Where Genius Once Lived

"He said the pleasantest manner of spending a hot July day was lying from morning till evening on a bank of heath in the middle of the moors, with the bees humming dreamily about among the bloom, and the larks singing high up overhead, and the blue sky and bright sun shining steadily and cloudlessly." Emily Bronte Wuthering Heights

I made it to the moors of Yorkshire, alas it was June and not July, but the sun was shining and the bees were humming. But I think my heart was thumping louder as I walked the exact path that Emily and Charlotte had walked themselves. It was exhilarating to imagine them walking in their long dresses through the fields of sheep, intermittent rocks, and various flowers. The walk on the moors only paled in comparison to stepping into the very place these ladies and the rest of their family called home. Haworth Parsonage was larger than I imagined (without taking into consideration the addition that was added by the Reverend who took over the parish after Patrick Bronte died). The foyer was large, airy and bright and there were many windows throughout the house. I was pleasantly surprised to find that the entire home was furnished and filled with actual Bronte belongings. The living room where the girls would write their poetry and novels still held the couch where Emily died (in an earlier post I incorrectly stated that she died in her bedroom; I was mistaken, sorry!). Standing in the room where the genius who wrote Wuthering Heights took her last breath, was humbling and sad. Because she died so young (30 years old) there are not many of Emily's personal items left, but I did see her German books, her lap desk with its contents as she left them and her favorite dog, Keeper's collar.
In contrast, there were many of Charlotte's personal items. These items were kept in various glass cases in her bedroom: shoes, gloves, jewelry, a dress she wore on her honeymoon and even a lock of her light brown hair. She was a tiny lady, I'm thinking 4 feet 10 inches and a size two, yet she had been such a huge literary force -- a woman ahead of her time.
There was no photography allowed in the house but I have committed most of it to memory. For the two days I was in the village, I would make it a point to walk by the house whenever possible. I took many self portraits outside and even asked a stranger to take my photo in front of the house. I walked in the front yard and looked out at every view imaging how it may have looked for Emily. Luckily, most of the town has remained the same since the Brontes were alive; a few new buildings have come into view (new being 1890ish) but for the most part, the landscape has remained untouched.
I only wish all of you could have been there with me, it was truly a beautiful and fulfilling experience that words cannot describe. Another favorite writing Brit of mine, Virginia Woolf, did a much better job describing her visit to Haworth in a short essay about the trip. In this excerpt, she describes how she felt as she looked at the case that held Charlotte's belongings, "But the most touching case - so touching that one hardly feels reverent in one's gaze - is that which contains the little personal relics of the dead woman. The natural fate of such things is to die before the body that wore them, and because these, trifling and transient though they are, have survived, Charlotte Brontë the woman comes to life, and one forgets the chiefly memorable fact that she was a great writer. Her shoes and her thin muslin dress have outlived her." I leave you Virginia's words my friends as I don't think I can do much better.

Humbled and Inspired,

The Temporary European