BRONZE 



950 



BROOCH 



father was rapidly becoming blind, her brother 

 was drinking himself to death, and her two 

 sisters were feeling the first touches of a 

 disease which was shortly to cause their death. 

 To support themselves the three sisters turned 

 to writing, and in 1846 published a volume of 

 poems under the names of Currer, Ellis and 

 Acton Bell. It was issued at their own risk 

 and attracted little attention, so the sisters 

 turned to fiction and each produced a novel. 

 Charlotte wrote The Professor, but it was re- 

 fused by publishers everywhere and did not ap- 

 pear until after her death. Jane Eyre, her next 

 novel, had a different fate, for on its appearance 

 in 1847 it took the world by storm. It had faults 

 of style, but its realism, and above all its passion, 

 were a new note in literature. A second novel, 

 Shirley, appeared in 1849, and Villette, based 

 on her experiences in Brussels, in 1852. Mean- 

 while her sisters and brother had died, and an 

 unbroken gloom settled over her life. In 1854 

 she married her father's curate, the Rev. Arthur 

 Nicholls, and she had a few happy months. 

 Worn out, however, by the tenseness of her 

 nature and the violence of her inner protests 

 against her lot, no less than by the cold, cheer- 

 less home and bleak climate, she died in 1855. 

 Mrs. Gaskell, in her Life of Charlotte Bronte, 

 shows to the reader very clearly the dreariness 

 of the "home among the graves" and the un- 

 quelled spirit of the Bronte sisters. 



BRONZE, bronz, a hard, durable, sounding 

 metal, which melts easily and is capable of 

 enduring exposure to the weather and of taking 

 a fine, smooth finish. These qualities, com- 

 bined with its possibilities for artistic coloring, 

 make it valuable for statuary, lighting fixtures 

 and ornamental work for both the exterior and 

 interior of buildings. It is an alloy of copper 

 and tin in varying proportions, with occasion- 

 ally the addition of small quantities of lead, 

 zinc and silver (see ALLOY). The most common 

 varieties of bronze in use are gun metal, used 

 in making ordnance; bell metal; specular 

 metal, used for making mirrors and reflectors 

 in telescopes; statuary bronze, used in sculp- 

 ture; aluminum bronze, a composition of cop- 

 per and aluminum, closely resembling gold ; and 

 manganese bronze, often called white bronze, a 

 composition of iron and manganese with other 

 bronzes. Japanese bronzes contain quite a 

 large proportion of lead, which makes them 

 softer. 



Bronze has been known from a very early 

 period of history. The Chinese and ancient 

 Egyptians were familiar with it centuries before 



the Christian Era, and it is supposed that 

 their early bronzes were produced by smelting 

 the ores of the metals. It was also used by 

 the Assyrians and Romans. See BRONZE AGE, 

 below. 



BRONZE AGE, a term describing that period 

 in the development of mankind when bronze, 

 made from a mixture of copper and tin, as 

 to-day, was used as the material for weapons, 

 implements and ornaments. It stood for a 

 distinct advance in civilization, for before that 

 time people had contented themselves with 

 stone, a material which lay ready to their hand. 

 Iron had not yet been discovered, or at least 

 had not been reduced to such form to be 

 useful. 



The Bronze Age is not an absolute division 

 of time, but a relative condition of culture, 

 which in some places may have been reached 

 early, in others late; in some it may have been 

 prolonged, and in others brief, or even non- 

 existent, the people passing directly from the 

 use of stone to that of iron. It is believed, 

 however, that over much of Europe there was 

 this stage approximately eighteen centuries 

 B. c., though it frequently overlapped the ages 

 before and after it, bronze being used side by 

 side with the earlier stone or the later iron. 

 In North America, too, there was undoubtedly 

 a Bronze Age, though the use of this metal 

 compound seems never to have been very 

 extensive. See STONE AGE; IRON AGE. 



BROOCH, brohch, an article of jewelry used 

 for fastening the dress, or for adornment only. 

 It has a pin passing across it, which is fastened 

 at one end with a joint and at the other with 

 a hook. Following the thorns used in primeval 



BROOCHES 



(a, 6) Modern brooches ; (c) brooch of the six- 

 teenth century; (d) Anglo-Saxon specimen; (e) 

 modern cameo brooch. 



times to hold together the fig-leaf garments, 

 came the use of wood and bone. Then came 

 the use of metals in the form of brooches, worn 

 by both men and women in Greece and Rome 

 and in Europe from the time of Homer to the 



