Hannah was evidently fond of talking [see my chapter on Tabitha
Aykroyd]. While I picked the fruit and she made the paste for the
pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details about ... her
deceased ... mistress, and "the childer," as she called the young
people.... There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever
had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time
they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak" of their own
[had individual character]. They had lived very little at home for
a long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on
account of their father's [aunt's] death: but they did so like
Marsh End and Morton [Haworth] and all these moors and hills
about. They had been in ... many grand towns, but they always said
there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable with
each other--never fell out nor "threaped" [asserted beyond the
argumentative point]. She did not know where there was such a
family for being united.
Emily Brontë as Diana says it is "a privilege we exercise in our home to
prepare our own meals when ... so inclined, or when Hannah [Tabby] is
baking, brewing, washing or ironing," which of course was true at
Haworth Parsonage. To give yet another description:--
The Rivers [Brontës] clung to the purple moors behind and around
their dwelling with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could
comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I
saw the fascination of the locality, ... my eye feasted on the
outline of swell and sweep.... The strong blast and the soft
breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and
sunset ... developed for me ... the same attraction as for
them--wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced
theirs.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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