The first part of the honeymoon was far from smooth.

Although Charlotte found some pleasure in the Welsh scenery, which she thought surpassed the English Lakes, the first part of the honeymoon was far from smooth. Her cold get worse and she started to be sufficiently ill.
Later she wrote to Miss Wooler:

""Fatique and excitement had nearly knocked me up. - and my cough was become very bad""

the Honeymoon 30-06-1854

The tour included Conway, where the couple stayed at " a comfort-able inn". It was evening when Mr. and Mrs. Nicholls arrived at Conway, and they would not see much of the district except the old castle. Wales was an entirely new country to the bride, and its historic associations were sure to interest her. On the Friday morning they started for Bangor, and spent the week-end there. Neither Bangor nor Menai was the popular holiday resort each has since become. They were essentially Welsh, and Welsh was the language spoken. This beautiful spot in North Wales must have appealed to Charlotte Bronte, and it is pleasant to think of the novelist having so complete a holiday, for the honeymoon lasted for more than a month.

In July 1854 Kilkee was little more than a village of no more than 419 houses, ofwhich 314 were occupied, and a total town population of a little over 1,869.17 In summertime when visitors arrived the
population doubled, or trebled at most, depending then, as now, on the weather. On the evening of their wedding day, Charlotte and her husband journeyed to Conway, near Llandudno in Wales, and
stayed overnight.

She wrote: '...

DEAR ELLEN, I scribble one hasty line just to say that after
a pleasant enough journey we have got safely to Conway; the evening is wet and wild, though the day was fair chiefly, with some gleams of sunshine. However, we are sheltered in a comfortable inn. My cold is not worse. If you get this scrawl to-morrow and write by return, direct to me at the post-office,
Bangor, and I may get it on Monday. Say how you and Miss Wooler got home. Give my kindest and most grateful love to Miss Wooler whenever you write. On Monday, I think, we cross the Channel. No more at present. Yours faithfully and
lovingly, C. B. N.' 

Castle Hotel, Conwy, Wales.  Charlotte Bronte spent her honeymoon here.

http://howellhistory.com/Wales.htm
http://www.snowdoniaguide.com/penmaenmawr.html

She looked like a snowdrop.

 

As the clock struck eight on that dim quiet June morning of 29-06-1854 Charlotte entered the church with Ellen  and Miss Wooler. She was dressed simply in her white muslin dress with delicate green embroidery and matching short veil, a lace mantle and a white bonnet, trimmed with lace and a pale band of small flower and leaves.
 

The service was brief. Mr. Nicoll's friend,  officiated.

Rev Sutcliffe Sowden

Though Charlotte had insisted that there should be no fuss, Martha had raided the village gardens to decorate the house with bouquets and Ellen scattered flowers in the bride's honour at the wedding breakfast.

                                            

It was intended to be an exceedingly quiet affair; the Haworth people were not to know until the bride and bridegroom had set out on their honeymoon. It is not a matter of surprise to find that the news leaked out; the arrival of two of Charlotte Bronte's oldest friends, Miss Wooler and Ellen Nussey, in a coach on the afternoon of 28th June set the villagers guessing. The news of the wedding had slipt abroad before the little party came out of church, and many old and humble friends were there, seeing her look "like a snow-drop," as they say. 

As the little wedding party left the church there was quite a group of the villagers anxious to see the wedding procession, and the remembrance of it was a life-long satisfaction to those privileged to see it. Mr. and Mrs. Grant, from the Haworth Grammar School, joined them at breakfast.

There was a party of eight present, including the old vicar. Martha Brown, in a simple black and white cotton gown a present from her mistress waited at the table, and her recollection was of a very happy time. Mr. Nicholls and his friends kept the conversation going.

When the carriage arrived at the parsonage gate the village was all astir to see the bride and bridegroom drive away, amid the good wishes of their friends. They drove the four miles to Keighley Station en route for Conway and North Wales, afterwards crossing to Ireland.

Museum Charlotte Bronte wedding enactment

Aunt Branwell

Ellen Nussey describes her as having “lively” conversations around the table with ,Mr Bronte and the children as we find from Ellen Nussys remembrance

“Miss Branwell was a very small, antiquated little lady. She wore caps large enough for half-a-dozen of the present fashion, and a front of light auburn curls over her forehead. She always dressed in silk. She had a horror of the climate so far north, and of the stone floors in the Parsonage. She talked a great deal of her younger days — the gaiety’s of her dear native town Penzance, the soft, warm climate, &c. She gave one the idea that she had been a belle among her own home acquaintance. She took snuff out of a very pretty gold snuff-box, which she sometimes presented to you with a little laugh, as if she enjoyed the slight shock of astonishment visible in your countenance. She would be very lively and intelligent, and tilt arguments against Mr. Bronte without fear.”

 Read more: abigailsateliers/aunt-branwell

 and also: kleurrijk bronte sisters/aunt-branwell

Preparations for the wedding II.

Ellen and Miss Wooler were brought over on the afternoon of 28-06-1854, in order to be present for the wedding next day. The long, summer afternoon and evening were spent together in the Parsonage. They packed the trunk with the new dresses from Halifax, laid out the white wedding dress with the veil and bonnet and prepared the wedding breakfast.

Mr. Nicholls and Mr. Sowden were installed in Oxenhope with the curate Mr. Grant and his wife.
Victorian Wedding Customs
wikipedia/Trunk(luggage)

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

The house next to Brookes Meeting Mill was formerly the vicarage for Oxenhope and is one of the few houses in the area to retain its original features. It was originally built in 1840’s for Joseph Brett Grant, Oxenhope’s first vicar. Grant had previously been curate in Haworth, until Patrick Brontë appointed him to establish the new parish. He was a very active man, raising money to build the parish church, the vicarage and the national school. The story goes that he wore out 14 pairs of shoes in his travels seeking subscriptions and even succeeded in getting a donation from Queen Victoria. Brett’s energy, kindliness and dedication made him a popular figure amongst all villagers, not just the Anglicans. The exception however was Charlotte Brontë who rather unkindly portrayed him as the curate Mr Donne, a ‘champion beggar’ in her novel Shirley.

Preparations for the wedding.

The 18 names on Charlotte's weddinglist received cards informing them of the marriage.
Reverend William Morgan, Cousin Joseph branwell, the Wheelwright family, George Smith, Mrs Smith and her children, Mr. Williams, Mrs. Gaskell, Richard Monckton Milnes, Francis Bennoch, six went to local Haworth residents, the Wooler and Nussey family.
The only persons to be present at the ceremony were to be Miss Wooler, Ellen Nussey, Mr Sowden who would marry them and Mr. Bronte.

Charlotte-Love-Courtship-Marriage-Bronte

26-06-1817 Branwell was born.

Patrick Branwell Bronte fourth child of the Bronte family was born in Thornton, near Bradford, Yorkshire

The wedding of Charlotte Bronte was finally determind for 29 june,

Original Jane Eyre movie wedding costumes worn by Michael Fassbender and Mia Wasikowska on display at ArcLight Hollywood

The date of the wedding was finally determind for 29 june.
 

Het wedding clothes were to come from Leeds but she deputed Ellen  to choose the bonnet and dress she would wear- "something that can be turned to decent use and worn after the wedding will be best, I think."

Ellen choose wedding clothes that were both pretty and traditional. The bonnet was covered in white flowers, trimmed with greenery, and over it would go a white lace veil, with a motif of ivy leaves, which matched the border of the white muslin dress.

Charlotte' s own choise of clothing for the honeymoon, a heavy silk dress of brown and mauve, was the result of an expedition to Halifax, where she had some more dresses made up.

Charlotte ordered fifty wedding cards from Ellen, which displeased her on account of the gaudy amount of silver on them. She would have preferred the enveloppe to the perfectly plain with a silver initial. And then she found she should have ordered twice the number because of the Mr Nicolls' string of clerical friends.

“Oh I dreadful is the check—intense the agony—

“He comes with western winds, with evening’s wandering airs,

With that clear dusk of heaven that brings the thickest stars.

Winds take a pensive tone, and stars a tender fire,

And visions rise, and change, that kill me with desire.

 

“Desire for nothing known in my maturer years,

When Joy grew mad with awe, at counting future tears.

When, if my spirit’s sky was full of flashes warm,

I knew not whence they came, from sun or thunder-storm.

“But, first, a hush of peace—a soundless calm descends;

The struggle of distress, and fierce impatience ends;

Mute music soothes my breast—unuttered harmony,

That I could never dream, till Earth was lost to me.

“Then dawns the Invisible; the Unseen its truth reveals;

My outward sense is gone, my inward essence feels:

Its wings are almost free—its home, its harbour found,

Measuring the gulph, it stoops and dares the final bound,

“Oh I dreadful is the check—intense the agony—

When the ear begins to hear, and the eye begins to see;

When the pulse begins to throb, the brain to think again;

The soul to feel the flesh, and the flesh to feel the chain.

“Yet I would lose no sting, would wish no torture less;

The more that anguish racks, the earlier it will bless;

And robed in fires of hell, or bright with heavenly shine,

If it but herald death, the vision is divine!”

Emily Bronte

Bronte Poems

Reader, I married him

Reader, I married him,

is Jane Eyre's most famous line,

and though many people

 misremember it

 as the novel's last line,

 it is actually the beginning of the last chapter.

Charlotte Brontë Quotes

"A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow."

"Better to be without logic than without feeling."

"Cheerfulness, it would appear, is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us."

"Consistency, madam, is the first of Christian duties."

"Conventionality is not morality."

"Give him enough rope and he will hang himself."

"I am always easy of belief when the creed pleases me."

"I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will."

"I don't call you handsome, sir, though I love you most dearly: far too dearly to flatter you. Don't flatter me."

"I feel monotony and death to be almost the same."

"I try to avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward."

"I'm just going to write because I cannot help it."

"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."

"If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own."

"If you are cast in a different mould to the majority, it is no merit of yours: Nature did it."

"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."

"It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility; they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."

"Let your performance do the thinking."

"Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs."

"Life is so constructed, that the event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation."

"Look twice before you leap."

"Men judge us by the success of our efforts. God looks at the efforts themselves."

"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education; they grow firm there, firm as weeds among stones."

"The human heart has hidden treasures, In secret kept, in silence sealed; The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures, Whose charms were broken if revealed."

"The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious, but still a truthful interpreter - in the eye."

"There is only one difference between a madman and me. I am not mad."

"True enthusiasm is a fine feeling whose flash I admire where-ever I see it."

"Who has words at the right moment?"

"You had no right to be born; for you make no use of life. Instead of living for, in, and with yourself, as a reasonable being ought, you seek only to fasten your feebleness on some other person's strength."

"You know full well as I do the value of sisters' affections: There is nothing like it in this world."
http://www.paperbackswap.com/Charlotte-Bronte/author/

I am just going to write because I cannot help it.quotation 

Quotes from your Favorite Bronte Sisters-novels forum.quoteland

The tone of Jane Eyre is in fact a very feminist one

There is an ample amount of evidence to suggest that the tone of Jane Eyre is in fact a very feminist one and may well be thought as relevant to the women of today who feel they have been discriminated against because of there gender. At the beginning of the 19th century, little opportunity existed for women, and thus many of them felt uncomfortable when attempting to enter many parts of society. The absence of advanced educational opportunities for women and their alienation from almost all fields of work gave them little option in life: either become a house wife or a governess. Although today a tutor may be considered a fairly high class and intellectual job, in the Victorian era a governess was little more than a servant who was paid to share her scarce amount of knowledge in limited fields to a child. With little respect, security, or class one may certainly feel that an intelligent, passionate and opinionated young woman such as Jane Eyre should deserve and be capable of so much more. The insecurity of this position, being tossed around with complete disregard for her feelings or preferences, is only one of many grueling characteristics of this occupation. However for Jane to even emerge into society, becoming a governess seemed the only reasonable path for her.


onlineessaysfeminism-in-charlotte-brontes-jane-eyre

June in Haworth and Yorkshire - an overview

June heralds the start of summer and is a month where nature really gets going. Parent birds can be seen feeding their young who will soon be leaving the nest, wildflowers are abundant. Most trees will be in full leaf Hawthorn also known as May hedge will still be flowering in early June dependent on how cold spring has been. June 21st is the Midsummer Solstice and our longest hours of daylight, you can take a 24 hour time-lapse of the day here...haworth-village time-lapse it also marks the official arrival of summer/
flickr.com/photos/ wildflowers and Hawthorn Yorkshire Dales UK

Feminist Ideals and the Women of "Jane Eyre"

 

In order to understand Jane's role as a feminist, a definition of this term must be established. The word "feminist" is defined as "one who advocates equal rights for women" ("Feminist" 1). Yet a "feminist" does not necessarily protest in the streets; any woman who wishes to be equal with men and expresses this viewpoint in word and action can be considered to possess ideals on which the feminist movement is based. Though women had been writing feminist texts since the late 18th century, an actual feminist movement did not form in Britain until the late 19th century under leaders such as Emily Pankhurst and Millicent Fawcett.

 

Emily Pankhurst

 

Millicent Fawcett

 Charlotte Bronte was publishing Jane Eyre just as First Wave Feminism was beginning to develop, with writers such as Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Louisa May Alcott, Emily Dickinson and Emily Bronte proving their worth as writers and incorporating feminist ideals into their work. Jane Eyre was one of many post-Civil War novels "aimed at young female readers in which an adolescent woman attempts to gain maturity and ascendency over the terms of her world".

Read on: Feminist-Ideals-and-the-Women-of-Jane-Eyre

essays/Jane-Eyre-Novel-FemInism-

edu.Feminism_in_Jane_Eyre.doc
Emmeline Pankhurst.
History that puts woman in her place