All that related to him (the Duke of Wellington) belonged to the heroic age. Did Charlotte want a knight-errant, or a devoted lover, the Marquis of Douro, or Lord Charles Wellesley, came ready to her hand. There is hardly one of her prose writings at this time in which…their ‘august father’ does not appear as a sort of Jupiter Tonans, or Deus ex Machinâ.
The country ‘discovered’ by the twelve adventurers became the scene of nearly all the stories written by Charlotte Brontë during the following eleven years. Originally named ‘The Country of the Genii,’ the fairies deserted it after Charlotte’s school-days at Roe Head (1831-1832), and the country was re-named ‘The Kingdom of Angria.’ The ‘great city’ became ‘The Glass Town’ or ‘Verreopolis,’ which was afterwards changed to ‘Verdopolis,’ the chief city of Angria.
C. W. H.
CHAPTER I
THE COUNTRY OF THE GENII
There is a tradition that some thousands of years ago twelve men from Britain, of a most gigantic size, and twelve men from Gaul, came over to the country of the genii, and while here were continually at war with each other; and, after remaining many years, returned again to Britain and Gaul. In the inhabited parts of the genii countries there are now no vestiges of them, though it is said there have been found some colossal skeletons in that wild, barren sand, the evil desert.
I have read a book called The Travels of Captain Parnell, out of which the following is an extract:
About four in the afternoon I saw a dark red cloud arise in the east, which gradually grew larger till it covered the whole sky. As the cloud spread the wind rose and blew a tremendous hurricane. The sand of the desert began to move and rolled like the waves of the sea. As soon as I saw this I threw myself on my face and stopped my breath, for I knew that this was a tornado or whirlwind. I remained in this situation for three minutes; at the end of that time I ventured to look up. The whirlwind had passed over and had not hurt me, but close by lay my poor camel quite dead. At this sight I could not forbear weeping; but my attention was soon diverted by another object. About one hundred yards further off lay an immense skeleton. I immediately ran up to it and examined it closely. While I was gazing at the long ghastly figure which lay stretched upon the sand before me the thought came into my mind that it might be the skeleton of one of those ancient Britons who, tradition tells us, came from their own country to this evil land, and here miserably perished. While I was pursuing this train of meditation, I observed that it was bound with a long chain of rusty iron. Suddenly the iron clanked and the bones strove to rise, but a huge mountain of sand overwhelmed the skeleton with a tremendous crash, and when the dust which had hid the sun and enveloped everything in darkness cleared away, not a mark could be distinguished to show the future traveller where the bones had lain.
Now, if this account be true—and I see no reason why we should suppose it is not—I think we may fairly conclude that these skeletons are evil genii chained in these deserts by the fairy Maimoune.[*]
There are several other traditions, but they are all so obscure that no reliance is to be placed on them.