Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm fair Dowdy and I'm de Blaye and chuco boarding
Speaker 1: and we are going back to the Brontes today. We
Speaker 1: talked about them recently, and when we left off the
Speaker 1: last episode, we had just finished discussing their early live Charlotte, Brandwell,
Speaker 1: Emily and Bronte's early lives the four children of the
Speaker 1: Reverend Patrick Bronte of how Earth, and by their early twenties,
Speaker 1: these four brilliant Bronte children were in a bit of
Speaker 1: a rut. Really, Brandwell, who was expected to be a
Speaker 1: great artist or writer, the really the pride of the
Speaker 1: family is the only son, was working as a railway
Speaker 1: clerk and becoming increasingly reliant on alcohol and opium. The
Speaker 1: three girls, meanwhile, had at various points taken unpleasant teaching
Speaker 1: jobs to governessing jobs that they really weren't that well
Speaker 1: suited for. Yeah, so it seems like a blessing one.
Speaker 1: In forty one, there living aunt Elizabeth Brandwell proposed using
Speaker 1: her savings to set the girls up with their own school.
Speaker 1: Charlotte quickly sweetened the deal by convincing her aunt father.
Speaker 1: To make the school work, they need some accomplishments like
Speaker 1: flawless French and a good grasp of Italian and German,
Speaker 1: so they hatched this plan. Charlotte and Emily would study
Speaker 1: for six months at the Poncionale j and Brussels before
Speaker 1: coming back, reuniting with Anne and opening up their own school.
Speaker 1: So it really sounds like a pretty good plan. But
Speaker 1: for nature loving home body Emily, leaving Howard was really painful.
Speaker 1: She loved being out in the moors. For Charlotte, though
Speaker 1: it was thrilling, it was so exciting to finally get
Speaker 1: out into the world in experience some of all that
Speaker 1: she'd been reading about for years and years. The two shy,
Speaker 1: kind of country Bronte girls must have really stood out
Speaker 1: among their fancier and their Catholic Belgian peers at Madame
Speaker 1: J's school for girls, but they did pretty well all
Speaker 1: with their lessons. They took private French lessons from Monsieur
Speaker 1: a J, who was a respected professor, and they were
Speaker 1: really doing so well, in fact, that at the end
Speaker 1: of their six months of study, Madame is J suggested
Speaker 1: that they stay on for a while longer Charlotte would
Speaker 1: teach English, Emily would instruct music, and that would be
Speaker 1: kind of a trade for their lessons, so they wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to keep on funding their own schooling. But in
Speaker 1: October two where it came that Aunt Brandwell was dead,
Speaker 1: so they headed home, finding that Brandwell was also there,
Speaker 1: having been fired from his railroad job after a discrepancy
Speaker 1: was found in the account. So brand Well was at
Speaker 1: it again. It's no wonder that Charlotte was soon eager
Speaker 1: to accept the A J's invitation to return to Belgium
Speaker 1: and continue her studies and would keep Governess sane and
Speaker 1: Emily would tend to their father, who was increasingly suffering
Speaker 1: from cataracts. Again. In one year they had reunite and
Speaker 1: finally start their school together. This guy around. How Over,
Speaker 1: Charlotte didn't exactly concentrate fully on her studies. Things were
Speaker 1: okay at first, but without her sister Emily there, she
Speaker 1: became very lonely, and she started to fixate more and
Speaker 1: more on her master, her professor Muilsieur j. And if
Speaker 1: you'd like to see another side of Charlotte, one that
Speaker 1: almost helps reconcile her as the author of the passionate book.
Speaker 1: Jane Ere, I'd recommend checking out these letters to Monsieur J.
Speaker 1: They're kind of like love letters but not. And consequently,
Speaker 1: Charlotte's friends, the a J's and their children and countless
Speaker 1: Bronte historians have tried to figure out what exactly was
Speaker 1: going on between these two, Whether Charlotte loved Monsieur J
Speaker 1: in a romantic way, whether he was innocent and encouraging
Speaker 1: that admiration, you know, or whether he was just interested
Speaker 1: in her as a student, somebody who wanted to help
Speaker 1: learn French better and appreciate literature more. And then whether
Speaker 1: Charlotte even realized that her tonic obsession could be mistaken
Speaker 1: by some people as adulterous love for this guy who
Speaker 1: was married and had a large and constantly growing family.
Speaker 1: So she might have just been a little bit naive
Speaker 1: in that respect. But even if Charlotte was unaware of
Speaker 1: the way her feelings could be taken, Madam a J
Speaker 1: was not. As Charlotte's second year in Belgium war on,
Speaker 1: Madam Aja ended the pairs one on one English lessons,
Speaker 1: she started acting really coolly towards Charlotte as well, and
Speaker 1: Charlotte even came to believe that Madame a Jay had
Speaker 1: another teacher spy on her. By the end of the year,
Speaker 1: Charlotte was packing her bags to head back to Haworth,
Speaker 1: where she started correspondence. Those first letters must have been
Speaker 1: appropriate enough. We don't know what they contained because they
Speaker 1: don't survive. But after a few months, Monsieur a J
Speaker 1: stopped writing back, and Charlotte got even more desperate. Fortunately, though,
Speaker 1: these letters do survive because even though Monsieur a J
Speaker 1: ripped them up, his wife stitched them back together as
Speaker 1: quote a safeguard for the future. According to Charlotte Bronte's
Speaker 1: biographer Rebecca Frasier, just to give you an example of
Speaker 1: the kind of writing we're talking about, I mean, it
Speaker 1: does sound very much like a love letter. Here's an
Speaker 1: example from a January letter, Charlotte wrote, quote, all I
Speaker 1: know is that I cannot that I will not resign
Speaker 1: myself to lose wholly the friendship of my master. I
Speaker 1: would rather suffer the greatest physical pain and then always
Speaker 1: have my heart lacerated by smarting regrets. If my master
Speaker 1: withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall be altogether
Speaker 1: without hope. If he gives me a little, just a little.
Speaker 1: I shall be satisfied, happy, I shall have reason for living,
Speaker 1: on for working. So like a love letter, but again
Speaker 1: not quite like a love letter, something kind of in between,
Speaker 1: but also clearly kind of inappropriate. It's ambiguous, but there's
Speaker 1: definitely some sort of very strong attachment there. Meanwhile, though,
Speaker 1: the Bronte ladies were making arrangements for their long planned
Speaker 1: school because Mr Bronte's cataracts had nearly blinded him. Emily
Speaker 1: and Charlotte decided the school should be at the parsonage,
Speaker 1: which is kind of a bad idea since, as you'll remember,
Speaker 1: it was pretty out of the way, so it was
Speaker 1: impossible for students to find. And that was really unfortunate too,
Speaker 1: because by the summer of eighty five all of the
Speaker 1: Bronte children were at home again and unemployed, and had
Speaker 1: resigned her four year position as the governess for the
Speaker 1: Robinson family in June, mysteriously writing in her secret diary.
Speaker 1: By the way, I quote, I was then at Thorpe Green,
Speaker 1: and now I am only just escaped from it. During
Speaker 1: my stay, I've had some very unpleasant and undreamt of
Speaker 1: experiences of human nature, kind of a strange thing to
Speaker 1: write a month after you leave a job. And then
Speaker 1: in July Brandwell had his own sort of strange exit
Speaker 1: from employment. He had been working for the Robinson's as
Speaker 1: a tutor also, and he got a note from his
Speaker 1: boss Ball on vacation. The gist of it was, I
Speaker 1: know what you did. It's despicable. Don't ever contact me
Speaker 1: or my family again, quote on pain of exposure. So
Speaker 1: that's a pretty serious way to be dismissed. And it
Speaker 1: seems that while Charlotte was wrestling with her possibly adulterous
Speaker 1: feelings for Monsieur j but likely no more than feelings,
Speaker 1: brand Will was having an actual affair with the mother
Speaker 1: of his pupil, appropriately enough named Mrs Robinson um Or
Speaker 1: at least that was Brandwell's version of the story, the
Speaker 1: one that he told to his drinking buddies that he
Speaker 1: had had a long term affair with the promises of
Speaker 1: eventually running away together, eventually marrying. Brandwell of course, dreaming
Speaker 1: of being supported by this wealthier woman and being able
Speaker 1: to indulge his talents, you know, write poetry, right, novels,
Speaker 1: paint that sort of thing. So again it's unclear exactly
Speaker 1: what happened between the two of them, But there are
Speaker 1: some facts. At the time of Brandwell's dismissal, Mr Robinson
Speaker 1: was dying, and this is Robinson did marry again, but
Speaker 1: she married again to a very well connected, wealthy man,
Speaker 1: not an improverished tutor. Mrs Robinson's doctor also later sent
Speaker 1: Brandwell large amounts of money, and her coachman eventually paid
Speaker 1: a secret visit to Brandwell. So something fishy going on there.
Speaker 1: We're just not sure what. The only problem with the
Speaker 1: whole brand Well and Mrs Robinson romance scenario is that
Speaker 1: Mr Robinson clearly thought only brand Well was at fault,
Speaker 1: you know, hence the on pain of exposure. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: doesn't sound like he's going to expose his wife to
Speaker 1: public scrutiny. It sounds like everybody will blame brand Well
Speaker 1: if what happened comes out. Plus, let's just be honest,
Speaker 1: who could really trust brand Well? At this point, he
Speaker 1: was getting into a pattern of raving all night long
Speaker 1: and passing out during the day. Over the next year,
Speaker 1: he set his bed on fire. He was actually rescued
Speaker 1: by Emily and he had to start sleeping in Mr
Speaker 1: Bronte's room, which was kind of a scary thought, since
Speaker 1: Mr Ande famously slept with a loaded pistol, and because
Speaker 1: Branwell was kind of threatening his own life by this point.
Speaker 1: So during all of this drama, the three Bronte women
Speaker 1: were ironically creating their own drama. Charlotte had started writing
Speaker 1: The Professor, Anne was writing Agnes Gray, and Emily was
Speaker 1: working on Wuthering Heights. But they still might have destroyed
Speaker 1: away on their novels like another piece of Angrin or
Speaker 1: Gondol fiction if Charlotte hadn't discovered a manuscript of Emily's
Speaker 1: poems in the fall of eighty five. I mean you
Speaker 1: can imagine she was completely excited, completely thrilled to make
Speaker 1: this discovery, and she wrote about that a lot later,
Speaker 1: sometimes publicly, but in a later letter she wrote, they
Speaker 1: stirred my heart like the sound of a trumpet when
Speaker 1: I read them alone and in secret. The deep excitement
Speaker 1: I felt forced from me the confession of the discovery
Speaker 1: I had made. I was sternly rated at first for
Speaker 1: having taken an unwarrantable liberty. So you can imagine Emily
Speaker 1: was not pleased with her sister reading her secret poems
Speaker 1: she'd been working on, but After some strong convincing, Charlotte
Speaker 1: did talk Emily into publishing a group volume, so if
Speaker 1: all the sisters published it would be okay, and they
Speaker 1: would also publish under gender ambiguous pseudonyms Kerr Ellis and
Speaker 1: Acton Bell. A lot of speculation about where that name
Speaker 1: Bell came from, though, yeah, Bell was possibly chosen as
Speaker 1: a joke on Mr Bronte's curate, Mr Arthur Bell Nichols,
Speaker 1: who apparently really amused these women by bragging about his
Speaker 1: Bell relations. He'll come up again, So that's a good
Speaker 1: name to remember, even aside from the pseudonym relation. Indeed,
Speaker 1: so financed by their aunt's savings and with Charlotte acting
Speaker 1: as the mysterious Bell's literary agent, they published poems by
Speaker 1: Kerr Ellis and Acton Bell on the best paper they
Speaker 1: could afford, and the book got some great reviews. The
Speaker 1: critic called it a quote ray of sunshine. But it's
Speaker 1: still only sold two copies. But still they were published writers,
Speaker 1: which was something. I mean, it probably gave them the
Speaker 1: confidence to keep on writing and do what they were
Speaker 1: about to do, because by the summer of eighteen forty six,
Speaker 1: the Brontes were really shopping around their novels, this time
Speaker 1: unwilling to front the entire cost of publishing themselves. They
Speaker 1: weren't willing to go vanity all the way, but they
Speaker 1: were finding no takers for their three novels. The same
Speaker 1: day that Charlotte attended her father's cataract surgery in Manchester,
Speaker 1: she found that they had been rejected. So she was
Speaker 1: in kind of a bad place. She was in Manchester.
Speaker 1: Her father was recovering from his eye surgery. You know,
Speaker 1: nineteenth century eye surgery, you can imagine kind of unpleasant.
Speaker 1: It was a long recovery. It required total silence. Her
Speaker 1: novel wasn't getting anywhere, and so she started to write
Speaker 1: a new book called Jane Eyre. She wrote for three
Speaker 1: weeks straight and by the time her father had the
Speaker 1: okay to go home and September, she had written all
Speaker 1: the way through Jane and Mr Rochester's canceled wedding in
Speaker 1: Jane's White which when you read Jane here, I think
Speaker 1: it'll be neat next time. I next time I read
Speaker 1: it to know that breaking point in her writing, because
Speaker 1: just looking back on it, you can see there's a
Speaker 1: definitive shift in the tone of the novel, and I
Speaker 1: can definitely imagine that first part being written in this frenzy.
Speaker 1: That's true, But three weeks that's amazing to me. Anne
Speaker 1: hadn't let rejection stop her either. She had started writing
Speaker 1: The Tenant of Wildfill Hall, and with Charlotte home again,
Speaker 1: she Emily and Anne would take turns reading new chapters
Speaker 1: of their books around the fire, and I would just
Speaker 1: love to be a fly on the wall in that room.
Speaker 1: But by the following summer they had an offer from
Speaker 1: Newby Publishers in London for Anne and Emily's books, and
Speaker 1: Charlotte continued to shop the professor around, setting it to Smith,
Speaker 1: Elder and Company, where it was read by A William Smith.
Speaker 1: Williams and Williams read the book and he rejected it,
Speaker 1: but not without also encouraging the author to submit something
Speaker 1: with a bit more action, maybe a bit like Jane
Speaker 1: Eyre perhaps, so Charlotte sent off her exciting new second
Speaker 1: manuscript to Williams in August. He read the manuscript, he
Speaker 1: handed it over to his boss, George Smith, who read
Speaker 1: it in one day, and the firm published the new
Speaker 1: novel by October to almost a media and overwhelming acclaim.
Speaker 1: I mean, just this remarkable that you had finished this novel,
Speaker 1: you know, polish it up in August, send it off,
Speaker 1: and it would be published and a hit by October.
Speaker 1: It's hard to imagine today, I think a new book
Speaker 1: being as much of a cultural phenomenon as Jane Eyre was. Ellen.
Speaker 1: Charlotte's dear friend wrote a visiting London during the first
Speaker 1: height of Belle Fever, and she said, when I reached London,
Speaker 1: I found there was quite a furor about the authorship
Speaker 1: of the new novel. The work was quickly obtained, and
Speaker 1: as soon as it arrived, it was seized upon. In
Speaker 1: the first half paid read aloud, it was as though
Speaker 1: Charlotte Bronte herself was present in every word, her voice
Speaker 1: and spirit thrilling through and through everybody was talking about it. Gradually, though,
Speaker 1: the tone of the reviews began to change from ecstatic
Speaker 1: to critical. Reviewers found the novel course your religious more salacious.
Speaker 1: Gossip started when Charlotte decided to dedicate the second addition
Speaker 1: to her literary hero William Thackeray. That was kind of
Speaker 1: a mistake because it turned out that Thackeray himself had
Speaker 1: a mad wife, and folks started guessing that Kerr Bell
Speaker 1: was actually Thackeray's mistress. Yeah, you can imagine all parties
Speaker 1: were pretty embarrassed by this discovery. Despite the gossip, though
Speaker 1: in the hurtful interpretations of Charlotte's work, at least her
Speaker 1: book was very popular. It was selling well. Weathering Heights, meanwhile,
Speaker 1: was getting terrible reviews. The Atlas called it quote strange
Speaker 1: and inartistic story. Many readers figured that it must have
Speaker 1: come from this particularly wicked mind. I mean today, it's
Speaker 1: it's so strange to imagine people dissing on Weathering Heights
Speaker 1: so much. It's a classic something you breathe in every
Speaker 1: high school English class. But um, people were experiously disturbed
Speaker 1: by it at the time. Agnes Spray, a book novelist
Speaker 1: George Moore later called quote as simple and beautiful as
Speaker 1: a muslin dress. Hardly earned any buzz at all at
Speaker 1: the Thomas, where some also started accusing the Bells of
Speaker 1: being one writer, a theory which was encouraged by Emily
Speaker 1: and Anne's own publisher, who was hoping to cash in
Speaker 1: on the success of Curve Bell. The confusion finally got
Speaker 1: bad enough for Charlotte and to practically run to the
Speaker 1: nearest town in order to get to London meet Mr
Speaker 1: Smith and prove that there were at least two bells.
Speaker 1: So then there's a big change in this story. It's
Speaker 1: this rapid ascent of fame. But in the fall of
Speaker 1: eighty eight, less than a year after the appearance of
Speaker 1: Jane Eyre, the Brontes world really began to transform. It
Speaker 1: started with Branwell dying in September, and he may have
Speaker 1: seemed like he was in constant danger of drinking himself
Speaker 1: to death or committing suice that are, having some unfortunate
Speaker 1: accident while sleeping in the room with the loaded pistols,
Speaker 1: but no one in the family had really realized that
Speaker 1: he was seriously ill with tuberculosis as well. His alcoholism
Speaker 1: had effectively covered it up until almost the very end,
Speaker 1: and one of the details about all the Bronte's lives
Speaker 1: would There are so many sad details we could choose from,
Speaker 1: but one of the saddest me is that Charlotte, Emily
Speaker 1: and Anne never told their brother that they had become
Speaker 1: famous authors. They finally did tell their father, but they
Speaker 1: just didn't feel up to letting Brandwell know, and, as
Speaker 1: Charlotte later wrote, fear of causing him too deep, a
Speaker 1: pang of remorse for his own time misspent and talents misapplied.
Speaker 1: And that was their reason for holding it back for them,
Speaker 1: you know, the their fellow writer in childhood. Something about
Speaker 1: that so tragic. Another weird thing. According to Encyclopedia Britannica,
Speaker 1: some of Branwell's friends later thought he co authored Weathering
Speaker 1: Heights because it was so masculine. And I mean that
Speaker 1: makes the whole thing that they never told him at
Speaker 1: all even more strange, that it almost would fit with him.
Speaker 1: And after Brandwell's death, the bad news just kind of
Speaker 1: kept coming for the Brontes. Emily got a cold at
Speaker 1: Brandwell's funeral. By December, she was also dead from tuberculosis.
Speaker 1: Her dog keeper walked in the funeral procession with the
Speaker 1: Brontes and their servants. He sat in their pew at
Speaker 1: the church, and he lay outside of her empty room
Speaker 1: for a week and how old. And just a few
Speaker 1: weeks after that and was also diagnosed with tuberculosis. And
Speaker 1: unlike Emily, who had really resisted any kind of medicine,
Speaker 1: any kind of doctor's interference until the literal end um,
Speaker 1: Anne took every possible remedy, including a trip to the
Speaker 1: sea in May, but she died May away from home.
Speaker 1: So just one year brings three published novels, and the
Speaker 1: next year brings three family death. It's kind of the
Speaker 1: remarkable tragedy of the Brontes lives. And home was obviously
Speaker 1: so sad and so lonely for Charlotte, now the only
Speaker 1: surviving child of six. She wrote about how happy the
Speaker 1: dogs were when she came home because they thought that
Speaker 1: maybe the other two weren't too far behind, and she
Speaker 1: just felt really lonely. Her father was um a kind
Speaker 1: of distant during this time too, as you can imagine.
Speaker 1: So the next period of Charlotte's life bounced between this
Speaker 1: loneliness and depression at home and then brief getaways filled
Speaker 1: with festivals and treats that were worthy of a famous novelist,
Speaker 1: because of course, her fame hadn't gone away in the meantime,
Speaker 1: she had just kind of left it for a while.
Speaker 1: She finished her second which was really her third work
Speaker 1: entitled Shirley, and made a second visit to London, clad
Speaker 1: and Sable, picked out by her friend Ellen, and on
Speaker 1: her third trip to London, she was showered with attention
Speaker 1: from a publisher, George Smith, they even visited the zoo together,
Speaker 1: and they kind of stalked the Duke of Wellington together,
Speaker 1: which really fun for her. Charlotte's hero, her childhood hero.
Speaker 1: I think they sort of waited for him like on
Speaker 1: his church root and caught a few glimpsees of him.
Speaker 1: During this period, Charlotte also met the novelist Mrs Elizabeth Gaskell,
Speaker 1: who turned out to be her future biographer, and who
Speaker 1: was really quickly impressed by Charlotte's hard life story and
Speaker 1: her talent and wanted to help her rehabilitate her image
Speaker 1: a little bit. So gradually word was starting to slowly
Speaker 1: creep out that Kerr Bell was actually Charlotte Bronte, even
Speaker 1: back home in Yorkshire, and one funny account, Charlotte wrote
Speaker 1: to Ellen that her family's made Martha came to her saying, quote,
Speaker 1: I've heard such news, please, ma'am. You've been and written
Speaker 1: two books, the grandest books that ever was seen. And
Speaker 1: I thought it was really funny to learn that. While
Speaker 1: Charlotte started to handle her fame in London, you know,
Speaker 1: she got to meet her famous author friends and do
Speaker 1: all of that, do fun things. She was a little
Speaker 1: bit terrified with being known as this famous author back home,
Speaker 1: because it meant that her actual her actual neighbors would
Speaker 1: go and try to figure out who were the characters
Speaker 1: in her books, which does sound pretty terrifying, and she
Speaker 1: had to be around them all she did she could
Speaker 1: go go back to her tiny home and forget about
Speaker 1: it all. So amid all of this growing fame, though,
Speaker 1: Charlotte attracted a third suitor. We talked about her first
Speaker 1: two in the first part of this little series, but
Speaker 1: this guy was James Taylor, who was an agent at
Speaker 1: her publisher, and they've been writing to each other for
Speaker 1: some time, but really their correspondence was kind of third
Speaker 1: rung with her literary correspondence at her publishing how she
Speaker 1: had always sort of preferred writing to Mr Williams, the
Speaker 1: guy who had discovered her. They talked about books and
Speaker 1: all sorts of things, and then she was obviously starting
Speaker 1: to get a bit of a crush on the publisher himself,
Speaker 1: Mr George Smith, he of the zoo trips and the
Speaker 1: lavish attentions. Mr Taylor, though, had kind of a thing
Speaker 1: for Charlotte, and he ended up being spurred on by
Speaker 1: his impending move to India to go ahead declare his
Speaker 1: love for her and propose. Charlotte of course refused, but
Speaker 1: it certainly got her thinking about that growing crush on
Speaker 1: George Smith. But her next trip to London must have
Speaker 1: really squashed this idea. She wasn't the only one thinking
Speaker 1: about it too. It seems that even her father, Patrick Bronte,
Speaker 1: seemed to have some hopes or ideas that she might
Speaker 1: end up with George Smith. It turned out, though, on
Speaker 1: that next trip that Smith was clearly just going to
Speaker 1: be a friend, just going to be her publisher, and
Speaker 1: she made that quite obvious in a somewhat awkward way
Speaker 1: in her final complete novel, The Let, by having the
Speaker 1: Charlotte like heroine not end up with the George Smith
Speaker 1: like Dr John Graham bretton which, of course I mean
Speaker 1: that's awkward because Mr Smith was of course reading these
Speaker 1: manuscripts and figuring out, oh, that would be awkward. So
Speaker 1: that sort of chance that love didn't work out for Charlotte,
Speaker 1: But she had other things to keep her busy when
Speaker 1: she wasn't so bothered by her own characterization in the
Speaker 1: press as an immoral course writer. She disliked her sister's
Speaker 1: memories being disrespected. According to an article in Women's Writing
Speaker 1: by Susan R. Bauman, it's largely Charlotte who's responsible for
Speaker 1: Emily's later reputation as the wild more Poetus and Anne's
Speaker 1: as the devotional Christian writer. And she did this by
Speaker 1: shaming reviewers with biographical details of her sister's lives and
Speaker 1: sad deaths, editing and publishing more of their poems, and
Speaker 1: more strangely, sometimes even agreeing with critics negative assessments of
Speaker 1: their work. So consequently, some Bronze biographers considered Charlotte the
Speaker 1: snafari's curator of her sister's writing. Bauman mentioned theories ranging
Speaker 1: from Charlotte tricking Emily into revealing her poetry so not
Speaker 1: just like I can't believe you read my poetry, but
Speaker 1: let's get over it in a bit, something more furious
Speaker 1: than that um and then theories even as extreme as
Speaker 1: Charlotte purposefully destroying Emily's second novel after her death out
Speaker 1: of jealousy. Interesting to note here since Charlotte is so
Speaker 1: very much responsible for the way people ultimately saw Emily Bronte,
Speaker 1: and Bronte her own life was shaped largely by Mrs
Speaker 1: Gaskell's biography that came out after Charlotte's death, which really
Speaker 1: turned her from this sketchy writer of naughty books to
Speaker 1: a heartbroken, admirable churchgoing woman who had never neglected her more.
Speaker 1: I don't know quote womanly duties at home. She was
Speaker 1: the parson's daughter. She was the parson's wife, um not
Speaker 1: the scandalous writer that she was depicted as. Charlotte's posthumous
Speaker 1: reputation was also shaped by her widower. Remember that Mr Nichols,
Speaker 1: the curate that we talked about earlier. This is why
Speaker 1: we asked you to remember him. While Charlotte had gone
Speaker 1: from making fun of him with her sisters to at
Speaker 1: least thinking of him as a nice guy, he had
Speaker 1: fallen head over heels without her even noticing. And on
Speaker 1: December eighteen fifty three she received the fourth out of
Speaker 1: nowhere proposal of her life. And this time Charlotte's father
Speaker 1: was furious that his poor Irish curate, um kind of
Speaker 1: a lot like himself, would court his daughter. You know,
Speaker 1: he really thought that Charlotte deserved somebody with more money,
Speaker 1: somebody with more prestige. But instead of calling under some
Speaker 1: rock and disappearing, Nichols escalated this courtship to really an
Speaker 1: all out war with Mr Bronte. It was so awkward
Speaker 1: he handed in his notice, but he was stuck in
Speaker 1: the town for several months, having to see each other
Speaker 1: all the time. Charlotte once um once. Mr Nichols did
Speaker 1: eventually leave. How Charlotte eventually got permission from her father
Speaker 1: to start communicating with him and eventually start visiting him.
Speaker 1: She's thirty seven at this point, to just consider that,
Speaker 1: and then ultimately they married in June eighteen d four.
Speaker 1: Her father was supposedly too sick to attend the ceremony,
Speaker 1: so she was given away by her old friend, Miss Willer,
Speaker 1: whose school she had attended so many years before, and
Speaker 1: wore a white embroidered dress, a bonnet and a veil,
Speaker 1: and was said to look like a little snow drop
Speaker 1: there in the middle of the in the middle of
Speaker 1: the summer. By December, Charlotte was writing to Ellen hinting
Speaker 1: of a pregnancy, but from that point on she only
Speaker 1: got sicker and sicker. She died March thirty one, and
Speaker 1: it's kind of unclear exactly what she died of. I
Speaker 1: think it's generally accepted that it may have been tuberculosis,
Speaker 1: with the official cause it could have been also dehydration
Speaker 1: from really extreme morning sickness. That's another theory that's out there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are several berries, or just that Charlotte's health was
Speaker 1: not so great anyway. She had suffered from ill health
Speaker 1: for a long time, and that maybe her pregnancy um
Speaker 1: kind of escalated latent tuberculosis. But a month before her death,
Speaker 1: she had interestingly changed her will to benefit Mr Nichols.
Speaker 1: So his attentions to her during her sickness and before
Speaker 1: must have really impressed her. Because when they had first
Speaker 1: got married, she had set it up so he'd have
Speaker 1: zero control over her estate even if she died childless,
Speaker 1: which was kind of an unusual arrangement for a married
Speaker 1: couple at the time. And um, he wouldn't even be
Speaker 1: able to access her money for debt that sort of thing.
Speaker 1: Mr Nichols cared for Mr Bronte for six more years
Speaker 1: until his death. Mr Bronte is sometimes considered a too stern,
Speaker 1: too self interested figure, but one has to feel for him.
Speaker 1: I mean, he lost all six of his children of
Speaker 1: his own famous temper, he supposedly said quote, had I
Speaker 1: been numbered amongst the calms sedate, concentric men of the world,
Speaker 1: I should, in all probability never have had such children
Speaker 1: as mine, And I think that's an interesting point to
Speaker 1: start to wrap this up. On Mrs Gaskell's biography sort
Speaker 1: of wonders what would Charlotte Bronte have been like if
Speaker 1: she had been brought up in a healthy and happy situation.
Speaker 1: But Mr Bronte's own words how much his personality likely
Speaker 1: shaped his children, shows that it almost did seem to
Speaker 1: be a requirement that they had this isolated upbringing, this
Speaker 1: unhealthy atmosphere they lived in, and the development of their
Speaker 1: intense imaginations almost came from that. It's also I need
Speaker 1: to I think that we rarely talk about our subjects
Speaker 1: in such a broad view as this, But I read
Speaker 1: a New Yorker article on the Bronte myth and noted
Speaker 1: that the sisters have really been quote remolded in successive
Speaker 1: generations to fit with different agendas, Freudian feminist agendas, and
Speaker 1: that's so strange to me. It has been interesting to
Speaker 1: learn about a biography and how that's connected to the
Speaker 1: writer's works, but also how much these lives are into interpretation. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's so true, but I kind of like that aspect
Speaker 1: of it. But it's still up to get interpretation, because
Speaker 1: then you can't definitively say, Okay, this happened to them,
Speaker 1: and this is why this is in the book. You
Speaker 1: still have room for interpretations when you read the novels
Speaker 1: as well, which is fun. Yeah, and to look at
Speaker 1: how they shaped their own identities and how much the
Speaker 1: press influenced it. I don't know, it's all very cool
Speaker 1: to me. So I think that's probably a good time
Speaker 1: to move on though, and go to listener mail. So
Speaker 1: we received an email from listener Alan. He said, I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed the podcast on Robert Shaw in the fifty
Speaker 1: four regiment, although I was a little disappointed that you
Speaker 1: have quickly passed over Thomas Wentworth Higginson, who preceded Shaw
Speaker 1: in leading a regiment of free plays and in many
Speaker 1: ways outstripped him in the cause of emancipation and equality
Speaker 1: for African Americans. But makes Higginson particularly interesting and deserving
Speaker 1: of his own podcast is that, in addition to his
Speaker 1: dedication to the abolitionist movement, he was one of the
Speaker 1: night teenth centuries great ricontours, as well as the editor
Speaker 1: and friend of Emily Dickinson. Now you can see why
Speaker 1: I picked this email for this episode. In fact, it
Speaker 1: is largely because of his efforts and influence that Dickinson's
Speaker 1: brilliance was brought to a national audience. Dickinson herself died
Speaker 1: of mysterious circumstances, although her death certificate lists Bright's disease
Speaker 1: as a cause, There's been recent speculation that she may
Speaker 1: have been an epileptic um. And then he also suggest
Speaker 1: some other interesting scandals about Dickinson. But I thought this
Speaker 1: was such a neat coincidence because one of the articles
Speaker 1: I used or consulted for this episode compared Emily Dickinson
Speaker 1: and Emily Bronte. Emily Dickinson was apparently a huge Emily
Speaker 1: Bronte fan, and a lot of circumstances in their life
Speaker 1: kind of line up in a strange way. Interesting. Well,
Speaker 1: we always love when our listeners give us a different
Speaker 1: perspective like that. If you have any stories related to
Speaker 1: the Bronte's or anything else that you want to share
Speaker 1: with us, you can write us or a history podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com, or you can look us up
Speaker 1: on Facebook and write to us there, or we're on
Speaker 1: Twitter at miss and History. And to share one more
Speaker 1: unusual medical fact, I didn't realize tuberculosis was still a
Speaker 1: worldwide problem, did you. I did, only because when I've
Speaker 1: traveled internationally, I have to get the You have to
Speaker 1: get the vaccination. Yeah, okay, I hadn't thought of that,
Speaker 1: or make sure that your vaccination is up to date.
Speaker 1: I should say. I just always think of it in
Speaker 1: association with romantic poets and novelists and not as a
Speaker 1: global problem. But I received my alumni magazine the other day.
Speaker 1: Here I am reading about all these tuberculosis stuff, and
Speaker 1: I learned that a third of the world's population is
Speaker 1: actually infected with tuberculosis. So, um, I don't know. It's
Speaker 1: those You can combine a little bit of medical history
Speaker 1: with literary history too, and we have both types of
Speaker 1: articles on our website at how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: You can find them by going to our homepage www
Speaker 1: dot howta works dot com. Be sure to check out
Speaker 1: our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how
Speaker 1: st Work staff as we explore the most promising and
Speaker 1: perplexing possibilities of tomorrow. The houst Works iPhone app has
Speaker 1: a rise. Download it today on iTunes.