A PASSAGE FROM A DIARY.
BY W. FRANCIS WILLIAMS.
"Such shrines as these are pilgrim shrines—
Shrines to no code or creed confined;
The Delphian vales, the Palestines,
The Meccas of the mind."
Halleck.
The date is September 5, 1857. I am at Haworth, whither I had walked from the Bradford Station, some ten or twelve miles distant. This Haworth—a place but a few years since quite unknown to any but the few residing in its immediate vicinity—is built upon the side of a hill, and, with its long line of grey houses creeping up the slope, seems like a huge saurian monster, sprawling along the hill-side, his head near the top and his tail reaching nearly to the vale below. At the summit, in the very head of our saurian, stands Haworth Parsonage, and the church near by, with the square old tower rising above the houses that cluster about it. I well remember my first view of this place. It was an autumn afternoon, and near sunset. The sky had been cloudy, but as I stopped to take my first long look at the little village, so hallowed by the memory of the Brontë sisters, the declining sun sent through a breach in the clouds a few spears of dazzling light, that played about the old church and parsonage with an ineffable glory. It lasted but a few moments, the sun went down, and darkness and night gradually settled over the scene. The little incident seemed almost like a type of the life of the gifted woman chiefly to whom Haworth owes its fame; for her life, like this very day, had been dark and wearisome, overshadowed by clouds of cares, tears falling like rain-drops upon new-made graves, until near its close, when there came a sweet season of bright domestic happiness, that lasted too shortly, and then gave place to the darkness and night of death.
Strolling through the village, after my quiet meal at the Black Bull Inn, which poor Branwell Brontë had so often frequented, I stopped to make some trifling purchases at a stationery store, and casually asked the proprietor—a small, delicate-looking man, with a bright eye and a highly intellectual countenance—if he remembered the Brontë sisters. It was a fortunate question, for he knew them well, and was a personal friend of the authoress of Jane Eyre, to whose handsomely-framed portrait he proudly pointed. He had provided her, as he said, with joyful delight, with the paper on which she wrote the manuscripts of most of her novels; he is referred to in one of Miss Brontë's letters to Mrs. Gaskell, as her "one friend in Haworth," and is the "working-man" mentioned in her memoirs, who wrote a little critique on Jane Eyre, that came to the notice of the authoress and afforded her great pleasure. To talk of the Brontë girls—to express his admiration of them to one who had come from America to visit their home and grave, was to him a great gratification. He told me how he used to meet them on the moors—how they were accustomed to stroll all three together, and talk and gather flowers; then how Emily died, and Anne and Charlotte were left to pace the familiar path arm-in-arm; then how they took Anne away to the sea-side, whence she never returned, while Charlotte would take her lonely moorland walk, rapt in sad contemplation. Sometimes he would meet her on these occasions, and if he passed by without attracting her attention, she would chide him when told of it afterward. She was always so kind, so good-hearted, and with those she knew, so really sociable.
Sunday, with my new friend, I attended the church. The storm of the day before had cleared away, and even the place of graves looked bright and cheerful. The churchyard was crowded with country people from miles around, who sat carelessly on the long, flat stones that so thickly covered the ground, waiting for the opening services, while the parish bell kept up a merry peal. Everything seemed simple and happy, and I do not wonder that the Brontës loved their home, with its little garden of lilac bushes, the old church in front, and the sweeping moors stretching far behind. On many a Sunday morning like this they had trodden the very path I then was treading, and had entered the church-door; but how few of these simple villagers knew the treasures of genius showered on these quiet, reserved sisters!
The church inside is old, and quaint, and simple; it can neither be called elegant, comfortable, spacious nor antique. Old Mr. Brontë was to preach, and the Rev. Mr. Nicholls read the service. As a compliment to a stranger, I had been invited by the organist of the church to play the organ—a neat little instrument of some eight or ten stops; and it was while "giving out" the familiar tune of Antioch that I noticed, in the reflection of a little mirror placed above the keyboard, that Mr. Brontë had entered the church, and was passing up the aisle. He wore the customary black gown, and the lower part of his face was quite buried in an enormous white neckcloth—the most monstrous article of the kind I had ever beheld. The reflection in that little mirror I shall never forget. The old man, walking feebly up the aisle, shading his eyes with his right hand, and supporting himself with a cane, the quiet congregation, and the singular dress and venerable bald head of the old preacher, all formed a character-picture, that is not often seen. His sermon was extempore, and consisted of a series of running paraphrases and simple and touching explanations upon a few verses selected from the Lamentations of Jeremiah.
After church, my friend the stationer walked with me on the moors. Charlotte Brontë's experience of the world was so very limited, that in drawing the characters in her novels, she had to select the real, living people in the vicinity. Thus, my friend pointed out one house and another to me as being the residence of many of the originals of many of the characters in her works, especially in "Shirley." Soon, however, our path across the moors took us out of human habitations, and among the moorland solitudes the Brontë sisters so fondly loved. Cold and desolate as they appear from a distance, a nearer examination proves them to be replete with exquisite beauty. Delicate heather-blooms carpet the immense slope, and bend like nodding plumes, in graceful waves, to the breezes that play heedlessly down the hill-side. Gay yellow buttercups, bright purple heath-flowers, and dark bilberries, vary the general violet tint, while the tiny stems of these gentle plants spring from rich tufts of emerald moss, and are pushed aside by the spray-like leaves of the wild fern. The hum of bees imparts a half busy, half drowsy sound to the scene, while far down the long easy slopes are little valleys, through which trickle talkative brooks, that sometimes peep between the low foliage on their margins, and are the next moment lost to sight behind the crowding bushes. It is no wonder that Charlotte and her sisters loved their quiet walks along the moors.