CHAPTER X. CONTRIBUTIONS TO BRONTË LITERATURE. A Visit to Haworth--Feeling Against the Brontës in Yorkshire--Miss Nussey and her Discontent with Mrs. Gaskell's "Me"--Publication of "Charlotte Brontë: a Monograph"--Mr. Swinburne's Appreciation--An Abortive Visit to the Poet--Lecture on Emily Brontë and "Wuthering Heights"--Miss Nussey's Visit to Haworth after Charlotte's Marriage. I have said that during the stormy days of the atrocities agitation I was engaged in other work than that of political writing. This was the completion of a little book in which I gave my impressions of Charlotte and Emily Brontë to the public. The story of Charlotte Brontë, as told by Mrs. Gaskell, had always possessed a great fascination for me. I had been moved to write to Mrs. Gaskell when her biography of Charlotte appeared, and I had received from her more than one letter filled with interesting details about Charlotte's father, and his life after his daughter's death. When I went to Leeds in 1866, the first pilgrimage I made was to Haworth. That was less than eleven years after Charlotte's death, and at a time when there were, of course, many persons still living in the village who had a perfect recollection of the wonderful sisters. But, strange to say, Haworth was not in those days a popular "shrine." "Whiles some Americans come to see the church, but nobody else," was the statement made to me when I asked the sexton if there were many visitors to the home of the Brontës. My visit furnished me with a theme for a descriptive article which was printed in _Chambers's Journal_ in 1867, and, having written it, I believed that my connection with the Brontës was at an end. But when I went back to Leeds in 1870, I was struck by the fact that throughout the West Riding of Yorkshire there prevailed a widespread feeling that was nothing less than one of positive antipathy to the works and the story of the Brontës. Their books, though they dealt with local scenes and characters, were no longer read. In that respect, however, the West Riding hardly differed from the rest of England. What was peculiar to Yorkshire was the fact that, if you mentioned the name of Brontë in any average company, the chances were in favour of your being met with an indignant snort from someone who protested that Charlotte's stories were a disgraceful libel upon the district, and that "Wuthering Heights" was a book so dreadful in its character that its author would only have met with her deserts if she had been soundly whipped for writing it. I met more than one lady who had known the Brontës, and who, in reply to my eager questioning, spoke of them with undisguised contempt. I was assured that they were not ladies, that they were not even successful as governesses, that their father and brother were a pair of reprobates, and that they themselves, being embittered by the fact that they were not admitted to the good society of their neighbourhood, had deliberately