The Cincinnati daily star. [volume] ([Cincinnati, Ohio]) 1875-1880, 1876-10-10
Charlotte Brcnte's Childhood

| The Parsons children were not al
| lowed TO associate with their little neigh,
bors in the hamlet; their aunt, who came
to the parsonage after their mothers
death, had scarcely more sympathy with
them than their father himself; their
only friend was the rough but kindly
servant Tabby, who pitied the BARNS
without understanding them, and whose
acts of graciousness were too often of
| such character as to give them more
| pain than pleasure.
SO they grew up strange, lonely, old
fashioned children, with absolutely no
knowledge OF the world outside; so quiet
and demure in their habits that, Years
| afterward, when they invited some of
| their Sunday scholars up to the parson-
age, and wished to amuse them, they
found that they had to ask the scnol ars
TO teach them how to play-they had
never learned. Carefully secluded from
the rest of the world, the Bronte chill
dren found out fashions Of their own in
the way Of amusement, and marvellous
fashions they were.
While they were still in the nursery,
when the Oldest of the family, Maria,
was barely nine years old, and Char
lOtte, the third, was just six, they mad
begun to take a quaint interest in litera-
IulS unu pOLlblCos llCdfGu hHOWb WHO
it was who first told these wonderful
pigmies OF the great deeds of yelling
ton or the crimes Of a Bonaparte; but at
an age when other children are generally
busy with their bricks or their dolls,
and when all lies interests are con-
fined Tor them within the walls of a
nursery, these marvellous Brontes were
discussing the lie of the great Duke,
and maintaining the Tory cause as ar
dently as the oldest and sturdiest OF the
village politicians in the neighboring
inn. There Is a touching story OF Char
lotte at six years old, which gives us
some notion of the ideal life led by the
forlorn little girl at this time, when, her
two elder sisters having been sent to
school, she found herself living ut home,
the eldest OF the motherless brood. She
had read the Pilgrims Progress, and had
been fascinated, young as she was, by
that wondrous aliegory.
Every thing in it was to her true and
real; her little heart had gone forth with
Christian on his pilgrimage to the
Golden City, her bright young mind had
been fired by the Bedford tlnkers de-
scription OF the glories of the Celestial
Place, ana she made up her mind that
she too would escape from the City of
Destruction and gain the haven toward
which the weary spirits OF every age
have turned with eager longing. But
where was this glitterIng city with its
streets OF gold, It's gates of
pearl its walls of precious
stones, it's streams of lie and
throne of light? Poor little grill The
only place which seemed to her to an
swer Bunyau's description of the celes-
tial town was one which she had heard
the servants discussing with enthusi-
asm in the Kitchen, and its name was
Bradford! SO to Bradford little
Charlotte, Bronte, escaping from that
Haworth Parsonage which she believed
to be a doomed spot, set off one day in
1872. Ingenious persons may speculate
ii they please upon the sore
disappointment which awaited her
when, like elder people, reach
ing the place which she had imag-
med to be heaven, she found that it was
only Bradford. But she never even
reached her imaginary Golden City.
When her tender feet had carried her
mile along the road she came to spot
wnere overhanging trees made the high
way dark and gloomy; she imagined
that she had come to the Valley OF the
Shadow of Death, and fearing 30 go tor
ward was presently discovered by her
nurse covering by the roadside Mac
millan's Magazine,