A reference to Mrs. Gaskell's Brontë _Life_ were sufficient to establish
the identifications, when I say that by Charlotte Brontë's Method II.
(the alteration of the age of a character portrayed) the Rev. Patrick
Brontë is represented as a young man in the Rev. St. John Eyre
Rivers--certainly a very necessary obfuscation, for it is to be seen the
home at Morton gives a most enlightening insight into the life at the
Haworth Parsonage. A death is supposed to have occurred in the Rivers
family; and when it is remembered Thornfield to Charlotte Brontë
represented the Hégers' establishment at Brussels, and that she left
Brussels the first time on account of the death of her aunt, Miss
Elizabeth Branwell who, after being the female head of the parsonage
some years, died there in the close of 1842, we may know for whom the
Rivers family were really in mourning. Charlotte Brontë tells us that,
looking through the window of Moor House--Haworth Parsonage:--
I could see ... an elderly woman [Tabitha Aykroyd--the Mrs. Dean
of _Wuthering Heights_], somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously
clean, like all about her, ... knitting a stocking.... Two young,
graceful women [Emily and Anne Brontë]--ladies in every
point--sat, one in a low rocking-chair, the other on a lower
stool; both wore deep mourning, ... which sombre garb singularly
set off very fair necks and faces: a large old ... dog [Emily had
a favourite dog] rested his massive head on the knee of one
girl--in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat. A strange
place was this humble kitchen for such occupants [but they were
ever fond of it]. Who were they? They could not be the daughters
of the elderly person at the table [Tabitha]; for she looked like
a rustic, and they were all delicacy and cultivation. I had
nowhere seen such faces as theirs; and yet, as I gazed on them I
seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call them
handsome--they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each
bent over a book they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A
stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes
to which they frequently referred; comparing them ... with the
smaller books they held in their hands like people consulting a
dictionary to aid ... in the task of translation. This scene was
as silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the fire-lit
apartment a picture.
"Listen, Diana [Emily Brontë]", said one of the absorbed students,
... and in a low voice she read ... in German.... The other girl,
who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, while
she gazed at the fire, a line.... "Good!" ... she exclaimed, while
her dark and deep eyes sparkled, ... "I like it!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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