The Victorian age.

Argument
So , um , had to write about smth and this is some boring shot for you guys. And simply because Im a total bitch and got no sex lately, Ive decided to write a 32-page long paper about it. Yes, I want you to suffer as well. Enjoy your next 20 mins. Assholes. * needs bit more work.*

Introduction
In 1897 Mark Twain was visiting London during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations honoring the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's coming to the throne. "British history is two thousand years old," Twain observed, "and yet in a good many ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand put together." Twain's comment captures the sense of dizzying change that characterized the Victorian period. Perhaps most important was the shift from a way of life based on ownership of land to a modern urban economy based on trade and manufacturing. By the beginning of the Victorian period, the Industrial Revolution, as this shift was called, had created profound economic and social changes, including a mass migration of workers to industrial towns, where they lived in new urban slums. But the changes arising out of the Industrial Revolution were just one subset of the radical changes taking place in mid- and late-nineteenth-century Britain among others were the democratization resulting from extension of the franchise; challenges to religious faith, in part based on the advances of scientific knowledge, particularly of evolution; and changes in the role of women. All of these issues, and the controversies attending them, informed Victorian literature. In part because of the expansion of newspapers and the periodical press, debate about political and social issues played an important role in the experience of the reading public. The Victorian novel, with its emphasis on the realistic portrayal of social life, represented many Victorian issues in the stories of its characters. Moreover, debates about political representation involved in expansion both of the franchise and of the rights of women affected literary representation, as writers gave voice to those who had been voiceless.

Queen Victoria

ictoria, the daughter of the duke of Kent and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, was born in 1819. She inherited the throne of Great Britain at the age of eighteen, upon the death of her uncle William IV in 1837, and reigned until 1901, bestowing her name upon her age. ). Only 18 when she came to the throne, Victoria oversaw England at the height of its overseas power. The British Empire was established in her reign, and it reached its greatest expanse under her. Things did not start off smoothly, however. She married her mother's nephew, Albert (1819-1861), prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, in 1840, and until his death he remained the focal point of her life (she bore him nine children). Albert replaced Lord Melbourne, the Whig Prime Minister who had served her as her first personal and political tutor and instructor, as Victoria's chief advisor. Albert was moralistic, conscientious and progressive, if rather priggish, sanctimonious, and intellectually shallow, and with Victoria initiated various reforms and innovations -- he organized the Great Exhibition of 1851, for example -- which were responsible for a great deal of the popularity later enjoyed by the British monarchy. (In contrast to the Great Exhibition, housed in the Crystal Palace and viewed by proud Victorians as a monument to their own cultural and technological achievements, however, we may recall that the government over which Victoria and Albert presided had, in the midst of the potato famine of 1845, continued to permit the export of grain and cattle from Ireland to England while over a million Irish peasants starved to death).

Sir Francis Grant's Portrait of Queen Victoria.

After Albert's death in 1861 a desolate Victoria remained in self-imposed seclusion for ten years. Her genuine but obsessive mourning, which would occupy her for the rest of her life, played an important role in the evolution of what would become the Victorian mentality. Thereafter she lived at Windsor or Balmoral, travelling abroad once a year, but making few public appearances in Britain itself. Although she maintained a careful policy of official political neutrality, she did not get on at all well with Gladstone. Eventually, however, she succumbed to the flattery of Disraeli, and permitted him (in an act which was both symbolic and theatrical) to have her crowned Empress of India in 1876. (As Punch noted at the time, "one good turn deserves another," and Victoria reciprocated by making Disraeli Earl of Beaconsfield.) She tended as a rule to take an active dislike of British politicians who criticized the conduct of the conservative regimes of Europe, many of which were, after all, run by her relatives. By 1870 her popularity was at its lowest ebb (at the time the monarchy cost the nation 400,000 per annum, and many wondered whether the largely symbolic institution was worth the expense), but it increased steadily thereafter until her death. Her golden jubilee in 1887 was a grand national celebration, as was her diamond jubilee in 1897 (by then, employing the imperial "we," she had long been Kipling's "Widow of Windsor," mother of the Empire). She died, a venerable old lady, at Osborne on January 22, 1901, having reigned for sixty-four years.

Education of the queen.

According to Tim Reid's article in The Times on-line, the "List Of Books Read By Princess Victoria," a document in her own handwriting, reveals the "formidable reading list" of 150 works she studied "between the ages of seven and 16," many of which "would be largely impenetrable to even the most dedicated and scholarly modern pupil." The record, to which, begins in 1826, . . . is a mix of 20 religious texts, 27 French books, including Voltaire's histories, 13 volumes of classical Latin and grammar, including the works of Ovid, Virgil and Horace, the great historical works of the age, the poetry of Dryden, Pope, Cowper, Shakespeare and Goldsmith, treatises in business and astronomy, Blackstone's classic commentary on the laws of England -- studied when 15 and compendiums on geography, natural history and moral teachings. . . . By the age of nine, the Princess was studying 25 texts, including A Concise History of England, Markham's History of France, An Introduction to Astronomy, Geography and the Use of Globes, The Catechism of the Church of England "to be learned by Heart" Pinnock's Catechism of Geography, and the Book of Trades. By the time Victoria was 16 she had already read Dryden's translation of The Aneid, Pope's Iliad, Voltaire's history of Charles XII (in the original French), "and was studying Goldsmith's History of England, Clarendon's History of the Rebellion, had completed Goldsmith's histories of Greece and Rome and Magnall's Historical Questions."

In sum, Victoria, who "enjoyed a grasp of world affairs far superior to many of the 20 Prime Ministers who worked to serve her," was an extremely well educated person. She spoke excellent French plus "some Italian [and] adequate Latin" and had "an advanced knowledge" of subjects, such as business, still not adequately covered at Oxford. Victoria was clearly one nineteenth-century British woman who was not handicapped because not she did attend a major university. Can you think of other Victorian women (outside royalty) who also achieved high learning despite their inability to attend a university? Hint: one remains one of England's most important novelists, and another, a major poet and a leading scholar of post-classical Greek, was seriously suggested as Poet Laureate on the death of Wordsworth.

Queen Victoria and Victorian England - the young queen The generally uneventful reign of George's brother, William IV (1830-37), was followed by that of Queen Victoria (1837-1901

The Great Exhibition of 1851.

Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, was the main backer of the 1851 Great Exhibition. This was the first "world's fair", with exhibits from most of the world's nations. The exhibition was held in Hyde Park, and the showpiece was the Crystal Palace, a prefabricated steel and glass structure like a gigantic A young greenhouse, which housed the exhibits. The Crystal Palace Victoria was disassembled after the Exhibition and moved to Sydenham, in south London, where it burned down in 1936.
The Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations was the first international exhibition of manufactured goods, and it had an incalculable effect on the course of art and design throughout the Victorian Age and beyond. It was modeled on successful French national exhibitions, but it was the first to open its doors to the world. Prince Albert's Project. The Exhibitions chief proponent and cheerleader was Prince Albert. The Prince Consort envisaged a self-financing event, and encouraged a reluctant government to set up a Royal Commission to oversee the exhibition, to be held in Hyde Park, London. The Commission called for architectural submissions for the exhibition hall, which was to cover an area of over 700,000 square feet. Over 200 submissions were received, but the Commission rejected them all in favour of its own plan, which was universally reviled as ugly and expensive. This latter objection proved all too true, for when the Commission called for tenders for the materials alone, they were appalled to learn it would cost up to 150,000 pounds. Paxton's Crystal Palace. Then another plan surfaced, by Joseph Paxton. Initially the Commission rejected Paxton's plan, but he took out newspaper ads to raise public support, and the Commissioners were forced to bow to public pressure. Paxton's innovative design called for a glass and steel structure, essentially a giant greenhouse, made of identical, interchangeable pieces, thus lowering

materials cost considerably. Paxton's design was adopted, with the addition of a dome to allow space for some very tall trees in Hyde Park. Jump testing. Rival architects claimed that the building was unsafe, and would collapse from the resonance set up by the feet of large crowds. So an experiment was set up. A model structure was built, and workmen walked back and forth in time and then haphazardly. Then they jumped up in the air together. No problem. As a final test, army troops were called in to march about. The test building passed the trial, so work proceeded on the real thing.

The numbers.
Some quick facts and figures about Paxton's amazing creation:

The main building was 1848 feet long and 408 wide, enclosing 772,784 square feet (19 acres), an area six times that of St. Paul's Cathedral The structure contained 4000 tons of iron, 900,000 feet of glass, and 202 miles of sash bars to hold it all together.

The Exhibition.
Amazingly, the building, dubbed the "Crystal Palace", was ready on time and on budget. In fact, due to presale of tickets, the exhibition was ensured a profit before it even opened on May 1, 1851. There were 17,000 exhibitors from as far away as China, and over 6 million visitors viewed goods ranging from silks to clocks, and furniture to farm machinery. The French were the big winners in terms of awards, a fact which did not go unnoticed by the British press. The profit from the exhibition was used to purchase land in Kensington, where several museums were built, including the forerunner of the Victoria and Albert Museum, which carries on the spirit of the exhibition in its displays devoted to art and design. In fact, the road were several of these museums were built was called Exhibition Road. As for the Crystal Palace itself, it was dismantled at the end of the exhibition and reassembled in Sydenham, South London. There it stayed as a tourist attractuion until it burned down in 1936. If you want to get a sense of what this amazing building was like, visit the Royal Botanical Gardens at Kew, and take a look at the Palm House.

Late Victorian England

A tale of Two Prime Ministers. This era could be subtitled 'The Gladstone and Disraeli Show' for the two politicians who dominated it. The two men, Gladstone and Disraeli, could not have been more dissimilar. Gladstone was liberal, humanitarian, and devout. Queen Victoria found him stuffy.

Disraeli, on the other had, was imperialist, nationalistic, and charming to boot. The queen enjoyed his company, for he could make her laugh. The Irish Question. This was also the age of the 'Irish Question', the question being whether or not the Irish should be allowed to rule themselves. Gladstone was a constant activist for increased Irish autonomy, but his views were not widely supported, and Irish extremists began a campaign of terrorism, the fruits of which are still with us today.

Disraeli

Legal reform proceeded slowly. Education was made more accessible for the lower classes, and the Ballot Act of 1872 made voting a private affair for the first time. The Army Regulation Bill abolished the practice of purchasing commissions in the armed forces. Victorian literature. In this age before TV's, computers, and Nintendo, the most common form of entertainment was reading aloud (parents of the video age take note!). Writers like Dickens, Tennyson, and Trolloppe were widely read and discussed. The advent of universal compulsory education after 1870 meant that there was now a much larger audience for literature. Disraeli himself, when he wasn't locking horns with Gladstone, was a very popular novelist. Victoria's Empire. Much of the attention of the country was focussed abroad during this era. In 1876 Victoria was declared Empress of India and the English Empire was constantly being expanded. The prevailing attitude in Britain was that expansion of British control around the globe was good for everyone. Urbanization. On the home front the Industrial Revolution gathered steam, and accelerated the migration of the population from country to city. The result of this movement was the development of horrifying slums and cramped row housing in the overcrowded cities. By 1900 80% of the population lived in cities. These cities were 'organized' into geographical zones based on social class - the poor in the inner city, with the more fortunate living further away from the city core. This was made possible by the development of suburban rail transit. Some suburban rail companies were required by law to provide cheap trains for workers to travel into the city centre. Seaside Resorts. The growth of rail transit also gave birth to that Victorian mainstay, the seaside resort. As the Industrial Revolution progressed, working hours decreased, and the introduction of Bank Holidays meant that workers had the time to take trips away from the cities to the seaside. The seaside resorts introduced the amusement pier to entertain visitors. Some of the more famous resorts were at Blackpool and Brighton. The new aristocracy. The Industrial Revolution also meant that the balance of power shifted from the aristocracy, whose position and wealth was based on land, to the newly rich business leaders. The new aristocracy became one of wealth, not land, although titles, then as now, remained socially important in British society.

In the late 18th century, running in parallel, as it were, with raging classicism, was a school of romanticized Gothic architecture, popularized by Batty Langley's pattern books of medieval details. This medieval style was most common in domestic building, where the classical style overwhelmingly prevailed in public buildings.

Victorian Art and Architecture

hat did the Victorians like? What kind of furniture, silverwork, jewelry, wallpaper, and glass did they buy for their own homes? Even to begin to answer that question one must put the terms "Victorian" and "Victorians" within quotation marks twice first because the Victorian years, which lasted from 1835 (or even 1830) to 1903 or a few years beyond, obviously divides into three, four, or even five periods. Whereas the early part of Victoria's reign saw interest in a medieval or Gothick Revival in all aspects of architecture and design, much of the mid- and late-Victorian period was a time of the lush, abundant, cluttered look that most of us associate with the term "Victorian." Then, from the 1880s onward, a series of reactions against High Victorian taste took place Aestheticism, Art Nouveau, Japonisme, the Arts and Crafts movement, the Celtic Revival and the Liberty style, and finally Art Deco, which reached its height much later, in the 1930s and '40s. Therefore, when anyone talks about "Victorian taste," we have to find out to which part of Victoria's reign they refer. Second and equally important, Victorian taste varied widely according to social class and the not-always-closely-related matter of economic status. To begin with, many members of the nobility and land-owning gentry, who lived in homes their families had occupied for centuries, found themselves surrounded by Elizabethan, Jacobean, and eighteenth-century furnishings, and unless they were self-consciously interested in contemporary taste, they were often unlikely to replace perfectly good furniture or silver, however old and out-of-fashion, with any examples of new taste. A conservative, prosperous, but not particularly wealthy member of the squierarchy, like Ralph Carbury of Trollope's The Way We Live Now, had no fashionable furnishings. Similarly, members of the working classes, farm workers, and unemployed poor, who together made up far more than half of the Victorian population, did not have the resources to furnish their homes with properly Victorian things. By and large, then, questions of Victoran taste refer primarily to the middle and professional classes, to factory owners in the industrial North, such the Thorntons we meet in Gaskell's North and South, and a very view wealthy trendsetters the kind of people we see made the subject of Punch's mockery.

The Gothic Revival Architecture. In reaction to the classical style of the previous century, the Victorian age saw a return to traditional British styles in building, Tudor and mock-Gothic being the most popular. The Gothic Revival, as it was termed, was part spiritual movement, part recoil from the mass produced monotony of the Industrial Revolution. It was a romantic yearning for the traditional, comforting past. The Gothic Revival was led by John Ruskin, who, though not himself an architect, had huge influence as a successful writer and philosopher. The term "Gothic Revival" (sometimes called Victorian Gothic) usually refers to the period of mock-Gothic architecture practiced in the second half of the 19th century. That time frame can be a little deceiving, however, for the Gothic style never really died in England after the end of the medieval period. Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, when classical themes ruled the fashion-conscious world of architecture, Gothic style can be seen, if intermittently. This is because many architects were asked to remodel medieval buildings in a way that blended in with the older styles. One of the prime movers of a new interest in Gothic style was Horace Walpole. Walpole's country house at Strawberry Hill, Twickenham (1750), was a fancifully romantic Gothic cottage. The style adopted by Walpole (termed, not surprisingly, "Strawberry Hill Gothic"), took many of the decorative elements of exterior medieval Gothic and moved them to the interior of the house. Thus, Walpole's rooms are adorned some might say over-adorned - with touches like cusped ceilings and crocheted arches.

A Gothic Revival church

Little of Walpole's style is what you could call "authentic"; he merely took decorative touches and strewed them about with abandon. The controversial result is very much open to criticism; you either love it or hate it, but few people are ambivalent about it. Other architects tried their hand at Gothic style. Even Robert Adam, the master of neo-classical country house architecture, used Gothic elements, for example at Culzean Castle, where the exterior crenellation recalls a medieval fortress. James Wyatt was the most prominent 18th century architect employing Gothic style in many of his buildings. His Ashridge Park (Hertfordshire), begun in 1806, is the best surviving example of his work. At Ashridge, Wyatt employed a huge central hall, open to the roof, in conscious imitation of a medieval great hall.

Gothic Revival cottage

Into the early years of the 19th century many architects dabbled in Gothic style, but as with Walpole, it was more the decorative touches that appealed to them; little bits of carving here, a dab of pointed arch there.

Most paid scant heed to authentic proportion, which is one of the most powerful moving forces of "real" Gothic style. Even when the shapes used by builders were Gothic, the structure was not. Columns and piers were made with iron cores covered over with plaster. In the early 19th century Gothic was considered more suitable for church and university buildings, where classical style was thought more appropriate for public and commercial buildings. Good examples of university Gothic can be seen at Cambridge, for example, the Bridge of Sighs at St. John's College (1826) and the gateway at King's College (1822-24). It is really only after 1840 the Gothic Revival began to gather steam, and when it did the prime movers were not architects at all, but philosophers and social critics. This is the really curious aspect of the Victorian Gothic revival; it intertwined with deep moral and philosophical ideals in a way that may seem hard to comprehend in today's world. Men like A.W. Pugin and writer John Gothic Ruskin (The Seven Lamps of Architecture, 1849) sincerely believed Revival that the Middle Ages was a watershed in human achievement and window that Gothic architecture represented the perfect marriage of spiritual and artistic values. Ruskin allied himself with the Pre-Raphaelites and vocally advocated a return to the values of craftsmanship, artistic, and spiritual beauty in architecture and the arts in general. Ruskin and his brethren declared that only those materials which had been available for use in the Middle Ages should be employed in Gothic Revival buildings. Even more narrow-minded than Ruskin were followers of the "ecclesiological movement", which began in the universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Adherents of the ecclesiological movement believed that only the Gothic style was suitable for church architecture, but not just any Gothic style! To them, the "Middle Pointed" or Decorated style prevalent in the late 13th to mid 14th century was the only true Gothic. The bible of the movement was the monthly publication, The Ecclesiologist, which was published from 1841-1868. The publication was in essence a style-guide to proper Gothic architecture and design. But all this theory needed some practical buildings to illustrate the ideals. The greatest example of authentic Gothic Revival is the Palace of Westminster (The Houses of Parliament). The Palace of Westminster was rebuilt by Sir Charles Barry and A.W. Pugin after a disastrous fire destroyed the old buildings in 1834. While Barry Westminster oversaw the construction, much of the design is Pugin's, a design Palace he carried out in exacting Perpendicular Gothic style inside and out. The period from 1855-1885 is known as High Victorian Gothic. In this period architects like William Butterfield (Keble College Chapel, Oxford) and Sir George Gilbert Scott (The Albert Memorial, London) created a profusion of buildings in varying degrees of adherence to strict Gothic style.

High Victorian Gothic was applied to a dizzying variety of architectural projects, from hotels to railroad stations, schools to civic centers. Despite the strident voice of the Ecclesiological Society, buildings were not limited to the Decorated period style, but embraced Early English, Perpendicular, and even Romanesque styles. Were the Gothic Revivalists successful? Certainly the Victorian Gothic style is easy to pick out from the original medieval. One of the reasons for this was a lack of trained craftsmen to carry out the necessary work. Original medieval building was time-consuming and labor-intensive. Yet there was a large pool of labourer's skilled in the necessary techniques; techniques which were handed down through the generations that it might take to finish a large architectural project. Victorian Gothic builders lacked that pool of skilled labourers to draw upon, so they were eventually forced to evolve methods of mass-producing decorative elements. These mass-produced touches, no matter how well made, were too polished, too perfect, and lacked the organic roughness of original medieval work. Christopher Wren, the master of classical style, for example, added Gothic elements to several of his London churches (St. Michael, Cornhill, and St. Dunstan-in-the-East). William Kent's gatehouse at Hampton Court Palace (1723) fit in flawlessly with Cardinal Wolsey's original Tudor Gothic. When Nicholas Hawksmoor remodeled the west towers at Westminster Abbey (from 1723) he did so in a sympathetic Gothic style. Major Gothic Revival buildings to see in England: Strawberry Hill, Twickenham Exeter College Chapel, Oxford Scarisbrick Hall, Lancashire Keble College, Oxford Palace of Westminster, London Albert Memorial, London

Extravagant... Most popular architectural styles were throwbacks; Tudor,

medieval, Italianate. Houses were often large, and terribly inconvenient to live in. The early Victorians had a predilection for overly elaborate details and decoration. Some examples of large Victorian houses are Highclere Castle (Hampshire) and Kelham Hall (Nottinghamshire).

... and simple. In late Victorian times the pendulum, predictably, swung to the
other extreme and the style was simpler, using traditional vernacular (folk) models such as the English farmhouse. This period is typified by the work of Norman Shaw at 'Wispers' Midhurst, (Sussex). Not just styles changed. The Industrial Revolution made possible the use of new materials such as iron and glass. The best example of the use of these new

materials was the Crystal Palace built by Joseph Paxton for the Great Exhibition of 1851.

The Arts and Crafts movement.

Another name that has to be mentioned in the context of Victorian art and architecture is that of William Morris. Neither artist nor architect, he nevertheless had enormous influence in both arenas. Morris and his artist friends Rossetti and Burne-Jones were at the forefront of the movement known as 'Arts and Crafts'. Part political manifesto, part social movement, with a large dollop of nostalgia thrown in, the Arts and Crafters wanted a return to high quality materials and hand-made excellence in all fields of art and decoration. The cheap, mass-produced (and artistically inferior) building and decorating materials then available horrified them. Morris himself, through his Morris and Co., designed furniture, textiles, wallpaper, decorative glass, and murals. Many of Morris' designs are still popular today.

Literature in the Victorian Age

In 1897 Mark Twain was visiting London during the Diamond Jubilee celebrations honoring the sixtieth anniversary of Queen Victoria's coming to the throne. "British history is two thousand years old," Twain observed, "and yet in a good many ways the world has moved farther ahead since the Queen was born than it moved in all the rest of the two thousand put together." Twain's comment captures the sense of dizzying change that characterized the Victorian period. Perhaps most important was the shift from a way of life based on ownership of land to a modern urban economy based on trade and manufacturing. By the beginning of the Victorian period, the Industrial Revolution, as this shift was called, had created profound economic and social changes, including a mass migration of workers to industrial towns, where they lived in new urban slums. But the changes arising out of the Industrial Revolution were just one subset of the radical changes taking place in mid- and late-nineteenth-century Britain among others were the democratization resulting from extension of the franchise; challenges to religious faith, in part based on the advances of scientific knowledge, particularly of evolution; and changes in the role of women.

All of these issues, and the controversies attending them, informed Victorian literature. In part because of the expansion of newspapers and the periodical press, debate about political and social issues played an important role in the experience of the reading public. The Victorian novel, with its emphasis on the realistic portrayal of social life, represented many Victorian issues in the stories of its characters. Moreover, debates about political representation involved in expansion both of the franchise and of the rights of women affected literary representation, as writers gave voice to those who had been voiceless. The section in The Norton Anthology of English Literature entitled "Victorian Issues" (NAEL 8, 2.15381606) contains texts dealing with four controversies that concerned the Victorians: evolution, industrialism, what the Victorians called "The Woman Question", and Great Britain's identity as an imperial power. Norton Topics Online provides further texts on three of these topics: the debate about the benefits and evils of the Industrial Revolution, the debate about the nature and role of women, and the myriad issues that arose as British forces worked to expand their global influence. The debates on both industrialization and women's roles in society reflected profound social change: the formation of a new class of workers men, women, and children who had migrated to cities, particularly in the industrial North, in huge numbers, to take jobs in factories, and the growing demand for expanded liberties for women. The changes were related; the hardships that the Industrial Revolution and all its attendant social developments created put women into roles that challenged traditional ideas about women's nature. Moreover, the rate of change the Victorians experienced, caused to a large degree by advances in manufacturing, created new opportunities and challenges for women. They became writers, teachers, and social reformers, and they claimed an expanded set of rights. In the debates about industrialism and about the Woman Question, voices came into print that had not been heard before. Not only did women writers play a major role in shaping the terms of the debate about the Woman Question, but also women from the working classes found opportunities to describe the conditions of their lives. Similarly, factory workers described their working and living conditions, in reports to parliamentary commissions, in the encyclopedic set of interviews journalist Henry Mayhew later collected as London Labor and the London Poor, and in letters to the editor that workers themselves wrote. The world of print became more inclusive and democratic. At the same time, novelists and even poets sought ways of representing these new voices. The novelist Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her first novel, Mary Barton, in order to give voice to Manchester's poor, and Elizabeth Barrett Browning tried to find ways in poetry of giving voice to the poor and oppressed.

The third section of this Web site, "The Painterly Image in Victorian Poetry," investigates the rich connection in the Victorian period between visual art and literature. Much Victorian aesthetic theory makes the eye the most authoritative sense and the clearest indicator of truth. Victorian poetry and the Victorian novel both value visual description as a way of portraying their subjects. This emphasis on the visual creates a particularly close connection between poetry and painting. Books of fiction and poetry were illustrated, and the illustrations amplified and intensified the effects of the text. The texts, engravings, and paintings collected here provide insight into the connection between the verbal and the visual so central to Victorian aesthetics. Britains identity as an imperial power with considerable global influence is explored more comprehensively in the fourth topic section. For Britain, the Victorian period witnessed a renewed interest in the empires overseas holdings. British opinions on the methods and justification of imperialist missions overseas varied, with some like author Joseph Conrad throwing into sharp relief the brutal tactics and cold calculations involved in these missions, while others like politician Joseph Chamberlain considered the British to be the great governing race with a moral obligation to expand its influence around the globe. Social evolutionists, such as Benjamin Kidd, likewise supported the British dominion through their beliefs about the inherent developmental inferiority of the subject peoples, thus suggesting that Europeans had a greater capacity for rulinga suggestion that many took as complete justification of British actions overseas. Regardless of dissenting voices, British expansion pushed forward at an unprecedented rate, ushering in a new era of cultural exchange that irreversibly altered the British worldview.

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. (Jane Eyre preface)

T he Bronte Sisters
Anne Bront (1820-49)

Emily Bront (1818-48)

Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish, How could I ask the empty world again? ('Remembrance' st. 8)

Charlotte Bront (1816-55)

Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. (Jane Eyre preface) THE story of the Brontes is one of the saddest in the annals of literature. They were the children of a father who was both cold and violent, and of a gentle, sickly mother, early lost. They were reared amid surroundings the most gloomy and unhealthful, and cursed as they grew older with a brother who brought them shame and sorrow in return for the love they lavished upon him. Their very genius seemed a product of disease, and often their finest pages are marred by a bitter savor of its origin. Their stories deal with suffering, endurance, or rebellion against fate; with violence, with crime and its punishment. In treating such subjects, these three quiet, patient daughters of a country parson found themselves quite at home. Their father was a clergyman of the Church of England, an Irishman by birth, who had had the good sense to change his original name of Prunty to the more pleasing appellation since made famous by his daughters.He worked so hard to perfect himself in the necessary branches that at twenty-five he was enabled to enter Cambridge University, upon leaving which, four years later, he was ordained to a curacy in Essex. From Essex he went to Hartshead in Yorkshire, where he married Miss Maria Branwell, a young lady of Cornish parentage. Three years later he removed with his wife and two little baby girls, Maria and Elizabeth, to Thornton in the same county, where four other children were born, one every year. Charlotte, the most famous, was the eldest; she was born in 1816. A son, Patrick Branwell, came next; then Emily Jane; then Anne. In 1820, the year after Anne's birth, the family moved to Haworth Vicarage, in the village of Haworth, near Keighley, in Yorkshire. A year later the mother, always weak and ailing, died, leaving her six young children to their father's care. Mr. Bronte apparently intended to do his duty to his children; but he was a hard, vain,. dull man, fond of solitude, eccentric, and possessed of many strange notions in regard to education He never cared for his children's society, desired only to have them keep quiet and learn their lessons, allowed them no meat, required them to dine upon potatoes, and ate his own dinner alone in his room. Their dress, too, had to be of the simplest. It was not forgotten in the family that a silk dress of his

wife's which displeased him he cut into shreds; nor that some colored shoes given the children by a cousin he threw into the fire. He possessed a furious temper, which he usually kept under control; but occasionally, when he found it necessary to give some vent to his feelings, he would fire pistols out of the back door in rapid succession. Almost his only communication with the children was at breakfast and supper; his only method of entertaining them was to relate, at the breakfast table, wild and horrible Irish tales of massacre, blood, and banshees. Yet the children loved him, and rendered him an obedience and devotion which much kinder and wiser parents can not always obtain. Thus the six little Brontes, motherless, and denied the intimacy and companionship of their father, clung to each other with a love far beyond that of most brothers and sisters of their age. They were wonderfully "good," poor little things, the boy being the only one who showed any evidences of vigor. They spent much of their time wandering silently about the old house and the bleak moors beyond it, hand in hand, Maria, the eldest, a pale, small creature of seven, assuming the charge of the others, and trying her best to be a mother to them. Their surroundings were sombre and dreary. Haworth Parsonage stands upon a hill which slopes sharply down to the village in one direction, and in the other, after a slight further ascent, merges into an apparently interminable expanse of moorland. The church and school-house stand close by, while above the house, and surrounding it upon three sides, lies the graveyard, crowded with upright tombstones. The parsonage itself is a low stone building, ancient, draughty, and picturesque, with heavy, flagged roof made to resist the winds that sweep across the moor, with chilly flagged floors, old-fashioned windows with small, glittering panes, and a few hardy flowers, some elder and lilac bushes, growing beneath shelter of its walls. The sounds with which the children were most familiar were the rushing and moaning of the wind around the chimneys, the bell of the church, ringing to service or tolling for funerals, and, whenever the house was still, the constant chip! chip! of the stone-mason who lived near the gate, cutting an epitaph upon one of the slates which he kept piled in his shed. The sights they loved were the firelight and the broad moor. Games, like those of ordinary children, they never played. The elder children read the papers, including the Parliamentary debates, and amused themselves by discussing, in hushed voices, the rival merits of Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington. They had no story books. The Duke of Wellington was their hero of romance, whom they worshiped with absolute devotion. One thing at least they enjoyed, perfect liberty, and they were happy in their own way. This lasted for a year; then Miss Branwell arrived, a kind and efficient, if somewhat fastidious little maiden aunt, who undertook to reclaim them from their wildness and instruct them in civilized accomplishments. Submission to her rule was not easy after such entire freedom; but she did them much good, and they soon learned to like and respect her. They learned lessons which they recited to their father, and the five little girls were instructed in sewing, cooking, and

housework. Their leisure they still employed in long rambles on the moor, and in telling each other wonderful stories of heroism, adventure, or magic. One spring, they were all taken sick with a complication of measles and whooping cough, and on their recovery, Mr. Bronte thought a change of air desirable for the elder ones. In July, 1824, he sent Maria and Elizabeth to a school for clergymen's daughters at Cowan's Bridge; in September they were joined by Emily and Charlotte. To the readers of Charlotte Bronte it would be superfluous to describe this school the "Lowood" of " Jane Eyre." Its miserable diet, unhealthy situation, long lessons, rigid discipline, low type of religion, and continual sermons upon humilitynothing is there forgotten, nor is anything exaggerated. Moreover, the descriptions of both teachers and pupils are most of them portraits. Miss Temple and Miss Scatcherd are drawn from the life; and the pathetic figure of Helen Burns is a delineation of Maria Bronte, whose death from consumption was directly due to the hardships she underwent at Cowan's Bridge. A single incident related to Mrs. Gaskell by a fellow pupil of the Bronte girls of the way in which this studious and sickly child was treated, shows effectually that Charlotte's picture of Lowood is not overdrawn, and fully justifies the anguish and burning indignation with which she always recalled her sojourn there. In 1831 Charlotte, then fifteen, was again sent to school this time to a Miss Wooler of Roehead, a kind lady and an excellent teacher. At this school she became a favorite with the other girls, although they laughed at her odd ways, told her how ugly she was, and found her unable to share in their amusements. These serious defects were counterbalanced by her scholarship, which they admired, by her obliging disposition, and by her story-telling gift, which she would exercise for their benefit as they lay in bed at night, with such success as to frighten them all nearly out of their wits. Two of her fellow pupils especially attached themselves to her, and remained her life-long friends. One of them thus described her to Mrs. Gaskell, as she appeared at this time: "She looked like a little old woman, so short-sighted that she always appeared to be seeking something, and moving her heed from side to side to catch a sight of it. She was very shy and nervous, and spoke with a strong Irish accent. When a book was given her, she dropped her head over it till her nose nearly touched it, and when she was told to hold up her head, up went the book after it, still close to her nose, so that it was not possible to help laughing." Upon returning to Haworth Charlotte at once set to work to teach her sisters all that she had learned at school, giving them regular instruction from nine until half-past twelve every day. In 1835 she returned to Miss Wooler's, this time in the capacity of assistant teacher, accompanied by Emily as a pupil. But Emily was obliged to return to Haworth at the end of three months, completely overcome by homesicknessnot a mere sentimental feeling, but a longing, stoutly resisted, yet so powerful as to darken all her days, break down her health, and threaten her with rapid decline if she did not yield. Charlotte remained behind with Anne, who came to take Emily's place, but the work was too hard for her, and she, too, began to fail and pine, and to be tormented besides by nervous fears, gloomy forebodings, and an irritability which she could scarcely control.

Emily, meanwhile, had gone as a teacher to Halifax, where she was obliged to labor from six in the morning until eleven at night, with only a half-hour of exercise between. But, in the Christmas holidays, the three sisters again met at their home, and discussed their hopes and prospects. About this time it was that Charlotte first conceived the idea that her writings might have a public interest; might open to her a road of escape from the slavery to which she was condemned. She mustered up all her courage, and sent sonic specimens of her poetry to Southey, requesting his opinion upon their merits. The poet returned her a kind but discouraging letter, to which she replied gratefully and humbly, telling him that she should continue to write for her own pleasure and improvement, but that she should never again feel ambitious to see her name in print. She asked no reply to this second letter, but Southey wrote to her again, this time most cordially, and invited her to come and see him if ever she were near his home. She afterwards sent some of her poems to Coleridge and Wordsworth. It is not necessary to dwell in detail upon the various occupations of the Bronte girls after Charlotte finally left Roehead. When at home they wrote, read, wandered on the moor, and pursued their household avocations. Emily remained continuously at Haworth, but Anne and Charlotte obtained situations as governesses. Anne's experiences in this capacity may be divined by the readers of "Agnes Grey," her first novel; Charlotte's are indicated in "Shirley," in that passage where Mrs. Pryor describes her early life. In speaking of this period to Mrs. Gaskell, Charlotte related how, in one family, just as she was beginning to gain some ascendancy over a group of children who had been perfect little savages when she arrived, the youngest, and to her the dearest, said to her one day at table in a sudden burst of affection, putting his chubby hand in hers: "I love 'ou, Miss Bronte! " Instantly the mother exclaimed, in a tone of astonishment and reproach: "Love the governess, my dear!" It is a relief to hear, after this incident, that in the last family where she occupied this situation, her treatment was far different. As she herself said, they could not make enough of her, and they remained her friends as long as she lived.But, at the best, going out as governess did not prove remunerative, and the work overtaxed the feeble strength of both Anne and Charlotte. It was a slavery from which they longed to escape, and in concert with Emily, they gradually formed the plan of keeping a girls' boarding-school at their own home. To this end, however, they considered a better knowledge of French and German necessary; and, at length, in 1842, Charlotte and Emily went to Brussels to the school of M. and Madame Heger, in the Rue d'Isabellea happy circumstance, which gave to Charlotte the materials for what is perhaps her masterpiece, the novel of "Villette." Charlotte enjoyed Brussels, in her quiet way. She had Emily for company, she entered eagerly into her lessons, she liked the oddities and imperiousness of her brilliant teacher, M. Hegerthe original of Paul Emanuel. Her near-sighted grey eyes lost none of the characteristics of the blooming Belgian school girls by

whom she was surrounded, with their smooth hair, their romping ways, their devotion to dress, and their excellent appetites. But Emily pined for Haworth and her beloved moor. Brussels was nothing to her; M. Heger only exasperated her, although she performed her tasks faithfully finding, indeed, her only refuge from homesickness in labor. For his part, he recognized at once the exceptional talents of both his reserved, oddly dressed English pupils, but he considered Emily as the greater genius of the two; and indeed, her exercises were far superior to Charlotte's. Dark days followed the return of the sisters from Brussels. Their long-cherished scheme of the girls' boarding school was destined never to be realized. Haworth was too remote in situation and too forbidding in aspect to attract scholars, and, in spite of the neatly printed circulars which they issued, and of the earnest efforts of their few friends, they did not succeed in securing a single pupil. This was a bitter disappointment, but it was as nothing compared with a household sorrow that had been slowly coming upon them for a long time. Readers of "Jane Eyre " will remember the incident of Rochester's insane wife setting his bed on fire, and of his rescue by Jane. It has been considered extravagant, but Charlotte found the suggestion for it in her own home. One night, when the three sisters were passing along the upper entry to their rooms, they noticed a bright light coming from Branwell's chamber. Immediately Emily, after warning the others with a finger on her lip not to wake Mr. Bronte, who was singularly afraid of fire, darted down the stairs and soon reappeared with a pail of water in each hand. She entered the burning room; the bright flare subsided, and presently her terrified sisters saw her come out, pate, panting, and scorched, half-dragging, half-carrying in her arms her helpless brother, who was stupefied with drink. Their great venture of the school having failed, Charlotte's thoughts once more turned to literature. She found one day some poems of Emily's which seemed to her meritorious; Anne, finding Emily's verses approved, produced some of hers; Charlotte added her own, and the three sisters formed the bold resolution to have the little collection printed, published, and if possible sold. It was a long and difficult task to find a publisher; but at last they succeeded, and in 1846 the slender little volume was issued under the title of "Poems, by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell;" Currer Bell being Charlotte; Ellis, Emily; and Acton, Anne. The volume attracted little attention, but the few reviewers who noticed it awarded higher rank to the work of Ellis Bell than to that of her brothers, as the discerning critics called them. The book was, however, an evident failure; it brought the sisters little reputation and less money. But they were used to disappointments, and they met this new one bravely. They next tried romance. Anne wrote "Agnes Grey," Charlotte "The Professor," and Emily "Wuthering Heights." When these tales were completed, all three were sent in one parcel from publisher to publisher, only to return as often to the hands of their unhappy authors. Then it occurred to them to try their fate separately, and after further waiting and discouragement, "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey"

found a firm willing to take the risk of printing them. "The Professor" was not so fortunate. Meanwhile, another sorrow had come into the melancholy parsonage: Mr. Bronte had begun to lose his eyesight. He could still grope his way about, but he could not read nor use his eyes for many of the ordinary purposes of life, and it was evident that unless the cataract could be removed his sight would soon be entirely destroyed. So, in August of 1846, Charlotte accompanied him to Manchester for the purpose of having an operation performed. Upon the very day on which the operation was to take place, Charlotte, lonely, anxious, and miserable, had "The Professor" once more returned to her, "declined," by some busy publisher without even the usual thanks. She was in the room with her father while the cataract was removed, sitting breathless and quiet in a corner, and she nursed him through the illness of the following days, when he was confined to his bed in a darkened room, hoping, but not yet certain, that his sight was restored to him. And it was at this time, in the midst of sorrow, suffering, anxiety, and disappointment, alone with her invalid father in a great, black, strange cityit was at this time, on the evening of the day of the operation, that Charlotte Bronte, her brave spirit still undaunted, sent forth her old story for another trial, and, sitting down in her bare, ugly little boarding-house room, wrote swiftly, and with few pauses, the opening chapter of "Jane Eyre." At last, after her return to Haworth, came a piece of good fortune. Messrs. Smith & Elder, to whom she had sent "The Professor" (omitting, in her innocence, even to obliterate upon the parcel the names of the publishing houses to whom it had previously been addressed), sent her a letter in which, to be sure, the unlucky tale was once more rejected, but in which, as she afterwards declared, its merits and demerits were discussed "so courteously, so considerately, in a spirit so rational, with a discrimination so enlightened, that this very refusal cheered the author better than a vulgarly-worded acceptance would have done." In addition, they stated that a work in three volumes from her pen would receive careful attention. She sent them "Jane Eyre." This famous novel, begun in such gloomy circumstances, was written amid difficulties of every kind. For long periods, sometimes for weeks, even months at a time, Charlotte would find herself unable to write; then, suddenly, the inspiration would seize her and she would write for as long a time as her duties permitted, holding her paper close to her eyes upon a bit of board. She wrote in a cramped, minute hand, in pencil, upon loose scraps of paper, sometimes sitting before the fire at twilight, often in her own room at night, when her restless imagination forbade her to sleep. In the day-time household affairs frequently interrupted her at the most critical moment. Tabby, the servant, who had been in the family for many years, was so old that she could not see to remove the "eyes" from the potatoes which she peeled for dinner; yet Charlotte was unwilling to hurt her feelings by asking the younger servant maid to look them over. Often, therefore, while under the full force of inspiration, she would lay aside her manuscript and gliding quietly into the kitchen, abstract the bowl of potatoes

when Tabby was not looking, and remove the "eyes" herself. Never once did she omit to perform a duty, nor even the smallest act of kindness or courtesy, on account of her literary work. The success of " Jane Eyre" was great and immediate. Messrs. Smith & Elder had every reason to be glad of their connection with that "C. Bell. Esquire," to whom they addressed their business letters under cover to Miss Bronte. C. Bell herself was glad and proud, in a quiet way, and thought it time to tell her father of her successfor he had not been the confidante of his children in their literary ventures. One day, she went in to him in his study, taking with her a copy of her novel and several reviews of it, one adverse, the others favorable. Mrs. Gaskell relates the conversation that followed, as it was told to her by Charlotte. "Papa," said the daughter, ''I've been writing a book." "Have you, my dear." "Yes, and l want you to read it." "I am afraid, it will try my eyes too much." "But it is not in manuscript; it is printed." "My dear! you've never thought of the expense it will be! It will he almost sure to be a loss, for how can you get a book sold? No one knows you or your name." "But, papa, l don't think it will be a loss; no more will you if you will let me read you a review or two, and tell you more about it." She read him the reviews and left him "Jane Eyre." When he came down that evening to tea he said to his daughters: "Girls, do you know Charlotte has been writing a book, and it is much better than likely!" It was not until after the publication of "Jane Eyre" that "Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Gray," long as they had been in the hands of the publishers, were given to the world. " Agnes Grey " was a carefully written study of the life of a governess, and was, perhaps, something above the average novel of the day. " Wuthering Heights" was far different. It is a tale of horror, violence and crime, relieved only by two brief love scenes at the end, brightly and delicately drawn and novel in conception. It is a book which, once taken up, it is not easy to lay clown unfinished; which people sit up late at night to read, and which haunts them in their sleep, bringing them evil and fantastic dreams. It is a morbid book, real in its very unreality, but its power is incontestable. Emily has been blamed for choosing a subject so forbidding; but remembering her gloomy and wild environment, her solitary nature, and the drunken, desperate brother ever present in her home, we can scarcely wonder at her choice. Besides, as has been beautifully and truly said by Miss Robinson, a lady who has recently related the story of Emily's life with rare truth and insight: "From the clear spirit which inspires the end of her work, we know that the storm is over; we know that her next tragedy would be less violent." "Agnes Gray " and "Wuthering Heights" met with little favor from the public. Anne wrote one other novel, "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall," in which she attempted, with some success, to depict her brother Branwell; and this work succeeded better.

But Emily, whose genius, though widely different, was scarcely less than that of her more famous sister Charlotte, wrote no more. Trouble was coming again upon the patient sisters. Branwell grew worse and worse, his sufferings and paroxysms more and more terrible, until, in 1848, the end came. By a last strange exercise of will he insisted upon meeting his death standing. He died erect upon his feet, after a struggle of twenty minutes. Emily, whose health had for some time been failing, went to his funeral and sat for the last time in the damp, melancholy church; indeed, it was the last time that she ever left the house. She was dying of consumption. We can imagine no sadder record than that of Emily Bronte's illness and death. Every hope of her life had been blighted. The school, which was to keep herself and her sisters together in the home she loved, had failed her novel, into which she had put her heart and her ambition, had failed too; her dearly beloved brother, for whom she had dreamed of fortune and fame, had just died disgraced, despised, and miserable. Now she felt herself dying. With a last exercise of will stranger and sadder than his, with a courage and endurance almost incredible, she refused even to own that she was not well, and went about her daily duties, pale, thin, and panting creeping slowly down the stairs with her hand against the wall in the morning, toiling at household labors throughout the day, and dragging herself painfully to her bed at night. She refused to see a doctor; she refused to take medicine; she refused to rest; and her sisters, who did not dare to cross her, looked on with breaking hearts as she grew weaker day by day. On the day of her death she rose as usual and sat down before the fire to comb her long, brown hair; but she was too weak, and the comb fell from her hand and dropped into the hot ashes, where it lay for some time giving forth the nauseous odor of burning bone. When the servant came in Emily said to her, pointing to it, " Martha, my comb's down there. I was too weak to stoop and pick it up. "Nevertheless she finished dressing, tottered dizzily down the stairs, and taking up a piece of work attempted to sew. Towards noon she turned to her sisters, saying in a gasping whisper, for she could no longer speak aloud:" If you will send for a doctor, I will see him now." But it was too late, and her sufferings rapidly increased. At two o'clock Charlotte and Anne implored her to let them get her to her room and to her bed. "No! no!" she exclaimed, and tried to rise, leaning heavily upon the sofa. In that act she died. Mr. Bronte, Charlotte, and Anne, who was already dying of the same disease, followed her to the grave; and with them walked Emily's great mastiff, "Keeper," following them even into the church, where he lay quietly throughout the services. After the funeral he went up to Emily's room and laid himself down across the threshold of her door, where he remained for many days, howling piteously when they tried to entice him away. Charlotte's next novel was "Shirley;" the heroine of which, the gay and independent Shirley Keeldar, is a portrait of Emily Bronte, as her loving sister

believed she would have been had she been fortunate and happy. Many of Emily's traits, some even of the incidents of her life, are given in this book. "Keeper" figures in it as Tartar; Shirley's habit of sitting upon a rug, reading with her arm about the great dog's neck, was also Emily's; and in "Captain Keeldar," we recognize an alteration of Emily's nickname of the Major. The famous incident of the mad dog, too, happened to Emily as well as to Shirley, It was no fiction. But, although Shirley is a pleasing and a noble girl, and shows Emily in a more attractive light than ever shone upon her in real life, yet we miss some of the real Emily's most striking characteristics. We miss her patient endurance of hard drudgery, her faithful household affections, and her thoughtful kindnesses for others. It is not easy to imagine a Shirley Keeldar rising early in the morning and performing the hardest portion of the household labor in order to spare an aged servant; yet that was what Emily Bronte did. Excepting her early tale, "The Professor," which has been given to the public since her death, Charlotte wrote but one other novel"Gillette." This work, of which the scene is laid in Belgium, is regarded by many as her best. Its incidents are less thrilling than those of "Jane Eyre," its style less fiery. Nevertheless it is not lacking in passion; and if Lucy Snowe attracts us less than Jane, who would exchange Monsieur Paul Emanuelimperious, whimsical, extravagant, and thoroughly naturalfor such an impossible hero as Rochester ? Ginevra Fanshawe, too, and Madame Beck, are characters more true and striking than any to be found in "Jane Eyre." The public, after the publication of "Jane Eyre," became deeply interested in discovering the identity of Currer Bell, and in discussing the question of her sex. Nor was the riddle soon solved. Miss Martineau, who was one of the earliest to know the truth, gives an interesting account of the beginning of her acquaintance with the unknown, yet famous author. She received one day, while residing in London, a parcel accompanied by a note. This parcel contained a copy of "Shirley," then just published, and the note ran as follows: "Currer Bell offers a copy of 'Shirley' to Miss Martineau's acceptance, in acknowledgment of the pleasure and profit she (sic) he has derived from her works. When C. B. first read 'Deerbrook' he tasted a new and keen pleasure, and experienced a genuine benefit. In his mind, Deerbrook ranks with the writings that have really done him good, added to his stock of ideas, and rectified his views of life." This masculine note did not, in Miss Martineau's eyes, determine the sex of the writer. The half-erased "she" in it, might, to be sure, have had reference to Miss Martineau herself, and the form of the sentence might have been subsequently altered. Still, it left everything uncertain, and when, a little later, she received an intimation that Currer Bell would call upon her, she did not know whether to expect a gentleman or a lady. It was, therefore, with interest and excitement that she awaited at the appointed hour the arrival of her distinguished visitor. It was perhaps as high a compliment as Miss Martineau ever received, for her society to be thus sought by Charlotte Bronte. She was so painfully shy that, when she spoke in company at all, she would gradually wheel around in her chair until she was seated almost with her back toward the person whom she was addressing.

Miss Bronte was always plain; she considered herself repulsively ugly. Her features were indeed large and irregular, and her mouth a little crooked, but her expression was so animated and intelligent when she talked, that her face became most attractive. Even in secluded Haworth she was not without admirers; she had received several proposals of marriage, which she hastily but firmly declined. At length a curate of her father's, Mr. Nicholls, asked her hand. He had loved her for several years. She knew him well and esteemed him deeply, and, although she had never before thought of him as a lover, she felt as though she could be contented as his wife. Before accepting him, however, she consulted her father. Mr. Bront objected, and Charlotte quietly put aside the happiness within her reach, and gave an unfavorable answer. But Mr. Bronte gradually changed his mind, and in a year's time gave his consent to the marriage; although, with characteristic perversity, he refused at the last minute to go to the church and give his daughter away. Charlotte Bronte was married on the twenty-ninth of June, 1854. The wedding was of the quietest, but the pale, delicate little bride was very happy as she left the old church on her husband's arm, followed by the good wishes of the villagers who had gathered to see her pass. She was dressed in soft white, with no color about her save green leaves, looking, as one who was there told Mrs. Gaskell, like a snow-drop. Her happy married life lasted but eight months. She died in March, 1855. Waking after a long delirium, she saw her husband bending above her with a face of anguish, murmuring some broken prayer that God would spare her. "Oh!" she whispered, looking up at him, "I am not going to die, am I ? He will not separate us; we have been so happy."

Other aspects from the Victorian Era, directly from the closet : The dark influence over society.
The Persistence of the Victorians: Things Remembered and Things Forgot

Portrait of a Victorian: A Washerwoman's Daughter Unusually for a Victorian, she could neither read nor write because her mother, a washerwoman, kept her off school to help with the laundry. Clothes were boiled in a copper in the back yard (not an American yard but a narrow strip of concrete

hemmed in by high brick walls). As a child her job was to work the mangle and keep the fire stoked. Quite a lot of her time was spent looking for fuel. 'Tarry blocks' were best. Many of London's roads were paved with blocks of wood weather-proofed with tar. When they were dug up to repair the road, children gathered from miles around to take them home. In the evening, she sold walnuts in the pubs of Camden Town, most of them are still there, not changed too much.

"A narrow strip of concrete hemmed in by high brick walls" Over the city by railway by Gustave Dor from London: A Pilgrimage. 1872. Click on thumbnail for larger image. If, when adult, she earned twelve and six a week, eight shillings might go on rent for a couple of rooms. But she said she remembered Jack the Ripper and how she was too scared to go out at night. She claimed to have eaten pies baked by Sweeney Todd, the demon barber of Fleet Street. The Relief of Mafeking during the Boer War was a living memory to her; she remembered the costermongers singing and the crowds celebrating noisily in The Strand and Trafalgar Square. (Mafeking briefly became a verb to maffick: to rejoice publicly.) She remembered how she and her friend had laughed when rain, one Bank Holiday on Hampstead Heath, had turned the long feathers in their hats into herring bones. To her they really were the Good Old Days. For a few weeks in summer when she was still young and unmarried she sometimes went hopping picking hops (which give English beer its bitter taste) in the hop fields of Kent. A shilling a bushel, sometimes, though out of that you bought and cooked your own food and paid rent for a very rough bed in a shed of some kind. Still, it was the Cockney holiday and whole families used to go together. Her grandfather was a costermonger who sold fruit and fish (an odd combination even then) from a stall at the bottom of Hampstead Road. Early every morning he went with his pony and cart to Billingsgate (for fish) or Covent Garden (for fruit) to sell that day on the stall. At night, if he had money, he got drunk in the pubs of Camden Town, his pony waiting patiently outside to take him home on the bed of the cart. Well, perhaps not home to her stable in a tumbledown mews where, however drunk he was, he unharnessed and fed her. Grooming was left for a another day. Her brother was nicknamed Toe because he'd lost one in the Army in some Victorian outpost of empire long ago. Back in Blighty he seemed to give up on himself and he ended his days begging in the streets for money for drink.

Her husband had been a carter, though she was widowed early and had to raise her daughter on her own, in a single room, by working literally day and night. She cleaned middle-class houses, washed other people's clothes, and even washed bottles in a lemonade factory. The house she lived in was shaky (it's since been demolished) from bomb damage in the Blitz. In the 1930s the house was bought by an Italian who was, of course, later interned as an enemy alien. He gave her fifty pounds to keep for him until the war was over. Fifty pounds was nearly a year's wages but she kept it safe until the day she died, though he never came back, presumably having died somewhere along the line. When I met her she was very old well into her nineties and bowed double with osteoporosis or widow's stoop as it was called. But she was unbreakable and fearless. She still lived in a single room, with a war damaged, sagging floor, still lit only by gaslight. She died as she lived without complaint or self-pity, asking for nothing but accepting with grace whatever was given her. She has no grave. Her name was Ann Newbery.

The Enduring Mystery of Jack the Ripper London Metro Polices archives.
The name 'Jack the Ripper' has become the most infamous in the annals of murder. Yet, the amazing fact is that his identity remains unproven today. In the years 18881891 the name was regarded with terror by the residents of London's East End, and was known the world over. So shrouded in myth and mystery is this story that the facts are hard to identify at this remove in time. And it was the officers of Scotland Yard to whom the task of apprehending the fearsome killer was entrusted. They may have failed, but they failed honourably, having made every effort and inquiry in their power to free London of the unknown terror.Over the years the mystery has deepened to the degree that the truth is almost totally obscured. Innumerable press stories, pamphlets, books, plays, films, and even musicals have dramatised and distorted the facts to such a degree that the fiction is publicly accepted more than the reality.

Suspects
Suffice to say genuine suspects are far fewer than the prolific authors of the genre would have us believe. In fact, to reduce them to only those with a genuine claim

having been nominated by contemporary police officers, we are left with a mere four. They are:

Kosminski, a poor Polish Jew resident in Whitechapel; Montague John Druitt, a 31 year old barrister and school teacher who committed suicide in December 1888; Michael Ostrog, a Russian-born multi-pseudonymous thief and confidence trickster, believed to be 55 years old in 1888, and detained in asylums on several occasions; Dr Francis J. Tumblety, 56 Years old, an American 'quack' doctor, who was arrested in November 1888 for offences of gross indecency, and fled the country later the same month, having obtained bail at a very high price.

The first three of these suspects were nominated by Sir Melville Macnaghten, who joined the Metropolitan Police as Assistant Chief Constable, second in command of the Criminal Investigation Deptment (C.I.D.) at Scotland Yard in June 1889. They were named in a report dated 23 February 1894, although there is no evidence of contemporary police suspicion against the three at the time of the murders. Indeed, Macnaghten's report contains several odd factual errors. Kosminski was certainly favoured by the head of the C.I.D. Dr. Robert Anderson, and the officer in charge of the case, Chief Inspector Donald Swanson. Druitt appears to have been Macnaghten's preferred candidate, whilst the fact that Ostrog was arrested and incarcerated before the report was compiled leaves the historian puzzling why he was included as a viable suspect in the first place. The fourth suspect, Tumblety, was stated to have been "amongst the suspects" at the time of the murders and "to my mind a very likely one," by the ex-head of the Special Branch at Scotland Yard in 1888, ex-Detective Chief lnspector John George Littlechild. He confided his thoughts in a letter dated 23 September, 1913, to the criminological journalist and author George R Sims.For a list of viable suspects they have not inspired any uniform confidence in the minds of those well-versed in the case. Indeed, arguments can be made against all of them being the culprit, and no hard evidence exists against any of them. What is obvious is the fact that the police were at no stage in a position to prove a case against anyone, and it is highly unlikely a positive case will ever be proved. If the police were in this position in 1888-1891, then what hope for the enthusiastic modern investigator? To clear the confusion for the new student of the case we have to return to factual basics. Just who was 'Jack the Ripper,' and what were the 'Whitechapel murders'?

The crimes
What has to be understood is the fact that the 'Ripper' murders and the 'Whitechapel murders' are not the same thing, although the latter does include the 'Ripper' murders. So to set the scene, the list of the eleven Whitechapel murders, (all of which at some stage have been looked upon as 'Ripper' murders), was as follows:

Date Tuesday 3 April 1888 Tuesday 7 August 1888 Friday 31 August 1888 Saturday 8 September 1888 Sunday 30 September 1888 Sunday 30 September 1888 Friday 9 November 1888 Thursday 20 December 1888

Victim Emma Elizabeth Smith Martha Tabram Mary Ann Nichols Annie Chapman

Circumstances Assaulted and robbed in Osborn Street, Whitechapel. George Yard Buildings, George Yard, Whitechapel. Buck's Row, Whitechapel, Rear Yard at 29 Hanbury Street, Spitalfields. Yard at side of 40 Berner Street, St Georges-in-the- East. Mitre Square, Aldgate, City of London. 13 Miller's Court, 26 Dorset Street Spitalfields. Clarke's Yard, High Street. Poplar. Castle Alley, Whitechapel. Found under railway arch in Pinchin Street, Whitechapel, Under railway arch, Swallow Gardens, Whitechapel.

Elizabeth Stride

Catherine Eddowes Mary Jane Kelly Rose Mylett

Wednesday 17 July 1889 Alice McKenzie Tuesday 10 September 1889 Friday 13 February 1891 Unknown female torso Frances Coles

Throat cutting attended the murders of Nichols, Chapman, Stride, Eddowes, Kelly, McKenzie and Coles. In all except the cases of Stride and Mylett there was abdominal mutilation. In the case of Chapman the uterus was taken away by the killer; Eddowes' uterus and left kidney were taken; and in Kelly's case, evidence suggests, the heart. The murders were considered too much for the local Whitechapel (H) Division C.I.D, headed by Detective Inspector Edmund Reid, to handle alone. Assistance was sent from the Central Office at Scotland Yard, after the Nichols murder, in the persons of Detective Inspectors, Frederick George Abberline, Henry Moore, and Walter Andrews, together with a team of subordinate officers. Reinforcements were drafted into the area to supplement the local men. After the Eddowes murder the City Police, under Detective Inspector James McWilliam, were also engaged on the hunt for the killer.

Every one of these murders remained unsolved, no person was ever convicted of any of them. Thus It must be said that we simply do not know which of them for certain were the work of a single killer. Over the years, mainly as a result of Macnaghten's beliefs, the 'Ripper'-victims have been listed as : Nichols. Chapman, Stride, Eddowes and KellY.

Non-Ripper murders
Certainly the evidence indicates that Smith was murdered by a group of three young hoodlums. The police investigated a suspicion that Tabram was murdered by a soldier. Mylett, who was not even murdered according to the Assistant Commissioner Robert Anderson, was probably strangled by a client. McKenzie's wounds indicated yet a different killer.The 'Pinchin Street torso' was undoubtedly an exercise in the disposal of a body, and Coles was possibly murdered by a male companion, James Thomas Sadler, who was arrested and, certainly for a while, suspected of being the Ripper.

The name
Almost certainly the one single reason for the enduring appeal of this rather sordid series of prostitute murders is the name Jack the Ripper. The name is easy to explain. It was written at the end of a letter, dated 25 September, 1888, and received by the Central News Agency on 27 September, 1888. They, in turn, forwarded it to the Metropolitan Police on 29 September. The letter was couched in lurid prose and began "Dear Boss......" It went on to speak of "That joke about Leather Apron gave me real fits......'' ('Leather Apron' was a John Pizer, briefly suspected at the time of the Chapman murder). "I am down on whores and I shant quit ripping them till I do get buckled..."; and so on in a similar vein. The appended "trade name" of Jack the Ripper was then made public and further excited the imagination of the populace. The two murders of 30 September 1888 gave the letter greater importance and to underline it the unknown correspondent again committed red ink to postcard and posted it on 1 October. In this communication he referred to himself as 'saucy Jacky...' and spoke of the "double event......." He again signed off as Jack the Ripper. The status of this correspondence is still being discussed by modern historians.

The message on the wall Immediately after the Eddowes murder a piece of her bloodstained apron was found in a doorway in Goulston Street, Whitechapel. Above the piece of apron, on the brick fascia in the doorway, was the legend, in chalk, "The Juwes are The men that Will not be Blamed for nothing." A message from the murderer, or simply anti-Semitic graffiti? Expert opinion is divided.

The hype
It was at this time that the panic was at its height and the notoriety of the murders was becoming truly international, appearing in newspapers from Europe to the Americas. Even at this early stage the newspapers were carrying theories as to the identity of the killer, including doctors, slaughterers, sailors, and lunatics of every description. A popular image of the killer as a 'shabby genteel' man in dark clothing, slouch hat and carrying a shiny black bag was also beginning to gain currency. The press, especially the nascent tabloid papers, were having a field day. With no Whitechapel murders in October there was still plenty to write about. There were dozens of arrests of suspects "on suspicion" (usually followed by quick release); there was a police house to house search, handbills were circulated, and Vigilance Committee members and private detectives flooded the streets. The discovery of a female torso in the cellars of the new police building under construction at Whitehall added to the air of horror on 2 October, 1888. The floodgates to a deluge of copy cat 'Jack the Ripper' letters were opened, and added to the problems of the police. An unpleasant experience befell the Chairman of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, builder George Lusk, on 16 October, 1888, when he received half a human kidney in a cardboard box through the post. With this gruesome object

was a letter scrawled in a spidery band and addressed "from Hell ....." It finished. "signed Catch me when you can Mishter Lusk." The writer claimed to have fried and ate the other half of the "kidne," which was "very nise." The shaken Lusk took both kidney and letter to the police. The police, and police surgeon felt it was probably a hoax by a medical student, although others believed it was part of Eddowes' missing organ.

Inquests fuel press speculation

Popular and lengthy inquests were held by Coroner Wynne Baxter on the victims falling under his jurisdiction, which was the majority of them, and he fuelled the press coverage to fever pitch. He was not grudging in dishing out his criticism of witnesses. By the time the murders came to an end in 1891, the proprietors of the Working Lads' Institute had had enough of the noisy, unruly, proceedings and informed Baxter that he could find a different venue for his next inquest. The murder of Mary Kelly, in November 1888, was accompanied by mutilation of such ferocity that it beggared description, and, for once, left the press short of superlatives. The murder had been committed on the day of the investiture of the new Mayor of London and the celebrations were soon overshadowed by the news of the Ripper's latest atrocity. The Metropolitan Commissioner of Police, Sir Charles Warren, resigned at the time of the Kelly murder, after a long history of dispute with the Home Office, and was replaced by James Monro.

The panic subsides

After the Kelly murder, and many more abortive arrests, the panic began to die down a little and a more quiescent atmosphere began to reign. In early 1889 lnspector Abberline left, to take on other cases, and the inquiry was handed over to Inspector Henry Moore. His last extant report on the murders is dated 1896, when another 'Jack the Ripper' letter was received. There were brief flurries of press activity and wild suggestions that the 'Ripper' had returned on the occasions of the subsequent murders. However, Sadler was the last serious suspect arrested, and his seafaring activities obviated him from blame for the 1888 murders. It will be seen from the foregoing that this is a mystery, when stripped of its fictional trappings, which provides all the raw material the imaginative writer or armchair detective could hope for. So popular is the subject that meticulous and scholarly research is carried out on the background of all the characters named in the story. Detailed plans are drawn and Victorian census returns and post office directories are consulted. The newspapers of the time are trawled for every scrap of information. Every minor detail revealed and added is hailed as a major triumph of research, sometimes even justifying a book. There is much material to be seen in these files though probably as much again is now missing, some as a result of petty pilfering and others were simply destroyed in past years.

Many books have been written on the subject, and they vary in quality. Some concern individual suspects, whilst others are aimed more for the student and researcher, and contain most of the facts available, thus avoiding expensive and time-consuming research. However, the serious historian is directed to the primary Metropolitan Police (MEPO) sources listed above, as well as the Home Office files which are also available at the Record Office.