Branwell also wrote an interesting letter to Mr. Grundy on May 22nd, 1842, which that gentleman erroneously assigns to 1845.[40] In it he says that he cannot avoid the temptation, while sitting alone, all the household being at church, and he being the sole occupant of the parsonage, to scribble a few lines to cheer his spirits. He alludes to the extreme pain, illness, and mental depression he has endured since his dismissal. He describes himself, while at Luddenden Foot, as a 'miserable wreck,' as requiring six glasses of whisky to stimulate him, as almost insane! And he feels his recovery from this last stage of his condition to be retarded by 'having nothing to listen to except the wind moaning among old chimneys and older ash trees,--nothing to look at except heathery hills, walked over when life had all to hope for, and nothing to regret.' He reproaches himself, in bitter terms, with seeking indulgence, while at Luddenden Foot, in failings which formed, he declares, the black spot on his character. His sister Charlotte's mind appears to have been cast in the same gloomy mould; for, when suffering under bodily ailment, or the despondency and hopelessness which overshadowed her soul, she was impelled, as we have seen, to make confessions to her friend 'E' of her 'stings of conscience,' her 'visitings of remorse.' She hates her 'former flippancy and forwardness.' She is in a state of 'horrid, gloomy uncertainty,' and clouds are 'gathering darker,' and a more depressing despondency weighs upon her spirits.[41] [40] 'Pictures of the Past,' p. 84. [41] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Brontë,' chap. viii. In another letter to her friend, Charlotte says she is 'in a strange state of mind--still gloomy, but not despairing. I keep trying to do right.... I abhor myself, I despise myself.' And again, later, she wonders if the new year will be 'stained as darkly as the last with all our sins, follies, secret vanities, and uncontrolled passions and propensities,' saying 'I trust not; but I feel in nothing better, neither humbler nor purer.'[42] [42] 'Unpublished letters of Charlotte Brontë,' _Hours at Home_, vol. xi.