'That is true; but then these are quite of another kind; they are so pretty and unique that I could not help wishing for them.'
'Well, since your heart is so much set upon the baubles, I will see whether my purse can compass their price, if you will allow me to accompany you to Mr. Lapis's.'
'Oh! thank you, Arthur, you are very kind,' said Lady Julia, and both the ladies quickly made room for him as he sprang in and seated himself between them.
In a few minutes they reached the jeweller's shop. Mr. Lapis received them with an obsequious bow, and proceeded to display his glittering stores. The pendants which had so fascinated Lady Julia were in the form of two brilliant little humming-birds, whose jewelled plumage equalled if not surpassed the bright hues of nature….
This gay and pleasant fragment of a story, in which the characters and scenes are so freshly drawn, may well be imagined as one of the best, if not the best, of these productions of the Brontë children. We may, indeed, regard the spirit and style of these early stories as the outcome of their eager and observant reading of the magazine and newspaper articles within their reach—when their plastic minds would receive indelible impressions, from which they, perhaps without knowing it, acquired the knowledge and practice of accurate literary composition, and of how to clothe their thoughts in fitting words. Their retentive memories, and their intuitive faculty of putting things, brought them thus early to the threshold of the republic of letters. Mrs. Gaskell states that these works were principally written by Charlotte in a hand so small as to be 'almost impossible to decipher without the aid of a magnifying glass.' The specimen she gives is written in an upright hand, and was an attempt to represent the stories in a kind of print, as near as might be to type. If, however, Charlotte and Emily ever accustomed themselves in these early works to this diminutive type-like writing, they threw it off completely in after-years. This, Branwell never did, and Mrs. Gaskell's fac-simile page is not without some resemblance to one of his ordinary pages of manuscript reduced in size.
Mr. T. Wemyss Reid observes that Mrs. Gaskell, in speaking of the juvenile performances of the Brontë children, 'paid exclusive attention to Charlotte's productions.' 'All readers of the Brontë story,' he says, 'will remember the account of the play of "The Islanders," and other remarkable specimens, showing with what real vigour and originality Charlotte could handle her pen while she was still in the first years of her teens.' And he adds that 'those few persons who have seen the whole of the juvenile library of the family bear testimony to the fact that Branwell and Emily were at least as industrious and successful as Charlotte herself.'[ [15]
Even at this early period the youthful Brontës had read industriously. 'Blackwood's Magazine' had, as early as the year 1829, asserted itself to Charlotte's childish taste as 'the most able periodical there is,' and ever afterwards the whole family looked with the greatest pleasure for the brilliant essays of Christopher North and his coterie. Of other papers they saw 'John Bull' and the 'Leeds Intelligencer,' both uncompromising Conservatives, and the 'Leeds Mercury,' of the opposite party. The youthful Brontës were also readers of the 'British Essayists,' 'The Rambler,' 'The Mirror,' and 'The Lounger,' and they were great admirers of Scott.
But the advice which Charlotte afterwards gave to her friend 'E,' with regard to books for perusal, shows that their reading had been much wider: Shakespeare, Milton, Thomson, Goldsmith, Pope, Byron, Campbell, and Wordsworth; Hume, Rollin, and the 'Universal History;' Johnson's 'Poets,' Boswell's 'Johnson,' Southey's 'Nelson,' Lockhart's 'Burns,' Moore's 'Sheridan,' Moore's 'Byron,' and Wolfe's 'Remains;' and for natural history, she recommends Bewick, Audubon, White, and, strangely enough, Goldsmith. Branwell's favourite poets were Wordsworth and the melancholy Cowper, whose 'Castaway' he was always fond of quoting. The Brontës, in their young years, obtained much of their intellectual food from the circulating library at Keighley.
The extraordinary literary activity which prompted these children never afterwards left them; and Branwell, along with his sisters, was, as we have seen, the author of many effusions of remarkable character. But, as time passed on, and experience was gained, his literary productions began to acquire more vigour and polish. Yet the tone of his mind, however joyous it might be at times, recurred, when the immediate occasion had passed, to that pensive melancholy which, throughout his life, was his most marked characteristic.