[In the following excerpt, Law argues that Branwell, not Emily, wrote Wuthering Heights, citing the masculine tone of the novel among other evidence to support her claim.]

We must now examine the evidences of Branwell's actual known literary power and achievements, and the particular reasons for believing that he was the author of Wuthering Heights.

It will be necessary to turn back again to the year 1845, and to the close of the month of July, when Branwell, summarily dismissed from his tutorship, had returned home, because it was during the months immediately following his return that his literary activities, already alluded to, have a special significance in connection with our enquiry.

During the time when so many of Branwell's critics suppose that he was giving his entire leisure to drink and dissipation, we have his own evidence, taken from a letter he wrote to his friend Leyland in September, 1845, less than two months after he left Thorp Green, that he had long been turning over a great literary project in his mind. This was the preparation of a novel in three volumes. His own words are as follows:

I have, since I saw you at Halifax, devoted my hours of time, snatched from downright illness, to the composition of a three-volume novel, one volume of which is completed, and, along with the two forthcoming ones, has been really the result of half a dozen by-past years of thoughts about, and experience in, this crooked path of life. I feel that I must rouse myself to attempt something, while roasting daily and nightly over a slow fire, to while away my torments; and I know that, in the present state of the publishing and reading world, a novel is the most saleable article. … My novel is the result of years of thought; and if it gives the vivid picture of human feelings for good and evil, veiled by the cloak of deceit which must enwrap man and woman; if it records as faithfully as the pages that unveil man's heart in Hamlet or Lear the conflicting feelings and clashing pursuits in our uncertain path through life, I shall be as much gratified (and as much astonished) as I should be if, in betting that I could jump the Mersey, I jumped over the Irish Sea. It would not be more pleasant to light on Dublin instead of Birkenhead than to leap from the present bathos of fictitious literature to the firmly fixed rock honoured by the foot of a Smollett or a Fielding.

That jump I expect to take when I can model a rival to your noble Theseus, who haunted my dreams when I slept after seeing him. But meanwhile I can try my utmost to rouse myself from almost killing cares, and that alone will be its own reward.¹

In commenting upon this letter there are several points to notice. First of all, it is evident that for many months before he left Thorp Green, Branwell had been working on a novel, seeing that the first volume of it was completed by September, 1845. This would mean then that the idea of a novel as the most profitable and saleable species of literature had in all probability been suggested by him to Charlotte or Anne in their Christmas or other gathering at the Parsonage, and Charlotte had been quick to take up the idea, and had commenced operations already, privately of course, with the Professor. Anne also had started on her Passages in the Life of an Individual, afterwards produced as Agnes Grey.

Another point is that, as Branwell's novel was one inspired by “half a dozen by-past years of thoughts about and experience in this crooked path of life,” it was obviously a recital of some of the things in his own life. But his story was, he tells us, “veiled by the cloak of deceit which must enwrap man and woman,” which may be taken to mean that, though he had used his own real experiences and those of some other person, he had covered up these experiences in such a “veiled” wrapping that they would not be easily recognized. That the story was a tragic revelation of the passions of the human heart, morbid, unhappy, despairing and stormy, may be deduced from the comparison with such revelations as those of Lear and Hamlet. The presentation of the picture was “vivid,” and it was not written in the current style of “fictitious” literature, but in the simple, realistic style of Smollett or Fielding. All these characteristics of Branwell's novel apply to the tragic story of Wuthering Heights. It will further be noticed that Branwell refers to the remaining volumes as “forthcoming,” an expression that may be taken to imply that, though not, like the first volume, completed, they were actually in hand. Branwell then was working hard at this novel, in the autumn of 1845, to “rouse himself from killing cares” and “while roasting over a slow fire” of mental torment, in which his recent experiences at Thorp Green would be continually present to his mind, and would indubitably colour his narrative. And he was thus steadily and passionately employed on this work, in which he gave free play to his feelings, at the very time when he is represented by his detractors, encouraged by Charlotte's reports, as being entirely given up to the consumption of drink and opium.

We get other glimpses of Branwell's novel, and his tragic subject, from an account given by a friend of his, Mr. William Dearden, who was induced many years later, by a query concerning the authorship of Wuthering Heights, to communicate to the Halifax Guardian, of June, 1867, some “facts within his personal knowledge” relating to the authorship of that work. Having entered on a friendly poetic contest with Branwell, they were to meet at a small hostelry on the road to Keighley, where, under the presidency of Mr. Leyland, each was in turn to read his production. By an annoying mischance Branwell had brought the wrong papers with him, and drew from his hat, where it was convenient to carry notes, the mss. of a novel he was writing.

“Chagrined at the disappointment he had caused,” says Mr. Dearden, “he was about to return the papers to his hat, when both friends earnestly pressed him to read them, as they felt a curiosity to see how he could wield the pen of a novelist. After some hesitation he complied with the request, and riveted our attention for about an hour. … The story broke off abruptly in the middle of a sentence, and he gave us the sequel viva voce, together with the real names of the prototypes of his characters; but, as some of these personages are still living, I refrain from pointing them out to the public. He said he had not yet fixed upon a title for his production, and was afraid he should never be able to meet with a publisher who would have the hardihood to usher it into the world. The scene of the fragment which Branwell read, and the characters introduced into it—so far as then developed—were the same as those in Wuthering Heights, which Charlotte Brontë confidently asserts was the production of her sister Emily.”²

Now, Branwell's emphatic remark that he feared he would never meet with a publisher who would have the “hardihood” to print his novel indicates that the story was of a terrible nature, one which it would require some courage to publish. Further, from Mr. Dearden's identification of some of the characters, as given him by Branwell, we gather that the scene was laid somewhere in the neighbourhood of Keighley or Halifax. Such indeed was the setting of Wuthering Heights, on a wild moorland-side, overlooking a valley.

But there is further evidence concerning this novel of Branwell's. Another friend of his, Mr. Edward Sloane, of Halifax, author of some Essays, Tales and Sketches (1849), declared to Mr. Dearden that Branwell had read to him, portion by portion, the novel as it was produced at the time, insomuch that he no sooner began the perusal of Wuthering Heights, when published, than he was able to anticipate the characters and incidents to be disclosed.³

All this seems convincing testimony, and cannot by any species of critical jugglery be got out of the way. Even if Branwell's own statement were to be called in question, it would be ridiculous to suppose that there was a conspiracy on the part of several witnesses at different times and places to assert his authorship. These men were of known position and integrity, Yorkshiremen too, with the characteristic Yorkshire straightforwardness of character, and hatred of fabrication. It is impossible they can all have been mistaken, and their statements, added to Mr Grundy's report of Branwell's claim, which his sister verified, form consecutive links in a strong chain of evidence. In ordinary circumstances this evidence would have been considered sufficiently substantial to prove Branwell's case. How then, it may be asked, does it come about that his claim has lain so long in abeyance and not been more urgently pressed?

The reason is not far to seek. The first point is Mrs. Gaskell's impeachment of him, directed, as even Miss Sinclair admits, to account for what seemed, to the prudish mid-Victorian mind, the “coarseness” of Jane Eyre. To explain Charlotte's apparent aberrations from the path of modesty, it had to be revealed that she had a shocking brother, no wonder her mind dwelt on such ideas, and so forth. Therefore, as Miss Sinclair admirably⁴ points out, “Branwell must be made as iniquitious as it is possible for a young man to be.” Consequently, when the glory of the book began to dawn on its more discriminating readers, it was felt that such a reprobate as Branwell should not be credited with anything so fine. It was out of the question that such a miserable specimen of humanity as he was continually represented to be could by any possibility have conceived and carried through so great a literary project. Further, Mr. Dearden's challenge in the above-quoted evidence was not available till the 'sixties and 'seventies, when Charlotte was dead; and Charlotte, in her preface to the 1850 edition, had given the stamp of her authority to Emily Brontë's authorship, which was henceforth accepted, though rather grudgingly, by many of the critics, who still averred it could never have been written by a woman, and indeed only by a very exceptional man. To many it resembled the dream of an opium-eater⁵ rather than a tale of human flesh and blood.

But, with Charlotte's preface, the authorship seemed settled. Many who had read it in the original edition did not perhaps see this ascription, and, with the interest attached to Emily's Poems, she began to be regarded as something very exceptional from the common rank of authors, capable perhaps of so daring and, on the face of it, so improbable a flight as this. For her Poems were beginning to bring her fame. Men like Arnold and Swinburne studied her, and recorded their verdict upon her greatness. The great men of the nineteenth century were chivalrously sympathetic to feminine genius. They remembered Miss Burney, Miss Austen, George Eliot and George Sand, and here now in their midst were these wonderful Brontës. When the protests of the Yorkshire friends of Branwell appeared, they probably never reached the great literary world of London, or, if they did, they passed unheeded, being regarded merely as the personal opinions of local provincials who did not count in the world of letters. In 1883, Miss Mary F. Robinson (Madame Duclaux), published her Emily Brontë, and other writers have followed her. Sir Wemyss Reid lectured upon the Brontës, and especially upon Wuthering Heights. With all this great authority behind the ascription of the novel to Emily's pen, how was it possible to put in a claim for Branwell, a man whose reputation had been given away by his own sister's letters, and whose character was regarded by the leading men of the day as beneath contempt.

At length, however, a champion came forward for poor Branwell in the person of Mr. Francis A. Leyland, the brother of Branwell's friend, the sculptor. In his work on The Brontë Family, published in 1886, he especially took up the study of Branwell, and on the minds of many thoughtful readers must have left the impression that Charlotte's brother had been very unfairly dealt with. But his account is very diffidently given, and his story of Branwell is so mixed up with the history of the sisters that it has failed to carry due conviction. Mr. Shorter, scenting danger to his heroine, attempted no specific answer to Mr. Leyland's theories and evidence, but tried to minimize any possible effect by the indifferent remark: “it is a dull book, readable only by the Brontë enthusiast.” Following his lead, Miss Sinclair adopted the same attitude. With such redoubtable adversaries in the path it is no easy matter to overthrow or even throw doubts upon the popular legend of the authorship of Wuthering Heights.

The first reason for identifying the book with that novel on which no one disputes that Branwell was actually engaged, is very significant, though indirect. Just at the time when it ought to have been completed, this strange, wild story, Wuthering Heights—a story answering so well to the tale Branwell was basing on the experience of human passions as tragic as those of Lear or Hamlet—suddenly appears from apparently nowhere, sheltered under the ægis of the literary pseudonym of “Ellis Bell.” Surely this is more than a remarkable coincidence?

Of Branwell's capacity to write Wuthering Heights none of his intimate friends, those at least who were acquainted with his marked abilities, had any doubt whatever. Miss Sinclair dismisses his pretensions with a flippancy deplorable in so accomplished a writer. Mrs. Gaskell acknowledges that he “was a boy of remarkable promise, and, in some ways, of extraordinary precocity of talent.” Her remark has already been quoted: “He was very clever, no doubt; perhaps, to begin with, the greatest genius in this rare family.”⁶ Mr. Francis A. Leyland, who had met him on one or two occasions, and who heard much of him from his brother and his friends, writes of Branwell's intellectual powers as something quite outstanding. If it be contended that he was so besotted by drink that his natural gifts were squandered, it must be answered that there is no shred of evidence to support this theory. Branwell was, we know, often intemperate, but never, Mr. Leyland insists, habitually so. And when, it may be asked, has occasional inebriety been an obstacle to literary creation? It was assuredly not so with the great Elizabethans, who were notorious for their joyous drinking bouts, nor was it so in the still more dissipated days of the great Augustans, the days of poor Dick Steele, of Sheridan and his boon companions, nor has it proved so in instances well known in our own day. But to return to Branwell: it is incontestable that up to the autumn of 1845, when he was busy with his novel, he was not habitually intemperate. Apart from the breakdown following the announcement of his dismissal from Thorpe Green, he was steadily employed in literary creation. He was, as he declares to Leyland, “trying his utmost.”

We have, on the contrary, evidence from his personal friends that he was at this time at the meridian of his powers. But he was by nature diffident and modest, and probably, like more than one genius who has preceded or followed him, he had no idea how exceptional those powers were, both for masterly observation and the recording of passionate emotion. That these powers had a large field for expression in the novel he was writing is evident from the account of it we have read in his letter to Leyland: it was an attempt to express “a vivid picture of human feelings for good and evil,” a picture that should be drawn realistically in the great literary school of Smollett or Fielding.

Let us now turn to the internal evidence of the book itself, and examine how far and in what respects it shows signs of distinctively masculine authorship, and of Branwell's authorship in particular. The very character of this terrible tale should convince any thoughtful or closely observant reader that no woman's hand ever penned Wuthering Heights. Such, indeed, was the universal opinion of the Press when it first appeared, and it may yet return to that opinion. The internal evidence is all against a woman's authorship, for over every page there hangs an unmistakable air of masculinity that cannot be evaded. If the story takes on a feminine aspect at times it is merely because the recital is for the time being put in the mouth of the old housekeeper, Mrs. Dean; and, in respect to the part dealing with the upbringing of the younger Catharine, I willingly concede that Emily Brontë may have helped considerably. But the whole conception of the story is, from start to finish, a man's, particularly so whenever Mr. Lockwood is represented as dealing directly with the story and nowhere is this more evident than in the first two or three chapters. Before examining these pages I would draw the reader's attention to the description of Thrush Cross Grange, as given by young Heathcliff, who had, of course, never seen any place more civilized than the Heights Farm. “Ah! it was beautiful,” he exclaims, “a splendid place carpeted with crimson, and crimson-covered chairs and tables, and a pure white ceiling bordered by gold, a shower of glass drops hanging in silver chains from the centre and shimmering with little soft tapers.” Now this description is so detailed that it must have been copied from a house visited by the writer. Branwell was well acquainted with such a drawing-room at Thorp Green, and it should also be noticed as a curious coincidence that the names of both these houses begin with the same two letters, so that either of them might be blanked as Th——— Gr———.

Searching closely for minuter traces of masculine authorship, even in the first chapter we come across tiny pieces of evidence pointing to the fact that the writer was not only a man but a scholar. Literally on the very threshold not merely of the story, but of the house itself, we meet with a Latin word which would scarcely be known to anyone not conversant with his Livy or his Virgil: I refer to the word “penetralium.” I do not think Emily Brontë knew much Latin, if any. Assuredly she was not an advanced student in the classics, as we know Branwell was. Only a classical scholar would have used the term to signify the interior of the house he was about to enter. Other Latin or classical allusions are: the “indigenæ,”⁷ referring to the surly natives of the country-side, and Catharine Earnshaw's remark that those who attempted to separate her from Heathcliff would “meet the fate of Milo!”⁸ Which “Milo” is here referred to is not clear, but the athlete of Crotona was probably in the author's mind. The allusion would be natural to a student of Ovid or Cicero, and familiar enough to Branwell, though not, I submit, to Emily Brontë, who was not “learned,” so Charlotte tells us. We know from Mr. Grundy how fond Branwell was of introducing Greek, Latin or French words into his correspondence. Some other masculine expressions occur in the first chapters which no gentlewoman of the prim and prudish 'forties would have dreamt of using: the reference to the figures of Loves or Cupids over the doorway as “shameless little boys”; the account of the “ruffianly bitch” who tore Lockwood's “heels and coat-laps”; the term applied by Heathcliff to Isabella Linton—“pitiful, slavish, mean-minded brach”; the curious exclamation of Catharine Linton, “Oh! I'm tired—I'm stalled, Hareton!”⁹

The curses, the brutal language, Heathcliff's outbursts about “painting the house-front with Hindley's blood!”; the reference to “a beast of a servant,” Mrs. Dean's remark, “I could not half tell what an infernal house we had”: all these could never have been introduced into a first novel by a quiet, reserved young woman like Emily Brontë. These coarse and wild expressions were written by a man who had heard many of them used, for they flow naturally from the mouths of his characters.

There are also some touches in the meditations of Mr. Lockwood which particularly suggest Branwell's personal experiences, and which would never occur to a woman-writer; the passage referring to Lockwood's little adventure at the “seaside,” where he was “thrown into the company of a most fascinating creature,” and, continues the description,

a real goddess in my eyes, as long as she took notice of me. I ‘never told my love’ vocally; still, if looks have language, the merest idiot might have guessed I was over head and ears, she understood me at last, and looked a return, the sweetest of all imaginable looks. And what did I do? I confess it with shame—shrunk icily into myself like a snail; at every glance retired colder and farther, till finally the poor innocent was led to doubt her own senses, and, overwhelmed with confusion at her supposed mistake, persuaded her mamma to decamp. By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.¹⁰

Now, could this have been written by a woman: more than this, can anyone imagine it to have been written by Emily Brontë? Other passages pointedly suggest Branwell's authorship; the description of the class of yeoman farmer, with many of whom he was undoubtedly acquainted,

with a stubborn countenance, and stalwart limbs set out to advantage in knee-breeches and gaiters. Such an individual seated in his arm-chair, his mug of ale frothing on the round table before him, is to be seen in any circuit of five or six miles among these hills, if you go at the right time after dinner.¹¹

Branwell knew the kind of men well, and had often visited them at the congenial hour, when he was strolling across the moors around Haworth. One feels this touch is direct from his hand. And what more likely than that, on some such visit, he had been overtaken by one of the pitiless snowstorms he here so graphically describes, and had to wade home, like Mr. Lockwood, “sinking up to the neck in snow, a predicament which only those who have experienced it can appreciate.”¹² Who but one familiar with the appliances of a farm would have referred to Hindley Earnshaw, threatening Heathcliff with “an iron weight used for weighing potatoes and hay”?

It is noticeable how the writer dallies—as it were—with the subject of consumption, just as Branwell does in his “Poems to Caroline.” This dwelling on the marks of death and decay was a very marked characteristic of Branwell's work, but we can hardly imagine Emily lingering over the description of disease, she who scorned its very existence, and utterly refused to acknowledge herself ill when to the eyes of others she was visibly dying.

One very marked feature of the book is its almost vicious attack upon the canting hypocrisy of the extreme Methodists. The scathing satire on the interminable discourses of these Ranters, and their endless personal exhortations, from which Branwell may often have been the victim, occupies a couple of pages in the third chapter. The subject is raised in Mr. Lockwood's dream, induced by the perusal of Catharine Earnshaw's books, one of which is entitled “A Pious Discourse delivered by the Reverend Jabez Branderham, in the Chapel of Gimmerden Sough.”

In my dream, Jabes had a full and attentive congregation; and he preached—good God! what a sermon: divided into four hundred and ninety parts, each fully equal to an ordinary address from the pulpit, and each discussing a separate sin. Where he searched for them I cannot tell. He had his private manner of interpreting the phrase, and it seemed necessary the brother should sin different sins on every occasion. Oh, how weary I grew. How I writhed and yawned, and nodded and revived! How I pinched and pricked myself, and rubbed my eyes, and stood up, and sat down again, and nudged Joseph to inform me if he would ever have done.¹³

But I need not quote further, the readers will be familiar with the most vivid parody of a Ranter's sermon to be found in our language.

Yet another feature of the work is the grim humour inspiring the writer's satirical sketch of Joseph. An illustration of this occurs almost in the first page, in the comment made by Lockwood upon Joseph's ejaculation, “The Lord help us!” while “looking meantime in my face so sourly that I charitably conjectured he must have need of Divine aid to digest his dinner.” Again, another touch is given us in the description of the “immense consolation” Joseph derived from the thought that, although Hareton's soul was destined to perdition, “Heathcliff must answer for it,” whereby the ultimate avenging would be at Heathcliff's expense: this saturnine humour is not a woman's, least of all Emily's.

The whole delineation of Joseph is indeed so obviously studied from the life, built up from a model with which the writer was intimately acquainted, created almost with real joy as if to work off some personal grudge against a person of the ranting, Methodist type, from whose pious adjurations the writer had perhaps suffered, that it may be taken as a notable instance of Branwell Brontë's known power of caricature. How well he was able to hit off, in a few lines, certain rough types of character is illustrated for us quite remarkably in a letter he wrote in the beginning of 1840 and to which I have already referred. This letter has been quoted, especially by Miss Robinson, as a sign of Branwell's early depravity, but I propose to quote it here for a quite different purpose. Written by a boy of twenty-one in a roystering vein of merriment, never intended to be seen by any other than his old friend, John Brown, the sexton, to whom it was addressed, it runs as follows:

Broughton-in-Furness, March 13th, 1840.

Old Knave of Trumps,

Don't think I have forgotten you, though I have delayed so long in writing to you. It was my purpose to send you a yarn as soon as I could find materials to spin one with, and it is only just now that I have had time to turn myself round and know where I am. If you saw me now, you would not know me, and you would laugh to hear the character the people give me. Oh, the falsehood and hypocrisy of this world! I am fixed in a little retired town by the seashore, among wild woody hills that rise round me—huge, rocky, and capped with clouds. My employer is a retired county magistrate, a large landowner, and of a right hearty and generous disposition. His wife is a quiet, silent, and amiable woman, and his two sons are fine, spirited lads. My landlord is a respectable surgeon, and six days out of seven is as drunk as a lord! His wife is a bustling, chattering, kind-hearted soul; and his daughter!—oh! death and damnation! Well, what am I? That is, what do they think I am? A most calm, sedate, sober, abstemious, patient, mild-hearted, virtuous, gentlemanly philosopher,—the picture of good works, and the treasure-house of religious thought. Cards are shuffled under the table-cloth, glasses are thrust into the cupboard, if I enter the room. I take neither spirits, wine or malt liquors. I dress in black, and smile like a saint or martyr. Everybody says, ‘What a good young gentleman is Mr. Postlethwaite's tutor!’ This is a fact, as I am a living soul, and right comfortably do I laugh at them. I mean to continue in their good opinion. I took a half-year's farewell of old friend whiskey at Kendal on the night after I left. There was a party of gentlemen at the Royal Hotel, and I joined them. We ordered in supper and whiskey-toddy as ‘hot as hell’! They thought I was a physician, and put me in the chair. I gave sundry toasts, that were washed down at the same time, till the room spun round, and the candles danced in our eyes. One of the guests was a respectable old gentleman with powdered hair, rosy cheeks, fat paunch and ringed fingers. He gave ‘The Ladies’ … after which he brayed off with a speech; and in two minutes, in the middle of a sentence, he stopped, wiped his head, looked wildly round, stammered, coughed, stopped again, and called for his slippers. The waiter helped him to bed. Next a tall Irish squire and a native of the land of Israel began to quarrel about their countries; and, in the warmth of argument, discharged their glasses each at his neighbour's throat instead of his own. I recommended bleeding, purging and blistering; but they administered each other a real ‘Jem Warder,’ so I flung my tumbler on the floor too, and swore I'd join ‘Old Ireland!’ A regular rumpus ensued, but we were tamed at last. I found myself in bed next morning, with a bottle of porter, a glass and a corkscrew beside me. Since then I have not tasted anything stronger than milk-and-water, nor, I hope, shall, till I return at midsummer; when we will see about it. I am getting as fat as Prince William at Springhead, and as godly as his friend, Parson Winterbotham. My hand shakes no longer, I ride to the banker's at Ulverston with Mr. Postlethwaite, and sit drinking tea, and talking scandal with old ladies. As to the young ones! I have one sitting by me just now—fair-faced, blue-eyed, dark-haired, sweet eighteen—she little thinks the devil is so near her!

I was delighted to see thy note, old squire, but I do not understand one sentence—you will perhaps know what I mean. … How are all about you? I long to see and hear them again. How is ‘The Devil's Thumb,’ whom men call ———, and the ‘Devil in Mourning,’ whom they call ———. How are———, and ———, and the Doctor; and him who will be used as the tongs of hell—he whose eyes Satan looks out of, as from windows—I mean ———, esquire? How are little ———, —‘Longshanks,’———, and the rest of them? Are they married, buried, devilled, and damned? When I come I'll give them a good squeeze of the hand; till then, I am too godly for them to think of. That bowlegged devil used to ask me impertinent questions which I answered him in kind. Beelzebub will make of him a walking-stick! Keep to thy teetotalism, old squire, till I return; it will mend thy body. … Does ‘Little Nosey’ think I have forgotten him? No, by Jupiter! nor his clock either. I'll send him a remembrancer some of these days! But I must talk to someone prettier than thee; so goodnight, old boy, and

Believe me thine, The Philosopher.

Write directly. Of course you won't show this letter; and, for Heaven's sake, blot out all the lines scored with red ink.¹⁴

This letter, written in the vein of Prince Hal to his jolly old boon-companion Falstaff, is merely a natural outburst of youth and exceeding high spirits, compelled for the sake of earning a stipend to don the decorous garb of the staid young tutor. Branwell, as he says more than once, hated hypocrisy: he disliked having to be other than he naturally was, just as his sisters suffered from having to adopt the irksome work of governessing. He was very young, and felt he must let himself “go” to somebody, hence this letter, as good as anything in Smollett, Dickens or Fielding, an example of wild, rollicking, natural human spirits trying to escape from the toils of propriety and unnatural decorum.

It is amazing that readers of this racy and forcible epistle have failed to discover in it a strong vein of that rich but sardonic humour, that headlong torrent of denunciation which pervades the pages of Wuthering Heights. In his contempt for hypocrisy and irritation at the meddlesome impertinence of some “bow-legged devil” (possibly some local ranting Dissenter, whose sermonizing was particularly distasteful) lies the germ of the subsequent delineation of Joseph, in whose character the author revels with a kind of triumphant maliciousness for which no woman could have had even a faint incentive.

Of the remaining references in the letter we can identify none, but there is one of which we must take special notice, inasmuch as it furnishes decided evidence for Branwell's authorship. The reference I mean is to him “who will be used as the tongs of hell—he whose eyes Satan looks out of, as from windows, I mean ———esquire?”

It is obvious that even at this date—1840—Branwell Brontë's imagination was playing round some fierce, lowering, gloomy personality with whom he was well acquainted and who was in this letter the object of this damning allusion. Now if we recall his letter to Leyland, already quoted, we remember that the project of this novel was the outcome of observations and reflections made during the previous half-dozen years, which would bring us back to the years 1839-40, when this letter to John Brown was written. The project was but dimly outlined in his mind as yet, but with the passing years the conception began to take shape, until, during his two years' residence at Thorp Green, the hot flame of his passion for another man's wife vitalized and brought it forth in the half-human, half-demon shape we know as Heathcliff, concerning whose eyes the very same simile is used: “that couple of black fiends, so deeply buried who never open their windows boldly, but lurk glinting under them like devil's spies,” or elsewhere, where Isabella says: “The clouded windows of hell flashed a moment towards me: the fiend which usually looked out, however, was so dimmed and drowned that I did not fear to hazard another sound of derision.” Viewed from this standpoint, the importance of this letter can scarcely be overrated, for it displays not merely the torrential force of Branwell's opinions upon certain hostile personalities, but it reveals the original moulds already prepared in his mind, whence some of the rough casts for the characters in his projected novel were taken.

This view is supported by the opinion of Mr. Leyland, a dispassionate and fair-minded man, writing from a close personal acquaintance with the friends of Branwell Brontë.

Those who have heard fall from the lips of Branwell Brontë—and they are few now—all those weird stories, strange imaginings, and vivid and brilliant disquisitions on the life of the people of the West Riding, will recognize that there was at least no opposition between the tendency of his thoughts and those of the author of Wuthering Heights. As to special points in the story, it may be said that Branwell Brontë had tasted most of the passions, weaknesses and emotions there depicted; had loved in frenzied delusion as Heathcliff loved; as with Hindley Earnshaw, too, in the pain of loss when his ship struck; the captain abandoned his post; and the crew, instead of trying to save her, rushed into riot and confusion, leaving no hope for their luckless vessel. He had too, indeed, manifested much of the doating folly of the unhappy master of the ‘Heights’; and finally, there is no doubt that he possessed, nevertheless, almost as much force of character, determination, and energy as Heathcliff himself.¹⁵

Sir Wemyss Reid—quite unwittingly, because he was counsel engaged on the side of Emily—gives evidence which confirms Mr. Leyland's view and my own. The lecturer's contention is that Branwell provided the study for his sister's work, a suggestion which has been shown, I hope, to be an outrage on all we know of Emily Brontë. But his contention that the delineation of Heathcliff's passion for another man's wife found its counterpart in Branwell's experiences is valuable evidence for his authorship of the work.

“Whole pages of the story,” he says, “are filled with the ravings and ragings of the villain against the man whose life stands between him and the woman he loves. Similar ravings are to be found in all the letters of Branwell Brontë written at this period of his career; and we may be sure that similar ravings were always on his lips, as moody and more than half mad, he wandered about the rooms of the parsonage at Haworth.”¹⁶

This last assertion, totally unsupported by evidence, may be left out of account. It is just the kind of gratuitous suggestion, with no foundation in fact, that is so scandalously and seditiously supplied by the detractors of Branwell Brontë, and which, alas! has obtained credence simply through its audacity.

But, to continue our quotation:

“Nay,” he goes on to say, “I have found striking verbal coincidences between Branwell's own language and passages in Wuthering Heights. In one of his own letters there are these words in reference to the object of his passion: ‘My own life without her will be hell. What can the so-called love of her wretched, sickly husband be to her compared with mine?’ Now,” continues Sir Wemyss, “turn to Wuthering Heights, and you will read these words: ‘Two words would comprehend my future—death and hell: existence after losing her would be hell. Yet I was a fool to fancy for a moment that she valued Edgar Linton's attachment more than mine. If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day.’”

Sir Wemyss Reid has really proved too much, and his damaging admissions not only give his case away, but greatly strengthen the case for Branwell's authorship from the resemblance between Heathcliff's expression of his passion and Branwell's own experience.

Mr. Clement Shorter has apologized for taking any notice of Branwell at all, adducing the reason that he was obliged to do so in the face of his “preposterous statement that he wrote Wuthering Heights.” But with all the evidence we have of Branwell's own completion of the first volume of a novel which it would require hardihood to publish; of the fact that he was engaged on it just at the time of his great mental struggle with the passion that devastated him; that his sufferings are, even by a hostile critic, admitted to be just such as are depicted in the soul of Heathcliff; that his powers of caricature and delineation of character were great; that he was, at the time when he began his novel, full of literary ambition and at the zenith of his powers which, by all contemporary accounts, were very uncommon: what, it may be asked, was there “preposterous” in such a statement?

Anyone possessed of unprejudiced judgment must see that the book is the work of one who has actually gone through the “hell” which was slowly consuming Heathcliff; of one who, as Branwell Brontë wrote to Leyland, was writing the book to while away his torments. To have produced the work under such conditions would be far from “preposterous”; would, on the contrary, be extremely natural. The truly “preposterous” theory is that Emily Brontë wrote it.

There still remains the problem as to why Branwell did not come boldly forward as the author of Wuthering Heights in his own remaining lifetime. To this it may be answered that, as the evidence already quoted proves, he did so come forward among his most intimate friends, who probably regarded “Ellis Bell” as his nom de plume, and never associated it with Emily Brontë. Also we have seen that in the presence of Mr. Grundy, and before his sister Emily, he did claim the greater portion of the novel as his own work. I have already tried to show that his peculiar position with regard to Charlotte was a sufficient barrier to any open declaration of authorship among his own family; and also we have to remember that, since it was written just at the time of Branwell's love story, he would naturally shrink from any open acknowledgment of having portrayed his unhappy infatuation for a woman well known in the county, whose family would have been greatly incensed at any possible identification that might ensue.

Of these obstacles to open acknowledgment the chief was Charlotte's complete estrangement from her brother. Her entire ignorance of any collaboration between Branwell and Emily led her to assert in later years that her brother knew nothing of his sisters' work.

There is a further point in connection with Branwell's concealment of his authorship from the family. We have to remember that for a year and a half, according to Charlotte, the ms. of Wuthering Heights went the round of the publishing houses, only to meet with abrupt and ignominious dismissal, and when at last in September, 1847, it was finally accepted by Mr. Newby, another four months elapsed before he issued it. By this time Branwell had lost all interest in the work. His own health was terribly shattered, he was fast sinking into hopeless physical decline; we know from the letter he wrote to Leyland at the close of 1847, or the opening of 1848, that he was at the end of everything, and had long since resigned any literary or other ambition. After the novel was published, it met with little but contumely from the press, and the notices were for the most part so damaging to the author, who was taken to be a rough and brutal man, that there was less temptation than ever for the author to claim his offspring. Indeed, had Emily revealed the truth, she would have set the seal on Charlotte's condemnation of their brother, and perhaps have called public attention to his unhappy failings. So Emily held her peace, as she was so well capable of doing.

This, then, is the conclusion of the whole matter. We are impressed by the brave, hopeful tone of Emily's letters to Anne, by her obvious desire to help everyone, including Branwell, and I submit with much earnestness that this was not the woman who could concoct in secret and launch into the world a novel portraying the absolutely diabolical scheme of vengeance developed by the author of Wuthering Heights, a novel not merely tinged but saturated with the hopelessness of misery, ruin and despair. All Emily's efforts were to leave the world better than she found it, but Branwell's case and character was totally different. He had lived with forlorn hopes amid the rough and tumble of the world immediately around him, in the village, in and out of the farmsteads, on the railway, at Bradford, Halifax, and all about this moorland neighbourhood, ever since he came to manhood; and, as he tells Leyland, he had for half a dozen years back been pondering on all these experiences until he had decided to embody them in a novel. He had his vindictive feelings, his scores to pay off upon some old tormenting hypocrite, no doubt, and he gave us Joseph; he had his hate of Mr. Robinson and his passionate love for his wife and, “veiled” by different characters too far removed from reality to be recognizable, he gave his sufferings to the world under the guise of fiction. Having known the dark passions of defeated love, he gave us Heathcliff; having seen men the victims of temptation, despair and drink, he gave us Hindley Earnshaw.

I have tried to show how completely masculine is the tone, nay, the very atmosphere, of Wuthering Heights, how obviously it is written by one who has seen at close quarters events similar to those of which he writes, by one who knew the old farm manor-house he describes so accurately in Thrushcross Grange, who had at some time or other visited their inmates, and knew every corner of both. I have tried to show that the book was written by one closely acquainted with the classics, which Emily Brontë was not, by one also who possessed the fine, clear-cut style of which we have proof that Branwell was capable. I have pointed out that the date of the composition of the book coincides with the date of Branwell's novel, that its character coincides with the general outline given to Leyland of what he was attempting. I have shown that it was written at the very time when, like the hero, Heathcliff, he was going through the torments of hell, burnt up by an insensate passion for another man's wife; and I have quoted the evidence of his friends, all men of repute, who aver that the story Branwell read to them agreed in every particular, as far as they heard it, with the tale afterwards published as Wuthering Heights. Last of all, there is the direct evidence of Mr. Grundy. With all these points in his favour, and nothing except Charlotte's word in favour of Emily, it is surely difficult not to claim, as I most emphatically do, the authorship for Patrick Branwell Brontë.

If Charlotte's affirmation is still a stumbling-block to some, I would venture to point out that none of the evidence I have tried to bring together was available to Charlotte, who, with her limited knowledge, had no alternative but to attribute it to Emily, and did so in good faith. But, with our fuller information, a reconsideration of the authorship is imperative, nor is there anything outrageous in claiming it for Branwell: on the contrary, it is the simplest common sense. On the other hand, it would require the greatest stretch of probability to ascribe it to anyone who had not closely experienced the anguish it describes: it is written as if in blood.

And, if Emily Brontë did not write Wuthering Heights, in helping her brother to finish and publish it she did a far greater thing, and in so doing surely she has won, beneath the eyes of the Eternal Witness of whom Milton writes, a fame more imperishable than any of those earthly plaudits which she so despised.

In ascribing Wuthering Heights to its true author, it may be asked, who would have rejoiced more than this devoted sister that her secret toil and long burden of anxiety was not undertaken in vain? Who would have been more overjoyed than Emily Brontë that this much loved and deeply lamented brother should, even at long last, have come into the fame which is his own?

Notes

1. Leyland, II, p. 83-84.

2. Leyland, II, p. 186-188.

3. Quoted Leyland, II, p. 188.

4. Preface to Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

5. Sir Wemyss Reid, Lecture on the Brontës.

6. Life, p. 86.

7. Wuthering Heights, (Cassell) Chap. IV., p. 47.

8. ib. p. 280.

9. ib. p. 280.

10. Wuthering Heights, p. 24.

11. ib., p. 23.

12. Wuthering Heights, p. 46.

13. Wuthering Heights, p. 39.

14. Leyland, I., p. 255-9.

15. Leyland, II, p. 192-193.

16. Quoted Leyland, II, p. 193-4.