies the heroine as fairy/witch. Hence, literary folklore contributes to Brontë feminist critical readings of rebellion against the ‘separate spheres ideology’ characterising mid-Victorian society. In this paper, I firstly, provide an overview (or the context) of my thesis and the secondly, proceed with a broad analysis of Brontë’s treatment of gender from a folklore perspective. For this analysis I outline Brontë’s methodology: source material is drawn from both literary tradition and her local cultural world. I briefly consider her reliance on folklore for her study of gender consciousness across her fiction and then argue for a more radical treatment of fairy and witch feminisation in Jane Eyre.

In Jane Eyre, what do the colors symbolize? The Red Room.

In the very first chapter Jane is unfairly convicted of attacking her cousin John Reed, and her punishment entails that she be locked in the red-room. The red-room, being the place where Jane's uncle Mr. Reed passed away, is a room that even the adults in the house avoid at all costs, as it is said to be haunted. Jane, only ten years old at the time, is locked in the ominous room without so much as a candle to comfort her. Jane relates the awful events that ultimately to her permanent removal from Gateshead Hall:


The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of
the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.
Jane Eyre the red room

What does the color red symbolize?

The first color we notice in Jane Eyre is the color red. We are exposed to the this color when Jane Eyre is sent to the dreaded red-room after Jane defends herself from the physical abuse that young Master John bestows upon her.

So is there any other passages in the novel where the color red occurs? Outside of the robin feeding incident where Jane is "red-faced,"and the case of musical instruments at the inn, the color red is not mentioned ever again during the course of the novel. The robin feeding incident gives us a clue about why the color is never mentioned again, yet we can still say that the color red is still present in the novel. The robin is sitting on the branches of a leafless cherry tree. Bronte does not mention the color of the robin, and the leafless cherry tree is could hardly be considered red, but both are associated with the color red in the mind's eye of most readers. Here we see Jane acting emotionally, quite out of control, determined to make sure that the hungry robin gets fed before she turns her attention to the adult in the room. This adds weight to the possibility that red represents uncontrolled emotions. The counter-balance to this are the musical instruments seen in the inn in their red case, silent but still a symbol of emotions. The playing of music, though it often looks out of control, is a matter of control and skill. After the robin and the instruments, Bronte expects us to know when something is red, something that most adults should be able to do. It is only in the early stages of Jane's life that we must be reminded of when something is red.
Read more what does the color red symbolize?

The red room in Jane Eyre can represent a lot of things but it is used more as a way of preparing the reader for themes of the book.

The red room shows Jane Eyre as a Gothic Novel as it has many gothic descriptions such as the old furniture in the room , the ghosts and the fact Mr Reed died in that room. The room is also used as a symbol of Jane's confinement at Gateshead, she is trapped there and longs to leave. The red room is also often associated with hell, the colour red, she can't get out, associated with death, ghosts, it's a punishment etc. One of the most important uses of the red room is how it links Jane with Bertha from later on it the book and causes the reader to sympathize with Bertha as maybe it was not her fault she was locked up.
wiki.answers.com

The Bronte Society Gazette: Portraits of Emily and Charlotte??????

 Here you can find the Bronte Society Gazette.
Inside information about two woman portraits,
 with an explanation why
 they are not portraits of
 Charlotte and Emily Bronte.

read here for more information

Brontë Myths

“We are three sisters,”

 Charlotte Bronte told her startled publisher, clarifying the identity of the new novelists Currer, Acton, and Ellis Bell. “I regretted the avowal the moment I had made it,” Charlotte wrote later. “I regret it bitterly now, for I find it is against every feeling and intention of ‘Ellis Bell’ [Emily Bronte].” (Letters )

The Brontes were a very private family, admitting only a handful of friends into their inner circle, and they had chosen pseudonyms to preserve that privacy. “What author would be without the advantage of being able to walk invisible?” Charlotte remarked to her publisher. “One is thereby enabled to keep a quiet mind.” (Brontës, 546) But when Mrs. Gaskell’s famous biography of Charlotte Bronte appeared in 1857, the three sisters lost their privacy forever. Today, their humble home in Haworth is one of the most visited literary shrines in the world. (Ghnassia, xi)

When a family about whom very little is known suddenly becomes famous, every scrap of information assumes tremendous significance. A casual rumor becomes fact. A single portrait becomes the only record of someone’s features. A single impression recorded in a diary becomes the way the person must have behaved for decades. Imagine how distorted the picture of our lives would be if one stranger’s impression of us during one family visit became the basis for understanding our entire family dynamic: Engage in a rare, inconsequential quarrel on that day, and we go down in history as quarrelsome. Feel a bit under the weather, and we go down in history as quiet or puny.

But in the case of the Brontes, quite a bit of the distortion was not accidental but deliberate. They wrote in Victorian England. Their writings were controversial. Their earliest admirers did not hesitate to misread the few facts they had gathered in order to “protect” the three sisters’ reputations, and scholars have found their own reasons for doing so since. Emily Bronte, the most private of the three, about whom almost nothing is known, has received the lion’s share of the Bronte mythmaking.
Charlotte Bronte herself began this mythmaking after Emily’s death.

Read more:  www.claredunkle.com

Currer, Ellis an Acton

In 1850, Charlotte Brontë's 'Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell' put a stop to all speculation on the sex of the 'Bells'. The wording of the passage where she outlined the adoption of their noms de guerre is remarkable for reasons which still have not been fully appreciated:
Averse to personal publicity, we veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because — without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called 'feminine' — we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice . . . [quoted from the Norton edition of Wuthering Heights, p. 4]

http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/bronte/cbronte/thormahlen.html

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

In 1846, women were marginalized and thought far below their male counterparts. Anne Brontë challenges this gender system by providing readers with a strong female heroine who blatantly defies the laws of the day by leaving her atrocious husband for an independent existence, which came as a shock to the social conventions of the day. In 1846, the wife and children were under the husband’s control, and it was impossible to leave a husband without causing legal problems and social scandal. Still, Brontë’s protagonist bravely walks out on Mr. Huntingdon, taking their young son with son.
anne-brontes-the-tenant-of-wildfell-hall

New label

I started a new label:

Bronte and feminism
 I am thinking how I can reduce the number of labels

feminisme in Jane Eyre

!851 The Crystal Palace

The Exhibition was a great triumph, both socially and financially. Aided by the expansion of the railways, six million people (a third of the country’s population then) descended on London to view the spectacular show. And, as if the exhibits were not stunning enough (and Great Britain was determined to prove its superiority with trophy displays from its colonies as well as the home-grown industrial fields of iron and steel, machinery and textiles), the vast glass structure which housed them reached an iconic status and was nicknamed The Crystal Palace.

That Palace of glass was designed by Joseph Paxton, with help from the engineers Charles Fox and Isambard Kingdom Brunel, and the time from conception to completion and the opening of the show was only nine months; a remarkable achievement when considering the enormity of the structure, with the ironwork frame and glass made almost exclusively in Birmingham and Smethwick. And although Paxton had gained great expertise in the design and building of ‘greenhouses’ for other wealthy patrons, nothing before had been so large, measuring 1848 feet long and 454 feet wide, and able to house fully grown trees that were already growing in the park.

This account was given by Charlotte Bronte.

A visit to the Crystal Palace, 1851


Yesterday I went for the second time to the Crystal Palace. We remained in it about three hours, and I must say I was more struck with it on this occasion than at my first visit. It is a wonderful place – vast, strange, new and impossible to describe. Its grandeur does not consist in one thing, but in the unique assemblage of all things. Whatever human industry has created you find there, from the great compartments filled with railway engines and boilers, with mill machinery in full work, with splendid carriages of all kinds, with harness of every description, to the glass-covered and velvet-spread stands loaded with the most gorgeous work of the goldsmith and silversmith, and the carefully guarded caskets full of real diamonds and pearls worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. It may be called a bazaar or a fair, but it is such a bazaar or fair as Eastern genii might have created. It seems as if only magic could have gathered this mass of wealth from all the ends of the earth – as if none but supernatural hands could have arranged it this, with such a blaze and contrast of colours and marvellous power of effect. The multitude filling the great aisles seems ruled and subdued by some invisible influence. Amongst the thirty thousand souls that peopled it the day I was there not one loud noise was to be heard, not one irregular movement seen; the living tide rolls on quietly, with a deep hum like the sea heard from the distance.

Source: The Brontes' Life and Letters, by Clement Shorter (1907)

Nowadays the catalogue, with its steel engraved illustrations is a symbol of High Victorian Design. When the exhibition was done a surplus of £186,000 was made which today would translate as something in the region of £16,000,000. That profit went on to fund an education trust with grants given out for industrial research and, more visibly, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Science Museum and the Natural History Museum – all built on ground to the south of Hyde Park and known fondly as Albertopolis. And, over all this presides the Albert Memorial, erected by Victoria to recall her husband’s legacy after his sad and premature death at the age of only 42. And what a legacy it was! The VV thinks even King Ernest would find it hard to disagree.

/from-the-archive-blog/

Second visit Charlotte Bronte to London, june 1850

Do you like London, Miss Bronte', she said; another silence, a pause, then Miss Bronte answers, `Yes and No'.

George Smith persuaded his morher to invite Charlotte to stay with them in their new home at Gloucester Terrace in Paddington, Hyde Park Gardens.

Read more: Victorian London.- Directories - Dickens's Dictionary of London, by Charles Dickens, Jr., 1879 - "Paddington"
Paddington, a large district with no specially distinctive title, lies to the north of Tyburnia proper, and affords a large choice of comfortably-built houses at a comparatively moderate rental. Soil, London clay. It occupies a large triangle, of which the two longer sides are Edgware-road from Maida-hill to Kilburn, and the Grand Junction Canal to Kensal Green. NEAREST Railway Station, Praed-st, Bishops-road, and Royal Oak. Omnibus Routes, Harrow-road, Bishop’s. road, and Edgware-road.

 

 

  

On sunday, 09 june, George Smith took her tot the Chapel Royal, where he could be very sure that she would catch side of her hero, the Duke of Wellington.

Charlotte had a big admiration of Wellington. Her fictional characters Charles and Arthur Wellesley feature prominently in her early Angrian writings. In Brussels she wrote an essay on ‘The Death of Napoleon’, in which she praises Wellington, making his genius superior to Napoleon’s. Throughout her life she would follow her hero's progress, finally seeing him in the flesh when she visited London in 1850.

"Of course I cannot give you in a letter a regular chronicle of how my time has been spent. I can only - just notify. what I deem three of its chief incidents: a sight of the Duke of Wellington at the Chapel Royal (he is a real grand old man), a visit to the House of Commons (which I hope to describe to you some day when I see you), and last, not least, an interview with Mr. Thackeray. He made a morning call, and sat above two hours. Mr. Smith only was in the room the whole time. He described it afterwards as a 'queer scene,' and - I suppose it was. The giant sat before me; I was moved to speak to him of some of his short-comings (literary of course); one by one the faults came into my head, and one by one I brought them out, and sought some explanation or defence. He did defend himself, like a great Turk and heathen; that is to say, the excuses were often worse than the crime itself. The matter ended in decent amity; if all be well, I am to dine at his house this evening.

She was reintroduced to literary society.

 G.H. Lewes

'A little, plain, provincial, sickly-looking old maid', is how George Lewes described Charlotte Brontë to George Eliot.

Charlotte Bronte:
"I have seen Lewes too. . . . I could not feel otherwise to him than half-sadly, half-tenderly, - a queer word that last, but I use it because the aspect of Lewes's face almost moves me to tears; it is so wonderfully like Emily, her eyes, her features, the very nose, the somewhat prominent mouth, the forehead, even, at moments, the expression: whatever Lewes says, I believe I cannot hate him. Another likeness I have seen, too, that touched me sorrowfully. You remember my speaking of a Miss K., a young authoress, who supported her mother by writing? Hearing that she had a longing to see me, I called on her yesterday. . . . She met me half-frankly, half-tremblingly; we sat down together, and when I had talked with her five minutes, her face was no longer strange, but mournfully familiar; - it was Martha in every lineament. I shall try to find a moment to see her again. . . . I do not intend to stay here, at the furthest, more than a week longer; but at the end of that time I cannot go home, for the house at Haworth is just now unroofed; repairs were become necessary."  
 

Julia Kavanagh

 

Julia Kavanagh was a woman who lived a hard but successful life as a writer: crippled when young (spinal curvature), she was Irish Catholic and her parent separated sometime after the three moved to London (there were no other children). Her father was useless as a partner or companion for life: he never made a living, was continually involving himself with other women, a promiscuous ne’er-do-well philanderer. She and her mother made their way through their connections and her genius into the writing world and she published novels, books about women of letters, travel writing. They lived in London, eventually made their home-refuge, France, and travelled in Italy. Kavanagh became fluent in both Italian and English. She died relatively young.

Once again Thackeray

 

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. She enters in mittens, in silence, in seriousness; our hearts are beating with wild excitement. This then is the authoress, the unknown power whose books have set all London talking, reading, speculating; some people even say our father wrote the books - the wonderful books. The moment is so breathless that dinner comes as a relief to the solemnity of the occasion, and we all smile as my father stoops to offer his arm; for, genius though she may be, Miss Brontë can barely reach his elbow. My own personal impressions are that she is somewhat grave and stern, specially to forward little girls who wish to chatter. Every one waited for the brilliant conversation which never began at all. Miss Brontë retired to the sofa in the study, and murmured a low word now and then to our kind governess the conversation grew dimmer and more dim, the ladies sat round still expectant, my father was too much perturbed by the gloom and the silence to be able to cope with it at all after Miss Brontë had left, I was surprised to see my father opening the front door with his hat on. He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him long afterwards Mrs. Procter asked me if I knew what had happened It was one of the dullest evenings [Mrs Procter] had ever spent in her life the ladies who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and the constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club.
Lady Ritchie/ Anne Thackeray

The painter Richmond

 

victorian london.

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

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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.
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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.
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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. 
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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...
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"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.
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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).