Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 06.djvu/424

 Brontë cember' (, li. 20), indicated a hold upon public interest which needed no critical sanction. The second edition, dedicated to Thackeray, appeared in January 1848. 'Wuthering Heights' and 'Agnes Grey' were published in December, with comparatively little success. By the next June Anne's 'Tenant of Wildfell Hall' was offered to the same publisher. Hitherto the secret of the authorship of 'Jane Eyre' had been revealed by Charlotte to no one but her father, and to him only after its assured success (, ii. 36). It had been conjectured by some readers that the three Bells were in reality one. A foolish and impossible story attributed 'Jane Eyre' to an imaginary governess of Thackeray's, represented by Becky Sharp, who was supposed to have retorted by describing Thackeray as Rochester (Quarterly Review, December 1848).

On 28 April and 3 May 1848, Charlotte wrote to Miss Nussey, denying the rumour of its true origin with much vehemence, though with a self-betraying effort to avoid direct falsehood. She had, it seems, promised secrecy to her sisters. Meanwhile, the publisher of Emily's and Anne's novels had promised early sheets of the 'Tenant of Wildfell Hall' to an American house, stating his belief that it was by the author of 'Jane Eyre.' A difficulty arose with Messrs. Smith & Elder, who had promised the next work of the same author to another American firm. They wrote to Miss Brontë, and she, with Anne, immediately went to London in July to clear up the point decisively (, p. 89). The sisters went to the Chapter coffee-house and immediately called at Messrs. Smith & Elder's. They refused an invitation to stay at Mr. Smith's house, and, after going to the opera and seeing a few London sights, returned to Haworth, and to severe domestic trials.

Branwell died in September. Emily's health then showed symptoms of collapse. She would not complain, nor endure questioning. Only when actually dying (19 Dec. 1848) she said that she would see a doctor. Shirley Keeldar was Emily's portrait of her sister as she might have been under happier circumstances. The story of the courage with which Shirley burns out the scar of a mad dog's bite was true of Emily. The dog 'Tartar' was Emily's mastiff (Keeper). She once gave him a severe thrashing for a domestic offence, though she had been told that if touched by a stick he would certainly throttle her. The dog, it is added, loved her ever afterwards, followed her to her grave, became decrepit, and died in December 1851 (, ii. 239). Emily has been regarded by some critics as the ablest of the sisters. 'Wuthering Heights' and some of the poems give a promise more appreciable by critics than by general readers. The novel missed popularity by the general painfulness of the situation, by clumsiness of construction, and by the absence of the astonishing power of realisation manifest in 'Jane Eyre.' In point of style it is superior, but it is the nightmare of a recluse, not a direct representation of facts seen by genius. Though enthusiastically admired by good judges, it will hardly be widely appreciated. After Emily's death Anne rapidly sickened. Consumption soon declared itself. On 24 May she left Haworth for Scarborough, and died there, after patient endurance of her sufferings, on 28 May 1849. A touching poem, 'I hoped that with the brave and strong,' was her last composition.

For the next few years Charlotte lived alone with her father. She suffered frequently from nervous depression. Household cares troubled her. The old servant Tabby had broken her leg in 1837, when the younger Brontës insisted upon keeping her in the house, though she might have lived in tolerable ease with a sister. In the autumn of 1849 Tabby, now at the age of eighty, had a fit; a younger servant who helped was seriously ill, and Miss Brontë had to do all the housework besides nursing the patients (, ii. 122). She still persevered in literary composition, and 'Shirley,' the least melancholy of her stories, was published on 26 Oct. 1849. A Haworth man living at Liverpool easily divined the authorship, and the secret, already transparent, was openly abandoned. On a visit to Mr. George Smith, of Smith & Elder's, in the antumn of the same year, she was introduced to Thackeray and in various literary circles. It is curious that she denied explicitly that the characters in 'Shirley' were 'literal portraits' (, ii. 129). Yet it is admitted that an original stood for almost every person, if not for every person, introduced. Besides Shirley herself, who was meant for Emily, Mr. Helstone, who partly represented the elder Brontë, Caroline, who represented Miss Nussey, Mrs. Pryor and Mr. Hall had certainly originals; the whole family of Yorkes were 'almost daguerreotypes' (, i. 115), and one of the sons himself confirmed their accuracy ; while the 'three curates' not only recognised their own likenesses, but called each other by the names given in the novel. In her last finished story, 'Villette,' the same method is applied to her life at Brussels. A too close reproduction of realities is in fact her