Up
and down the house were to be found many standard works of a solid kind.
Sir Walter Scott's writings, Wordsworth's and Southey's poems were among
the lighter literature; while, as having a character of their
own--earnest, wild, and occasionally fanatical--may be named some of the
books which came from the Branwell side of the family--from the Cornish
followers of the saintly John Wesley--and which are touched on in the
account of the works to which Caroline Helstone had access in
"Shirley:"--"Some venerable Lady's Magazines, that had once performed a
voyage with their owner, and undergone a storm"--(possibly part of the
relics of Mrs. Bronte's possessions, contained in the ship wrecked on the
coast of Cornwall)--"and whose pages were stained with salt water; some
mad Methodist Magazines full of miracles and apparitions, and
preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticisms; and the
equally mad letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the Living."
Mr. Bronte encouraged a taste for reading in his girls; and though Miss
Branwell kept it in due bounds, by the variety of household occupations,
in which she expected them not merely to take a part, but to become
proficients, thereby occupying regularly a good portion of every day,
they were allowed to get books from the circulating library at Keighley;
and many a happy walk, up those long four miles, must they have had,
burdened with some new book, into which they peeped as they hurried home.
Pages:
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159