Death on the Moor

Redbreast In the Morning

“What woke it then?  A little child

Strayed from its father’s door

And in an hour of moonlight wild

Laid lonely on the desert moor.”- Emily Bronte  1837

 

Haworth.  February 1801-

Two-year old Joseph Helliwell snuck outside and attempted to secretly follow his father  from their home at Enfieldside to Pecket Well, where the farmer had a business meeting.  Tragically, Joseph could not keep up as his father made his way up the old Haworth Road.   He was found frozen to death the next morning upon the Moor.

Haworth.  January 27, 1849-

Four-year old Joseph Halliwell was the son of farmer William.   They lived on Far Intake Farm.  One day, the little boy ventured out and became lost.  Four days later, he was found frozen to death upon the same moor which had claimed his  near-namesake less than fifty years before.

 

resource:  “Strange World of The Brontes” by Marie Campbell

Happy Birthday Emily Bronte: An Astrological Look

Emily Bronte: born July 30, 1818

Rising Sign: Scorpio

The Rising Sign, or Ascendant is the sign which is rising at the time of one’s birth.  It denotes one’s outward demeanor, how they are viewed by others, their unique imprint on the world.  How they see, and how they are perceived.

As many astrologists believe the Rising Sign to be even more important than the more well-known Sun sign (including myself, amateur that I may be) I am concentrating first on this aspect of Miss Bronte.

  Often cool and reserved on the outside, never ones to smile much, a passionate soul seethes underneath the surface.   When they become interested in a subject they study it to near obsession.  Love for them, is all or nothing.  They’d rather be alone than be in an “okay” relationship.  Intensely private, they let few people into the deeper recesses of their hearts. 

Loners, they work best alone, though they can also be good leaders with their clever and persuasive minds.  Charming conversationists, they draw the other person into speaking while they sit back and listen.  

Often psychic, they easily see through the fake masks that people wear.  They have no patience for pretense.

Extremely patient, they rarely make rash moves.  Rather they take their time feeling out situations and people. 

Usually calm, when evoked, their temper can be furious, snapping back with great cruelty as they easily see others’ soft spots.

Ruled by the planet Pluto- Rising Scorpios have intense emotions, strong sense of self, determination, and powerful imaginations. Their strength, usually is not of the outward in-your-face kind, but rather, a quiet inner power.  When they desire something, they seek their goal in an understated way, never giving up until they have achieved it.

Highly spiritual, they are often drawn to the occult, mysticism, and things unveiled.  Sharing an affinity with animals is quite common.

Sun Sign: Leo

The sun sign denotes one’s general outer personality

The fiery sun of Leo evokes a proud, exuberant presence.   Loyal and courageous, the Leo is as majestic as the King or Queen of the jungle.

 Dignified, ambitious, and charismatic, they are natural leaders.  They can be overbearing; very stubborn, once their mind is made up, it can be almost impossible for them to budge, making them difficult to deal with at times.

Kind, extremely giving,  they embrace life with a true joie de vivre.

3. Moon Sign: Cancer

The moon sign denotes one’s inner personality, including their secret fears and desires.

Moon in Cancerians have a great love and need for hearth.  They can not be far from the security of home.   Extremely sensitive, they often hide behind a hardened exterior like their symbol, the crab.  Very receptive and impressionistic, they excel in art and literature.

Due to the hardened exterior they create, they may appear sharp and “crabby”.  Ruled by the quicksilvery Moon, their moodswings are swift and ever changing.  Depressed and sullen one moment, sweet and loving the next.

Not one’s to easily open up and share their emotions, they are in truth, one of the most sensitive and romantic signs of the Zodiac.

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The Old Stoic by Emily Bronte

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream
That vanish’d with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, “Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!”

Yes, as my swift days near their goal,
‘Tis all that I implore:
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure

Wuthering Heights

 

I noticed a discussion on AW regarding whether Wuthering Heights was a love story or not.   This prompted me to repost this book review I wrote last summer:

It’s been called the most passionately written novel in the English language.  The love between the foundling Heathcliffe and his foster father’s daughter, Catherine, turns to hate when she forsakes him (and herself) to marry for money.

Many people open this novel with false expectations.  This usually comes from having viewed the classic film version starring Sir Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.  As gorgeous as that film is- it is not the book.  Not only  is the second half of the story missing-  the characters and themes are  also greatly watered down.

In the film, Heathcliffe is the tragic hero- heartbroken and brooding over the woman who left him.  It never goes into the horrific emotional and physical abuse he unleashes onto the second generation.   Catherine is  portrayed as a spoiled, narcisstic child.   The film doesn’t dare go deeper into her troubled psyche which causes her to will her own death.

Emily Bronte dared.

Charlotte Bronte said, ”liberty was the breath of Emily’s nostrils; without it, she perished.”

Indeed, much of Emily’s poetry deals with personal freedom.

One of her famous lines from a poem is:

“I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:

it vexes me to choose another guide.”

Catherine commits suicide the moment she allows societal opinions to dictate how she should live.  It takes her body some years more to follow.

The last lines of Emily’s poem, Light up thy Halls- seems a forebearer to Heathcliffe’s grief and rage:

“And yet for all her hate, each parting glance would tell

A stronger passion breathed, burned, in this last farewell.

Unconquered in my soul the Tyrant rules me still;

Life bows to my control, but Love I cannot kill!”

Many critics claim the second part of the novel- concerning the relationship between the second Catherine and Heathcliffe’s adopted son, Hareton, is weak.  Is it less passionate than the first part?  Yes.  Weak- no.

The first part of the novel is a thunderous storm.  The second part details the breaking of the clouds- and at last- the calm.

What Heathcliffe and Catherine did wrong- Hareton and Catherine the 2nd, set right again.

Nature restores itself.

Wuthering Heights is not for everyone.  While it is a love story, its dark themes of vengeance, abuse, madness, and necrophelia- is not of the Harlequin sort.

People hate this novel with the same passion others love it.

Emily probably doesn’t care.

It is doubtful anyone ever forgets it.

Anne Bronte: The Courageous Sister

Those born on the the seventeenth of any month are said to be strong in spirit throughout the difficulties of life.

Anne Bronte was born on January 17, 1820, the youngest surviving child of the family.   One day, her older sister, Charlotte, watched over Anne’s wooden crib.  She cried out to her father to come, for she had seen an angel hovering over Anne.

This angelic image still lingers over Anne Bronte.  She has long been thought of as the “sweet, shy” sister.  The sister that would be all but forgotten if not for her surname.

As is often the case, Anne’s gentleness  was mistaken for weakness.  Anne’s sweet smile belied a will of iron.

By the age of  five she’d lost her mother and her two eldest sisters.  The remaining siblings: Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne formed an  enduring bond.  Encouraged by their father, they read voraciously and created their own magical worlds which they set down on paper.  While Charlotte and Branwell continued working on Angria,  Emily and Anne branched off with their own  kingdom of Gondal which was inspired by tales from Lord Byron and Sir Walter Scott.

Charlotte’s best friend, Ellen Nussey, noted Anne and Emily were, “like twins, inseparable companions in the very closest sympathy, which never had any interruption.”  Indeed, it was only to Anne that the reclusive Emily ever opened up.

Deeply religious and ambitious, Anne was determined from an early age to succeed at all she set out to do.   While all of her siblings had failed at their career attempts away from home, Anne used her faith to survive her two tenures as a governess.   First, at the age of eighteen, for the Inghams of Blake Hall, Mirfield; and later with the Robinson family of Thorp Green.  Governesses were not only paid less than the general servant or lady’s maid, but they found themselves in very lonely situations.  They were not part of the family and the other servants usually shunned them.

Anne depicted these experiences as a governess in Agnes Grey.   Written in a simple, down-to-earth style, it was deeply overshadowed by Charlotte’s Jane Eyre.   In 1848, The Atlas critiqued, “Perhaps we shall best describe it as a coarse imitation of one of Miss Austen’s charming stories.”  Douglas Jerrold’s Weekly Paper, while dismissing  the character Agnes as being inferior to Jane, did commend the authoress on her extraordinary powers of observation.

Anne used these powers on her second novel, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.   Inspired by the horrors she’d witnessed of  Branwell’s addiction  to liquor and drugs, she wrote an unflinching account on alcoholism.   The general public and reviewers were outraged at the story of a woman who “steals” her child,  runs away from her alcoholic  husband, and finds love with another man while in hiding.   Realistic, sharp, and unsentimental, the novel was years before its time.  

It  proved as controversial as Emily’s, Wuthering Heights.

Anne was branded immoral.   Undaunted,  she set out to write a third novel.    However,  in September of 1848, Branwell died after years of alcohol abuse.   Only three months later, Anne’s beloved companion, Emily, succumbed to tuberculosis.

One year later, Anne was diagnosed with the same disease.    She begged Charlotte to bring her to Scarborough (a seaside resort that Anne had first visited with the Robinsons).  Anne always loved the sea and hoped for its curative powers.   Charlotte and her father eschewed the idea for Anne was barely able to walk by now.

Seeking support for her plan, Anne wrote to Ellen Nussey: ”I have a more serious reason than this for my impatience of delay: the doctors say that change of air or removal to a better climate would hardly ever fail of success in consumptive cases if taken in time, but the reason why there are so many disappointments is, that it is generally deferred till it is too late. Now I would not commit this error; and to say the truth, though I suffer much less from pain and fever than I did when you were with us, I am decidedly weaker and very much thinner my cough still troubles me a good deal, especially in the night, and, what seems worse than all, I am subject to great shortness of breath on going up stairs or any slight exertion. Under these circumstances I think there is no time to be lost… I have no horror of death: if I thought it inevitable I think I could quietly resign myself to the prospect… But I wish it would please God to spare me not only for Papa’s and Charlotte’s sakes, but because I long to do some good in the world before I leave it. I have many schemes in my head for future practise–humble and limited indeed–but still I should not like them all to come to nothing, and myself to have lived to so little purpose. But God’s will be done.”

Anne and Charlotte set off for Scarborough on May 24, 1849.   Anne spent her final days enjoying the horizons of her beloved sea.

Anne Bronte died on May 28, 1849.   Her last words to Charlotte were, “take courage.”

Writers: We’re Not Alone

1:05 am

music playing: Rasputina’s In Old Yellow Cake

I’m still stuck revising the first three chapters of my draft.  More and more I am learning how important the beginning must be.  Of course, I want my whole novel to be great.  (I certainly don’t want a reader to get to the middle and then throw it across the room)  But if the very first page isn’t flawless, an agent is never going to look further.  And there goes the chance for any reader to ever even get to the middle of my novel.

I’ve been working on this all day and somehow have managed not to O.D. on caffeine.    And I still frigging have not made much progress.

Grrr…

But as difficult as all this is- I also love it. I love thriving towards something. Have something to dream about, and work on every day. I think life must be rather dull for people who have no dreams.

And I’m further comforted by remembering that all writers struggle.

Nathanial Hawthorne reportedly destroyed countless manuscripts in fits of despair.

Emily Bronte wrote in July 1836:  “I am more terrifically and idiotically and brutally STUPID than ever I was in the whole course of my incarnate existance.”

Faulkner was certain The Sound and the Fury would never be published due to its experimental tone.

Richard Adam’s classic tale of rabbits searching for a new home on Watership Down was rejected 13 times.  Adults wouldn’t want to read about bunnies.  Or so agents gathered.

No matter what century- writers struggle.  They struggle with the first draft.  With the countless revisions.  And then they struggle with finding that initial agent who believes.

So fellow writers, when you get down, just remember every single writer on this planet- from the immortals to the midlist to the still unknowns- have gone, and are going, through the same thing.

And the ultimate victory is so worth it.

And the NaNo Race is Off…

Goodness!  Where do I begin?  What a few days it’s been.   Strictly talking NaNo here.  (it’s not like anything major was going on in the world yesterday.  *grin*)

I had to work Saturday, so my NaNo officially began at 10 P.M.  Then, I perched down on my usual spot- sitting Indian-Style upon the sofa with my laptop – tea within hand’s reach.  I was so giddy to begin.  Writing is such a solitary art and craft that it was warming to think of the other participants all around  the world engaging in the same activity, fortified with their endless cups of tea, coffee, and hot chocolate.

Words rushed from my fingertips onto the page.   Hours flew by.   Finally, at 3 a.m., I started feeling tired.  But that was okay.  Surely, I had surpassed the necessary 1667 daily words.

I clicked on Microsoft Works Word Counter.

1317 words.

At that moment, it would’ve been less horrifying if the Borg invaded my living room.

My eyes were playing tricks on me.

I looked again.

1317 words.

Okay.   The word counter was obviously broken.  It wasn’t counting words beginning with “t” or “s”.

(sob)

I pressed on another 45 minutes.  1532 words.   It was either give up and go to bed  or resort to typing “la la la” a couple hundred times.

Bed won.  Lying there, I wondered how I could’ve forgotten how formidable NaNo is.  But, then I pulled myself together.   My thoughts turned to Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson.  Anyone who’s read much of my blog knows Ms. Bronte is my absolute writing icon.   Dickinson is a new passion.   Not only were these two women geniuses- but more importantly, they were complete individuals who wrote exactly what they wished without a care what others thought.  What better Muses for NaNo?  So I called upon them for inspiration.  Invoking their names as I drifted asleep.

It must have worked because on Monday evening I reached over 9,000 words.  Yeah!!!!!!!

After a false start, I’m on my way.   I am sure during the next 30 days there will be other setbacks.   But I am even more sure that I shall be victorious.

How are my fellow NaNoers doing?

Call upon your personal Muses and Write on…