December 31, 1846, Haworth, West Yorkshire
No matter his fidgetiness, Anne experienced her usual pleasure in drawing because it calmed her and ordered her thoughts. She managed a decent depiction of Flossy before he left his window pose and the room. Setting her art box on the nightstand, she sat on the edge of the bed to use the sketching block on her lap, first draping the eiderdown over her legs and feet. Even fully dressed she was chilled to the bone. On the canvas Anne’s imagination and brush redesigned the window, adding a curtain hooked high to one side and a warmer outlook. Eventually Flossy returned to the room. Anne observed him stalking and scratching at overwintering bugs, rolling on the braid rug between the bed and the dresser, and briefly posing at the window again.
She spent the next hour on the painting, coloring in his darker curls and smooth cavalier face and the shadowing of his white underbelly.
“You’re right,” Anne said once the light and her impulse to be other than convalescing started to fail and Flossy had long since curled up on the bottom of the bed. “It can be finished another day.”
“And another year.” Emily entered the room with something wrapped in a serviette, tapping Flossy’s nose to let him know what she thought of his begging.
“It’s warm and smells sweet and of currants.” Anne accepted Emily’s gift. “You’ve made bannocks.”
“It’s New Year’s Eve, after all.”
“I haven’t even made an effort.”
“It appears you have.” Emily examined Anne’s painting without touching it. “A bold likeness.”
“Like trying to capture a fly.” Anne leaned over to stroke Flossy, who glanced at Emily sideways, his jowls slavering and a paw reaching up.
“You don’t fool me.” Emily folded her arms. “You’re more in love than frustrated with that little bugger of a mutt. Now, won’t you try the bannock?”
Anne unwrapped it in her lap, admiring it: a golden-brown, crusty hillock made of pastry and dried fruit that crumbled compactly as, not long out of the oven, it should. Finally, she broke off a piece.
“If you don’t smack your lips,” Emily winked, “how will I know you’re enjoying it?”
“Anne keeps us all wondering.” Charlotte was in the doorway. “Is the party up here? And with the best society, our little society.” She took a portion of what was left of the bannock. “The safest society.”
~ from Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
Reposting from last year, as with my mother having just come home from the hospital, I haven’t had time to put together a new post marking the death of Emily Jane Brontë.
“‘Powerful’. ‘Interesting’. ‘Coarse’. ‘Brutal’. ‘Morbid’. Do we write with any such adjectives in mind?” Anne had been reading through the reviews of Tenant she had collected, portions aloud to Emily, especially those that might stir any fight left in her. “Or go through the tormenting process of writing a novel for ‘reveling in scenes of debauchery’?”
Emily was quiet lying sideways on the sofa in the parlor. Since Anne had repositioned the pillow borrowed from one or other of their beds, Emily’s head had slipped to bow against her frail neck. Her torso was curled so her length was contracted, no definition to her arms or bosom within the sleeves and bodice of her dress, no movement under its skirt since Anne had lifted her sister’s skeletal legs up more than an hour before.
Anne wondered if Emily was still pulled by the brutishness and beauty of the moors and the similar punishment and reward of writing. Did a look out a window or opening of a door remind her of what she was missing, and new Gondal rascals or Heathcliffs or Catherines find her imagination receptive? Anne longed for one more conversation with her, whether playful or intense, one more chance to agree, argue and confirm they were good for each other’s inspiration, intellects and souls. Anne ached for one more meeting with the Emily who was wiry but robust, strong like a man and simple like a child, her head full of logic and fantastic stories at the same time, her choices uncompromising, as were her passions. If only Emily’s life could return to being routine and yet so exceptional, filled with writing brilliantly while she was bread making or sewing or everyone else was asleep, making music like a perfect lady and rambling the Pennine way like a free and easy lad.
Instead, Anne had to helplessly watch as Emily continued to disappear through those December days and nights. On that Monday evening, a week before Christmas, her stillness, half-open eyes and mouth, and leaning towards resignation indicated there was only one way she would be released from consumption’s captivity.
~ from Without the Veil Between, Anne Brontë: A Fine and Subtle Spirit
One of the illustrations I did for “Without the Veil Between”: all available for purchase as prints, including limited edition signed prints.
Farewell to thee! but not farewell
To all my fondest thoughts of thee:
Within my heart they still shall dwell;
And they shall cheer and comfort me.
O, beautiful, and full of grace!
If thou hadst never met mine eye,
I had not dreamed a living face
Could fancied charms so far outvie.
If I may ne’er behold again
That form and face so dear to me,
Nor hear thy voice, still would I fain
Preserve, for aye, their memory.
That voice, the magic of whose tone
Can wake an echo in my breast,
Creating feelings that, alone,
Can make my tranced spirit blest.
That laughing eye, whose sunny beam
My memory would not cherish less; —
And oh, that smile! whose joyous gleam
Nor mortal language can express.
Adieu, but let me cherish, still,
The hope with which I cannot part.
Contempt may wound, and coldness chill,
But still it lingers in my heart.
And who can tell but Heaven, at last,
May answer all my thousand prayers,
And bid the future pay the past
With joy for anguish, smiles for tears?
Anne and Emily from a painting by their brother, Branwell
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
Thank you so much to Elisabeth Basford for hosting and interviewing me on her blog Write On Ejaleigh! Here’s a snippet of her own story:
I am a writer, a teacher and an examiner.
I write everything from non-fiction articles on educational issues, autism and gardening to social media strategies and fictional writing. I recently completed my first novel; Control. Alt. Delete. It’s an inspirational story of a woman who becomes a victim of coercion and control and how she manages to escape and survive.
I believe that education is a lifelong process and so I am a voracious reader…
I love English literature and I have loved the Brontes since I was three years old.
I’m married and I live with my husband, two children and two cats, Barbara and Mittens in South Yorkshire … I love teaching and if I can pass on my love of literature and writing then I am happy!
It is good to love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much, and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is well done.
~ Vincent van Gogh
One of the great advantages of social media is that we have the opportunity to get to know people who share the same interests as us. Many of these people come from places or backgrounds that we would not necessarily have chance to encounter in real life.
I am a member of several Facebook groups that celebrate The Bronte Sisters. From this I have been able to have some great discussions with fellow Bronte lovers and writers. I have also been fortunate to discover new interpretations of the Brontes’ works.
Recently, I wrote a review of Rita Maria Martinez and her poetry inspired by Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre. You can read about her work
View original post 2,400 more words
“A Vision of Fiammetta (detail)” by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
In April 1842, the English poet Christina Georgina Rossetti, at the age of eleven, penned those opening lines to a poem actually written for her mother’s birthday.
Christina Rossetti and her Mother Frances Rossetti, 7th October 1863, by Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carroll)
Christina is the subject of my work-in-progress next novel and today is the 188th anniversary of her birth, December 5, 1830.
She was part of a remarkable family of English-Italian scholars, artists, and poets, her older brother being Dante Gabriel Rossetti, founder of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.
I thought I’d share a little excerpt from my novel that’s in its very early stages of creation. The following is from the first chapter, describing the intimacy between brother and sister, who, as children, were very similar in temperament and interests. They were called “the two storms”, while their sister Maria and brother William were called ‘the two calms”.
From a photograph by Charles Dodgson (AKA Lewis Carol)
Christina Rossetti as a child, by William Bell
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
These are the kind of tidbits from the past that inspire my writing the most, coming, as they do, out of everyday, intimate moments in time, very ordinary and uneventful, but, also, extraordinary, revealing, and, certainly in this case, poignant considering these two adolescent girls living in the moment with such innocent hopes for the future … that never came.
Have you purchased your copy of Without the Veil Between: Anne Brontë, A Fine and Subtle Spirit yet? Have you read it or is it on your TBR list? I’m running a contest for anyone who posts a review on Amazon and/Goodreads and/their blog before December 31, 2018. Follow link or click on image below for more details.
Diane Denton has narrated, through Anne’s sensibility, the cruelest yet most beautiful part of this remarkable family’s story.
~ Recommendation on Without the Veil Between’s Facebook page
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
Copyright 2017 by DM Denton
Fluctuations
What though the Sun had left my sky;
To save me from despair
The blessed Moon arose on high,
And shone serenely there.
I watched her, with a tearful gaze,
Rise slowly o’er the hill,
While through the dim horizon’s haze
Her light gleamed faint and chill.
I thought such wan and lifeless beams
Could ne’er my heart repay
For the bright sun’s most transient gleams
That cheered me through the day:
But, as above that mist’s control
She rose, and brighter shone,
I felt her light upon my soul;
But now–that light is gone!
Thick vapours snatched her from my sight,
And I was darkling left,
All in the cold and gloomy night,
Of light and hope bereft:
Until, methought, a little star
Shone forth with trembling ray,
To cheer me with its light afar–
But that, too, passed away.
Anon, an earthly meteor blazed
The gloomy darkness through;
I smiled, yet trembled while I gazed–
But that soon vanished too!
And darker, drearier fell the night
Upon my spirit then;–
But what is that faint struggling light?
Is it the Moon again?
Kind Heaven! increase that silvery gleam
And bid these clouds depart,
And let her soft celestial beam
Restore my fainting heart!
~ Anne Brontë
The candle Anne was writing by had almost burnt down. She wanted to finish the letter to Lily and get up early to post it in Thorpe Underwood village before Mary knew she was gone. She had heard Mrs. Robinson mention that she, the girls, and young Edmund were going to Great Ouseburn and the Greenhows for lunch and riding. Anne half expected to be asked along as there had been talk of her teaching their young children. The invitation never came and it seemed tomorrow, a schooling day, might be a full one off for Anne, another hint her employment with the Robinsons was nearing its end.
The nine verses of Fluctuations took up most of the inside of the letter to be folded, sealed, and stamped without an envelope. She scratched the remainder of it vertically across what was already written, like Charlotte, never one to be brief, often did. Anne smiled to think of her oldest living sister and her well-meaning verging on oppression. Lily had reminded Anne how private even casual acquaintances, those who didn’t know anyone she did and were unrelated to her past or future, were akin to that other side of solitude, not censorious but releasing. They were like shooting stars and meteors appearing and disappearing, brightening and lightening moments otherwise rendered bleak and burdened by inescapable bonds and unbearable losses.
On impulse Anne reached for her Book of Common Prayer, opening it to the blank back of its inside cover and wrote “sick of mankind and its disgusting ways”, causing injury to her prayer book and merciful nature.
~ from Without the Veil Between, Anne Bronte: A Fine and Subtle Spirit
‘Sick of mankind and their disgusting ways’
written in the back of Anne Brontë’s prayer book.’ It is enlarged here – need a magnifying glass to read it in its original form. Biographer Winifred Gerin wrote: ‘It was meant for no eyes but hers . . .’
©Artwork and writing, unless otherwise indicated, are the property of Diane M Denton. Please request permission to reproduce or post elsewhere with a link back to bardessdmdenton. Thank you.
