The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
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The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 2
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography
see her; as she appeared, stepping supreme from the portico towards the
carriage, that evening we went to see 'Twelfth Night.' I believe in J.'s
future; I like what speaks in her movements, and what is written upon
her face."
Towards the latter end of September I went to Haworth. At the risk of
repeating something which I have previously said, I will copy out parts
of a letter which I wrote at the time.
"It was a dull, drizzly Indian-inky day, all the way on the railroad to
Keighley, which is a rising wool-manufacturing town, lying in a hollow
between hills--not a pretty hollow, but more what the Yorkshire people
call a 'bottom,' or 'botham.' I left Keighley in a car for Haworth,
four miles off--four tough, steep, scrambling miles, the road winding
between the wavelike hills that rose and fell on every side of the
horizon, with a long illimitable sinuous look, as if they were a part of
the line of the Great Serpent, which the Norse legend says girdles the
world. The day was lead-coloured; the road had stone factories alongside
of it,--grey, dull-coloured rows of stone cottages belonging to these
factories, and then we came to poor, hungry-looking fields;--stone
fences everywhere, and trees nowhere. Haworth is a long, straggling
village one steep narrow street--so steep that the flag-stones with
which it is paved are placed end-ways, that the horses' feet may have
something to cling to, and not slip down backwards; which if they did,
they would soon reach Keighley. But if the horses had cats' feet and
claws, they would do all the better. Well, we (the man, horse, car;
and I) clambered up this street, and reached the church dedicated to
St. Autest (who was he?); then we turned off into a lane on the left,
past the curate's lodging at the Sexton's, past the school-house, up
to the Parsonage yard-door. I went round the house to the front door,
looking to the church;--moors everywhere beyond and above. The crowded
grave-yard surrounds the house and small grass enclosure for drying
clothes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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