a
John Tiplady Carrodus (1836—1895), a child prodigy
violinist born at Keighley, Yorkshire.
b
The tablet is in error. Anne Brontë was
twenty-nine when she died.
c
Alphonse de Lamartine, Lajos Kossuth, and Henrik
Dembinsky were nationalists active in the French, Hungarian, and
Polish revolutionary movements of 1848.
d
Critical consensus is that this should read “bed
plays.”
e
Hugh Blair, a Scottish Presbyterian preacher,
lectured and wrote about writing style. His Lectures on
Rhetoric and Belles Lettres (1783) was translated into
many European languages.
f
Elizabeth Rowe, Friendship in Death: In Twenty
Letters, from the Dead to the Living (1728).
g
Walter Scott, Scottish poet and novelist, wrote
the novel Kenilworth (1821).
h
“Jane Eyre,” Vol. I., page 20.
i
Samuel Richardson (1689-1761), early epistolary
novelist, author of Pamela (1740), Clarissa (1747-1748), and The
History of Sir Charles Grandison (1753-1754).
j
Gaskell is mistaken; Brontë wrote to Hartley
Coleridge (see endnote 6 to volume I, chapter VIII), not
Wordsworth.
k
Mr. Collins, curate at Keighley, and William
Weightman (see endnote 11 to volume I, chapter VIII).
l
M. is Mary Taylor, and G. is Gomersal, her home.
B. is Ellen Nussey’s home, Brookroyd.
m
Taylor, Mary’s sister.
n
The Château de Kokelberg was the Brussels
finishing school attended by Mary and Martha Taylor.
o
Scott describes the sport, “Shooting at the
Popinjay,” “as an ancient game formerly practised with archery, but
at this period (1679) with fire arms. This was the figure of a bird
decked with parti-coloured feathers, so as to resemble a popinjay
or parrot. It was suspended to a pole, and served for a mark at
which the competitors discharged their fusees and carbines in
rotation, at the distance of seventy paces. He whose ball brought
down the mark held the proud title of Captain of the Popinjay for
the remainder of the day, and was usually escorted in triumph to
the most respectable change-house in the neighbourhood, where the
evening was closed with conviviality, conducted under his auspices,
and, if he was able to maintain it, at his expense.”—Old
Mortality.
p
Catherine Wooler, one of the sisters who ran the
school Brontë attended at Roe Head. (see endnote 1 to volume I,
chapter VI).
q
Devoirs (no accent) are composition
exercises.
r
Peter the Hermit (c.1050-1115), a leader of the
First Crusade (begun in 1096).
s
She was nourished on the Bible (French).
t
The “long vacation” (French) ran from mid-August
to October.
u
That is, the Dixon family.
v
The Wheelwrights; Laetitia, the eldest daughter,
would become Brontë’s lifelong friend.
w
Catholic devotional readings (French).
x
Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism
(1711). part 2, line 32: “Hills peep o’er Hills, and Alps on Alps
arise! ”
y
Deo Volente (Latin) means “God willing.” steeped
in a kind of cold, systematic sensuality, than she had before
imagined it possible for a human being to be; and her whole nature
revolted from this woman’s society. A low nervous fever was gaining
upon Miss Brontë. She had never been a good sleeper, but now she
could not sleep at all. Whatever had been disagreeable, or
obnoxious, to her during the day, was presented when it was over
with exaggerated vividness to her disordered fancy. There were
causes for distress and anxiety in the news from home, particularly
as regarded Branwell. 3 In the
dead of the night, lying awake at the end of the long deserted
dormitory, in the vast and silent house, every fear respecting
those whom she loved, and who were so far off in another country,
became a terrible reality, oppressing her and choking up the very
life-blood in her heart. Those nights were times of sick, dreary,
wakeful misery; precursors of many such in after years.
z
Mary Taylor emigrated to New Zealand.
aa
The Reverend Edmund Robinson.
ab
Lydia Robinson’s father was the Reverend Thomas
Gisborne, a prominent Evangelical.
ac
The character of Joe Taylor, Mary’s brother, is
under discussion.
ad
Brontë’s The Professor (1857) was edited and
published posthumously by Arthur Bell Nicholls.
ae
Margaret Wooler.
af
Anne, Ellen Nussey’s sister, afterward referred to
as A.
ag
“She” is Amelia Ringrose, the future wife of Joe
Taylor.
ah
Ellen Nussey.
ai
William Makepeace Thackeray (1811—1863).
aj
Thackeray’s pseudonym.
ak
Brontë seeks advice regarding Thomas Newby, Emily
and Anne Brontë’s unscrupulous publisher.
al
The title of an early novel (published 1847) by
British critic and author G. H. Lewes.
am
The title of a novel by G. H. Lewes, published in
1848.
an
Evangelical (Low Church) clergyman Charles Simeon
(1759—1836) helped found the Church Missionary Society.
ao
Smelling salts.
ap
The Robinson daughters, Elizabeth and Mary.
aq
John Forbes, physician to the Queen.
ar
Margaret Wooler was supposedly the model for Mrs.
Pryor.
as
The Yorkes were based on the Taylor family. ‡The
daguerreotype was an early form of photograph, produced on a
silver-coated copper plate.
at
The Rev. Hammond Roberson (see endnote 7 to volume
II, chapter VI) was the original for Mr. Helstone.
au
Frances Atkinson, Brontë’s godmother.
av
The Athenaeum, a weekly periodical founded in
1828, covered the arts and sciences.
aw
Eugène Forçade. Revue des Deux Mondes,
November 15, 1849 (see Allot, ed., The Brontës: The
Critical Heritage, pp. 142-146; see “For Further
Reading”).
ax
London.
ay
The Times, December 7, 1849 (seeAllot, pp.
148-151).
az
December 9 is the correct date.
ba
George Smith’s mother often served as Brontë’s
hostess and chaperone in London.
bb
Laetitia Wheelwright.
bc
Margaret Wooler.
bd
Thackeray’s novel, published in
installments (1848-1850).
be
Julia Kavanagh (1824-1877), novelist.
bf
The Nusseys.
bg
Greenwood (see endnote 1 to volume I, chapter
XIV). ‡George Smith commissioned George Richmond (1809-1896), who
also drew Gaskell, to undertake Brontë’s portrait.
bh
Catherine Gore (1799-1861), a “silver-fork
novelist,” depicted life in high society.
bi
Eliza Fox (later Bridell), painter and friend of
Gaskell.
bj
Lady Kay Shuttleworth.
bk
Sir James Kay Shuttleworth.
bl
John Manners (1818-1906) and George Smythe
(1818-1857) were both active in Disraeli’s “Young England” group,
which promoted a romantic and aristocratic type ofToryism.
bm
[Sydney Dobell], Palladium, September 1850 (see
Allot, pp. 277-283).
bn
Dobell likened Brontë to the Amazon warrior queen
Penthesilea in the review he wrote for the Palladium.
bo
English critic John Ruskin wrote The Stones
of Venice (1851-1853), on Venetian architecture.
bp
James Taylor, manager of Smith, Elder and Company,
proposed to Brontë on or near April 4, 1851.
bq
The lecture series was titled The English
Humourists of the Eighteenth Century.
br
Richard Monckton Milnes (1809-1885), a minor poet
and reform-minded politician.
bs
George Smith’s mother.
bt
Elisa Félix (1820-1858) was the model for Vashti
in Villette.
bu
Literary patron Samuel Rogers (1763-1855).
bv
“When found, make a note of” is the byword of
Captain Cuttle in Dickens’s Dombey and Son (1847).
bw
Laurence Sterne (1713-1768), author known for the
novels Tristram Shandy (1760-1767) and A Sentimental
Journey (1768).
bx
Gaskell’s daughter Margaret.
by
A reference to Gaskell’s The Moorland
Cottage (1850).
bz
Marianne was Gaskell’s eldest daughter, Julia her
youngest. Florence was her third.
ca
Fredrika Bremer (1801-1865) was a Swedish
novelist.
cb
Brontë to James Taylor (in India), November 15,
1851.
cc
Thackeray, Henry Esmond (1852), a novel
about eighteenth-century life.
cd
Presumably Charles Dickens is meant as the first
writer of the day.
ce
Ellen Taylor.
cf
Lumpkin is the trickster son in Oliver Goldsmith’s
play She Stoops to Conquer (1773).
cg
Gaskell was working on her controversial novel
Ruth (1853).
ch
Amelia Taylor, Joe Taylor’s wife.
ci
Novel by Harriet Beecher Stowe, published in
1852.
cj
Arthur Bell Nicholls came to Haworth as curate in
May 1845.
ck
The reference is to Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
(1826-1887), essayist, novelist, and children’s author.
cl
Joe and Amelia Taylor.
cm
The reference is to Sydney Dobell’s unfinished
modern epic, published in 1854.
cn
Gaskell is intimating that Brontë is
pregnant.
co
Flossy was Anne’s spaniel.
cp
John Forster, The Life and Adventures of Oliver
Goldsmith (1848).