onally connected with the
scenes and even, perhaps, with the characters associated with the Bronte
family, I cannot begin my little address to you to-day without some
invocation of the genius of the place. We meet at Dewsbury because the
immortal sisters were identified with Dewsbury. Is it then not
imperative that for whatever picture of them I may endeavour to present
before you this afternoon, Dewsbury should form the background?
Unfortunately, however, although in the hands of a skilful painter the
figures of the ladies may glow forth, I fear that in the matter of
taking Dewsbury as the background some vagueness and some darkness are
inevitable. In the biographies of Mrs. Gaskell and of Mr. Clement
Shorter, as well as in the proceedings of your society, I have searched
for evidences of the place Dewsbury took in the lives of the Brontes.
What I find--I expect you to tell me that it is not exhaustive--is this.
Their father, the Rev. Patrick Bronte, was curate here from 1809 to
1811. In 1836, when Charlotte was twenty, Miss Wooler transferred her
school from Roe Head to Heald's House at the top of Dewsbury Moor. In
this school, where Charlotte had been a pupil since 1831, she was now a
governess, and a governess she remained until early in 1838. In April of
that year Miss Wooler was taken ill and Charlotte was for a little while
in charge. Then there was an explosion of temper, of some kind, and
Charlotte went back to Haworth.

That, then, in the main, is the limit of what the scrupulous Muse of
history vouchsafes to tell us about Charlotte Bronte's relation to
Dewsbury. But it also supplies us with one or two phrases which I cannot
bring myself to spare you. In January 1838, Charlotte reviews her
experience at Dewsbury Moor; "I feel," she says, "in nothing better,
nothing humbler nor purer." Again, in 1841, after there had passed time
enough to mellow her exacerbations, she continues to express herself
with vigour. Miss Wooler is making overtures to Charlotte and Emily to
take over the school at Heald's House; perhaps a place might be found
for Anne as well. Miss Wooler, one of the kindest of women, is most
thoughtful, most conciliatory. Charlotte will have none of the idea; she
puts it roughly from her. Of Dewsbury she has nothing to say but that
"it is a poisoned place for me." This is all we know of Charlotte's
relation to Dewsbury, yet nothing, you will tell me, in Froude's phrase,
to what the angels know. Well,