'Apologizing sincerely for what seems like whining egotism, and hardly daring to hint about the days when, in your company, I could sometimes sink the thoughts which "remind me of departed days," I fear departed never to return,--I remain, etc.' In this letter we see that Branwell details to Mr. Grundy the story about Mrs. ----, which he was publishing whenever he could obtain a hearing. He speaks, too, of his ill-health, the shattering of body and the breaking down of mind, which at the time prostrated him. Charlotte seems scarcely to have credited Branwell's representations of the bodily condition into which he had fallen; for she says, in one of her letters, a little later, 'Branwell offers no prospect of hope: he professes to be too ill to think of seeking employment.'[21] There are passages of a like tendency in others of Charlotte's letters about this time; but we shall see presently that, whatever might be his condition of health, he was by no means so unsolicitous for employment, or so heedless of the future, as she supposed. [21] 'Unpublished Letters of Charlotte Brontë,' _Hours at Home_, xi. CHAPTER VI. 'REAL REST.'--'PENMAENMAWR.' 'Real Rest'--Comments--Spirit of Branwell and Emily Identical--Letter to Leyland--Branwell Broods on his Sorrows--'Penmaenmawr'--Comments --He still Searches and Hopes for Employment--Charlotte's somewhat Overdrawn Expressions--The Alleged Elopement Proposal--Probable Origin of the Story. Though Branwell Brontë was so feeble in health that, despite his wishes, he found physical labour impossible, and though the reaction from utter despair--through whose impetus he completed one volume of his novel--had been followed by a condition which led him to think worthy literary work beyond his power, we find him, almost at the same time, writing two of the finest poems which remain from his hand. It has been seen, in the letter addressed to Mr. Grundy, how he declares that, owing to the state of his mind, he is unable to undertake any literary work worth reading. But we have certain knowledge of an immediate movement of his genius, and that it found expression in verse, which gave a free course to his feelings. In the following poem we have perhaps the most powerful and weird expression of inconsolable sorrow ever penned. A strange calm had now succeeded the storms of feeling its author had passed through. REAL REST.