THE BRONTES-EMILY'S DEATH.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2563, 24 March 1877, Page 4

THE BRONTES-EMILY'S DEATH.

The braVe woman who felt it to be " a grievous thing " that she could not bear her full share of the family burden, little knew how terribly 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 paih was, one which no sunshine of fame or prosperity could dissipate.' The ope to whom Charlotte's heart had always*clung most fondly—the sister wto - had been nearest to her in age and nearest to her in affection, Emily, the brilliant but ill-fated child genius—began to fade. " She had never," says Charlotte, speaking in the solitude of her fame, " lingered over any task in her life, and she did not linger-d&w." Yet the quick decline of .Emily Bronlc is one of the saddest of all the sad features of the story.

I have spoken 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 fadmg before their eyes; they knew that the grave was yawning at her. feet; and yet 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 cruelest torture of • Charlotte's life. The days went by in the parsonage, slowly, solemnly, each bringing some fresh burden of sorrow to the broken 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 labour as of old. And so came the bitter morning in December, the story of which has been told by Mrs Gas-.. 'ke)l with simple pathos, when she "arose and dressed herself as usual, making many a pause, but doiog everything for herself," even going on with her sewing as at any time during the past year ; until suddenly she .laid the unfinished work aside, whispered faintly to her sister, "If you send for a doctor I will see him now," and in two hours passed quietly away. . Tbe broken - hearted father, supported on either side by his surviving daughters, following Emily to her grave in the oldVhurch. There was one other mourner —the fierce old dog whom she had loved better almost than any other human being. " Yes," says Charlotte, writing to. her friend, " there is no iCmily in time or on earth now. Yesterday we put her poor wasted mortal frame quietly under the church pavement. We are very calm at present. Why should we be otherwise ? The anguish of seeing her suffer is over. We feel she is at peace. IN o need now to tremble for ihe hard frost arid the keen wind. Emily does not feel them. She died in a. time of promise. We saw her taken from life in its prime. But it is God's will, and the place where she is gone is belter than that she has left." It was in the very month of December, 1848, when Charlotte passed through this fierce ordeal, and wrote these tender words of love and resignation, that the Quarterly Heview denounced her as an improper, woman who "for some sufficient reason " bad forfeited the society of her sex I— Macmillan's Magazine.