THE BRONTES—EMILY'S DEATH.

Dunstan Times, Issue 771, 26 January 1877, Page 3

THE BRONTES—EMILY'S DEATH.

o The brave woman who felt it to bo “a grievous thing” that she could not bear her full share of the family burden little f knew how that burden was to be increased--how much heavier and blacker were the clouds which awaited her than any through which she had yet passed. The storm which even then was gathering upon her path was one which no sunshine of fame or prosperity could dissipate. The one to whom Charlotte’s heart had always clung most fondly—the sister who bad been nearest to her in age and nearest to her in affection, Emily, the brilliant but ill-fated child of genius —began to fade. “She had never,” says Charlotte, speaking in the solitude of her fame, “lingered ovir any task in her life, and she did not linger now.” Yet the qirck decline of Emilv Bronte is the saddest of all the sad features of the story. I have sunken of her reserve. So intense was it that when dying she refused to admit even to her own sisters that she was ill. They saw her fading before their eves ; they knew that the grave was yawning at her feet; and vet they dared not offer her any attention such as an invalid needed, and such as they were longing to bestow upon her. It was the cruellest torture of Charlotte’s life. The day went by in the parsonage, slowly, solemnly, each bringing some fresh burden of sorrow to the 1 hearts of Charlotte and Anne, Emily’s resolute spirit was unbending to the last. Day after day she refused to own that she was ill. refused to take rest, or medicine, or stimulants ; compelled her trembling hands to labor as of old. And so came the bitter morning in December, tbe story of which has heen told by Mr Gask dl, with simple pathos, when she “ arose and Pressed herself as usual. making many a pause, hut doing everything for herself.” even going on with her sewing as at anv time during the years past; until suddenly she laid the unfinished work aside, whispered faintly to her sister, “If you send for-a doctor 1 will see him now,” and in two hours passed quietly a wav The broken father, supported on ei’hor side by his surviving daughters, followed Emily to her grave in the old church. There was on© other mourner—the fierce old dog whom she had loved better almost than anv other human being. “ Yes,” Sayß Charlotte, writing to her friend, “ there is no Emily in time or on earth now. Yesterday wo put her poor wasted mortal frame quietly under the church pavement M e are very calm at present. Why should we be otherwise? The anguish of sc'dng he’ - suffer 1 is over. Wo feel she is at peace. Ho need now to tremble for the hard frost and the keen wind. Emily docs not feel tlmm She died in a time of promise We saw her taken from life iu Us prime. Rot it i<> God’s will, and tbe place where sbe has gone is better tlm n that she Ins left,” It was in the very month of Dcmmbor. 18IR, when Charlotte passed through the fierce ordeal, and wrote Cmse tender words of love and resignation, that tlm Quarter! v Review denounc'd her sis an im--1 proper woman who ‘‘ for some sufficient reason” had forfeited the society of her sex.—Macmillan’* Magazine. Widowers* Weeds—Cigars. What part of a tiah is like the end of a look I—Tho liu-is.