The Brontë Family, with special reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë. Vol. 2 of 2Leyland, Francis A.
History
The Brontë Family, with special reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë. Vol. 2 of 2
Leyland, Francis A.
Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Brontë family; Brontë, Patrick Branwell, 1817-1848
ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.'
But there is in these very points a remarkable coincidence of feeling
between Branwell and Emily also. Indeed, in the expression of these
thoughts, Branwell's verse is well-nigh more powerful than Emily's. We
have known his desire for the oblivious peace of 'Real Rest'; and, in
his letters, he has sketched many head-stones, on one of which are the
words: 'I implore for rest'; and, in the 'Epistle to a Child in her
Grave,' he has told us of the freedom from ill of that quiet and
painless sepulchre. Here are a few stray lines of Branwell's, which
will serve as illustration of this coincidence:
'Think not that Life is happiness,
But deem it _duty_ joined with _care_;
Implore for _hope_ in your distress,
And for your answers, get _despair_;
Yet travel on, for Life's rough road
May end, at last, in rest with _God_!'
Again we may ask: did Branwell Brontë write 'Wuthering Heights,'
or any part of it? The evidence that he did so is, probably,
insufficient. But let it be remembered that, as stated in his letter
to Leyland, he had clearly undertaken a three-volume novel, and, in
one way or other, had written a volume of his story. The charge of
falsehood brought against Branwell in his statement to Mr. Grundy will
not now probably be renewed; but there may not be wanting some to say
that Mr. Grundy is in error in connecting what his friend said to him
about his own novel with some allusion of his sister's to 'Wuthering
Heights,' and that those gentlemen who believe the novel Branwell read
to them to be the same as that attributed to Emily are in error also.
It has been said that, on the rare occasions on which the father or
brother entered the room where the sisters were writing their novels,
nothing was said of the work in progress. But it must be confessed
that these views meet with little encouragement from what we know of
the history of that period.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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