21 



In all her troubles — and they were many and of varied nature 

 — Charlotte had one source of comfort and solace in the scenery 

 round about her home. Her last long walk — about four months 

 before her death — was across the moors to a waterfall three 

 miles from Haworth. " The moors," she says in a letter written 

 September 1854, " are in all their glory, I never saw them fuller 

 of piirple bloom.'' " Evil tongues " she had to endure — the 

 tongues of those ethereal and polite souls who would " die of a 

 rose in aromatic pain" ; " rash judgments " on her works and 

 herself — coarseness of language," "laxity of tone," "horrid taste " 

 " sheer rudeness," these were some of the terms applied to "Jane 

 Eyre " by the reviewers ; " the sneers of selfish men," jealous of 

 the fame of one of the opposite sex ; " greetings where no kind- 

 ness was " — at home, where she was for months so indignant at 

 the vices of her brother that she dare not trust herself to speak 

 to him, and where for weeks she had to endure the reproaches of 

 her father, for listening favourably to a proposal of marriage from 

 his curate ; " the dreary intercourse of daily life," in a village 

 where none except her sister was her equal in talent, and where 

 of those who heard of her fame few could enter into the reason 

 of it : — all these "did not prevail against her." And through the 

 years of her life Nature fulfilled all that Wordsworth said she 

 could do, i.e., " inform the mind that is within her, impress with 

 quietness and beauty, and feed with lofty thoughts." Thus was 

 she inspired to "murmur near the running brooks a music 

 sweeter than their own," and to shew " how divine a thing a 

 woman may be made." 



Charlotte's books may be placed in the hands of the purest 

 minded maiden. She will stand a favourable comparison with 

 the Ouidas and Miss Braddans of to-day. Although the fame of 

 the Bronte sisters may be said to be waning here in England, 

 their works hve on in a sort of Indian summer in the great con- 

 tinent across the Atlantic. As a poet Emily stands much higher 

 tlian either of her sisters. 



Much of the literary work of the world has been done by 

 invalids. Each of the three sisters bore in her constitution the 

 seeds of disease that led to early death. Criticism is disarmed, 

 the severities of judgment sink subdued in the sanctity of com- 

 passion. 



The Three Sisters of Haworth illumined the sombre hills of 

 the border and the dark shadows of the doughs and glens with 

 an orient light all their own, and the members of the Burnley 

 Literary Club add their sincere tribute to the fame of Currer, 

 Ellis, and Acton Bell. 



