1917] on The Brontes: A Hundred Years After 145 



school ! Of Emily's life aucl Anne's there is, so far as then- doings 

 are concerned, nothing more to say. They were sent to a school, 

 where they were half -starved. They had to walk two miles — perishing 

 cold miles in winter — to church to hear Mr. Brocklelmrst (I l)eg his 

 pardon, Mr. Carus Wilson) preach. Then there was an epidemic of 

 fever, and no wonder, if it is true, as Sir AVemyss Reid says, that 

 " during the whole time of their sojourn there the young Brontes 

 scarcely ever knew what it was to be free from the pangs of hunger." 

 It was there, too, that the poor little girls had their hair cropped and 

 wore night-caps, but " where pocket handkerchiefs did not appear in 

 the list of clothing." 



At home at Ha worth they had no children friends, and depended 

 upon one another for all the society they had. To see the little 

 children going out on to the moors hand-in-hand is sad enough, but 

 it is even more melancholy to see them, when on one occasion they 

 had been asked out, or when the village school children came to the 

 parsonage, having to be taught to play. Taught to play ! Why 

 they had not learned one of the best lessons life has to teach. Even 

 when Charlotte went to Miss Wooler's school at Roehead she could 

 not play ball with the other girls, but stood about while they played, 

 with the near short-sighted companionship of a book. But they 

 were good little creatures, as quiet as a mouse in the house, and we 

 hear of Maria, when she was about eight, shutting herself up in the 

 study (which had no fireplace) with a newspaper, and reading it all 

 so well that she could even tell you what was in the Parliamentary 

 debates — which is poor food even for a strong stomach, but for a 

 child of eight it is a porridge of sand and straw. There was too 

 much of these PoHtics and too little of " Nuts and May " in theii 

 little lives. AYhen Charlotte became a pupil at Roehead, while they 

 found that she had never learned grammar and very little geography, 

 she knew the names of two ministries, which must have been a 

 puzzle even then, and would be worse in our time of Coalition and 

 National Cabinets. But this isolation of the children accounted for 

 a great deal. A few impressions, like a sharp knife, cut deep. It is 

 the many impressions, which come and go to those more in the world 

 than these little recluses of Haworth, that leave the mind with 

 nothing but scratches on memory. Affections, too, cannot both be 

 wide and deep. If you spread your heart in gold-beater's leaf over 

 many people, the result is acquaintanceship. If you give it to a few 

 it is love ! It was thus that the affectionate ties of the Bronte 

 family were as strong as steel. It was thus, too, that Charlotte 

 Bronte, when she did really love someone outside the home circle, 

 loved with an intensity of passion which thrilled her " to the finest 

 fibre of her nature." We may have pity for this grim ordeal of the 

 mites, but we must recognize that this haggard human life was the 

 school which was training the women who were to write such great 

 romances as " Jane Evre " and " Wuthering Heights." 



Vol. XXII. (No. Ill) L 



