Charlotte M Yonge

Charlotte Yonge is a forgotten author today but she was a very prolific writer in Victorian times. She was born in 1823, in Hampshire, and as a young woman became an ardent disciple of the High Church movement. This was a movement which sprang up in the Church of England in the early Victorian era, bent on restoring the Catholic side of the Anglican heritage. Many clergymen at the time went over to Rome, because of conservative policiatlal and religious views. They felt that the Church of England had lost its heritage, and that as a state church, it was bound to be affected by the politics of the time, which they saw as very radical. Others felt that it was possible to revitalise and re dignify the Church of England, remaining in it and reforming it. They attracted hostility form “Low church” people, because of their desire to bring in “Catholic” ritual, vestments and practices, such as the use of candles and incense... Many Anglicans and English people in general were very hostile, traditionally to Roman Catholicism and this extended to the increase in Catholic practices within the Anglican Church. But the movement grew and while it did tend to attract ultra-conservative people, it did have a positive side. The colour and beauty of the ritual was felt to attract people, especially working class people.Charlotte was the daughter of William Yonge, a country gentleman and was brought up and educated by him. He was an intelligent but strict man and while she learned a lot from him, she also was somewhat limited, by her close relationship with him. He was domineering and she looked up to him, and felt it was her duty to be an obedient daughter. She was an intelligent young woman but was afraid to think for herself. She felt that women might be clever – but the cleverest woman knew she should be modest about her intelligence and use it under male guidance. It has been said that she never married because she could never find a man who matched up to her father.Charlotte met with John Keble, one of the most famous of the Anglo Catholic clergymen. He became a “Pope” to her, an inspiration and guide.  She began to write novels and used them to promote the Anglo catholic movement. She was a novelist of family life, she wrote children’s books, histories and historical novels. Her strict religious views and her deep conservative rigidity prevented her from being a great novelist, but she was a very good one.In her time, very moralistic novels were popular, as people had high ideals. Her better ones, like Daisy Chain, Pillars of the House, Clever woman of the Family, etc., were all read by all sorts of people and loved. She did portray people who might seem improbably virtuous, and her views on women were old fashioned even in the later Victorian age. But she could write realistic and lovable children, growing up, like Ethel, in Daisy Chain… I haven’t read all her works but I do enjoy some of them. She’s not my usual type of writer because she is very moralistic, but she’s an interesting character. And at times it is nice to read about high ideals.

Rough Music a band story On Amazon.

Rough Music is set in the late 1970’s going on to 1980. It is about an American country rock band, who are just beginning after years of hard work, to have some success. They have TV appearances, talk of a movie, hits in the charts. They work hard and try to give their fans a show they will remember. They care about the fans, but life on the road has a lot of hardships. It has compensations, such as a generous supply of young women and easy access to soft drugs. But as the musicians grow older, they acquire wives and children and feel the pull of being away from them. They still sleep around, and don’t feel guilt about it. However by the late 1970s musicians’ wives were beginning to complain about being left behind while their husbands partied, or fooled around, and to talk about “having a life of their own”. Jeff Randles and Brandon Sherwood are the 2 lead singers in the band, and they are good friends. They understand each other. Jeff breaks up his first marriage because his wife Lacy is increasingly sick of his being away, and he finds her cold and uninteresting, but he makes a second marriage, to a girl he hardly knows, but has gotten pregnant. However, he does not know her well and has to adjust to marriage and being a father, while still trying to make a living doing what he loves. I liked writing it because I feel that in life, especially as we get middle aged, there aren’t any easy answers.

Charlotte Bronte , Mr Nicholls and her last years

Charlotte was dumbfounded when Mr Nicholls proposed. She didn’t love him, and felt that they had nothing in common. However, her father lost his temper when he heard of the proposal. His motives were mixed. He was afraid of losing his daughter; he was an old man and wanted her to be with him and look after him. He also believed that she was too delicate to endure childbirth and that marriage would be dangerous for her. He didn’t like Mr Nicholls much. He believed that as a well-known novelist, Charlotte could do better, in finding a husband and that probably Mr Nicholls was boasting about his own family background in Ireland. The man had nothing but a modest income as a curate…how could he keep a wife? He got into such a rage that Charlotte hastily denied all desire to marry Nicholls. The younger man left Haworth and his job. The local people by now knew of Charlotte’s being a novelist; they all liked her and thought that this man wasn’t nearly good enough. He was considered very presumptuous, to have addressed a marriage offer to their “Miss Bronte”. Charlotte felt that she should obey her father, even though she was now a mature woman. But she was having second thoughts. Mr Nicholls was not, in her opinion, very clever. He was dull, shy and awkward, and she didn’t find him attractive. But she was aware that she was getting older and did not have many chances of marriage. She realised that he genuinely loved her for herself, and if he wasn’t very interested in her writing, that was in its way a point in his favour. Mrs Gaskell was staying with her, when this row over Mr Nichols was going on, and being happily wed herself, she felt that Charlotte too should have a chance of marriage. She could see how lonely her friend was, and wanted to help. She encouraged Charlotte to engage in correspondence with her admirer and to seriously consider his offer. Charlotte had rarely disobeyed her father, but she was beginning to develop some interest in the curate. As a girl, she would have refused to marry without love, but now, she was glad that he cared deeply for her. Luckily for her, Mr Bronte disliked the new curate Tabby, the family servant, told him that he should let her get married. The locals began to miss Nicholls as well. Charlotte pleaded with her father, telling him that not many men would want to marry her... She insisted that if she was married to Nicholls, he was willing to live in their home and help to take care of his father in law and take the burden of church work off him. Grudgingly, Patrick gave in, but he refused to give his daughter away at the quiet wedding. Charlotte was very nervous of marriage, knowing that she and Arthur did not have much in common other than their church background. He wasn’t “intellectual”. But the marriage was quite a success. They went to Ireland for their honeymoon and she found that Mr Nicholls’ family were “well bred” and comfortably off. She grew into a gentle love for him, being very happy at last to have a companion who wanted to be with her…. When back in Haworth, she referred to him affectionately in her letters as “My dear Arthur” and “my dear boy.” She helped more with his parish work and her father was able to relax and to feel the benefits of having a son in law living in. The only fly in the ointment was Charlotte's writing. She told Nicholls that if she hadn’t been spending the evening with him, she would have been writing, and showed him a story she had begun, which was later published as “Emma”, - the few pages she had written. Marriage was taking up a lot of her time, and she had less to bestow on her work. It was set in a school and Arthur told her he feared the critics would think she was repeating her Jane Eyre and Villette themes. But she never completed the story. She was busy and happy with Arthur. She also became pregnant… Unluckily, she caught a bad cold, out walking with Arthur, and became very ill. It’s not clear what was wrong… The chill may have weakened her and she may have also fallen victim to the family curse of TB, but she was almost vomiting persistently, and it seems as if this was related to pregnancy. Her illness went on, exhausting her, and she died a mere 9 months after her marriage. She was clearly in love with her husband and happy in the marriage and he was devoted to her. After her death, he showed himself a decent and loyal man; he kept his promise to her, to look after her father. He remained with old Mr Bronte for several years, till he died. The 2 men weren’t that close. Patrick found some comfort after his last child’s death, in delighting in her literary fame. He wanted a biography written, whereas Mr Nicholls felt that it would be an intrusion on Charlotte’s privacy and his, and that he did not want such publicity for the woman he loved. He hated the “autograph-hunters” who were beginning to invade Haworth and even more, he hated journalists who wrote about his wife… He and Mr Bronte argued about the issue of having a biography written. Mr Bronte felt it would be good to have an authorised biography to counter the more wild and silly stories that had appeared. In the end it was written by Charlotte’s good friend Elizabeth Gaskell and Patrick was not best pleased with it. She portrayed him as extremely eccentric, and selfish. He noted several inaccuracies. There was controversy about what she wrote about the Bronte children and their school, where the 2 girls died. Lawsuits were threatened about her chapter on Branwell’s affair with Mrs Robinson. But it was a well written biography which was the foundation for other works on Charlotte’s and the Brontes’ lives. After Mr Bronte’s death, Nicholls went back to Ireland since he was not offered the clerical post in Haworth, and he gave up Orders and became a gentleman-farmer. He remarried, but seems to have always loved Charlotte. So in her way, she had her great romance.

Charlotte Bronte Part III, Emily and Anne

Charlotte’s triumph in getting her first novel published and its being such a success should have been a happy time for the family, but it didn’t last long. Emily didn’t seem to care about money. But she was depressed at the lack of understanding from the critics, although her book sold. Some critics did appreciate her talent, even if they deprecated the violence, the passionate emotions, and “impropriety” of the story of Wuthering Heights. They felt that given time, Ellis Bell might mature into a great writer. Newby began to cause problems. He hinted that ALL the Bell works were written by the same author, and Charlotte and Anne felt they had to go to London, break their anonymity, and explain to George Smith that there were 3 of them. Charlotte found London stressful but she got to know George. Soon, though Branwell's addictions caused more upsets. He was drinking and using opium, and getting into debt. Some biographers believe that Mrs Robinson remained in touch with him and sent him small sums of money but it’s not clear if this was the case. When her husband died, he believed that she would send for him and they would be married... But whether there had ever been an affair or not, Mrs Robinson didn’t send for him, and he was devastated... and his health began to decline through 1847 and 1848. His drinking exacerbated his weakness and a family proneness to TB. Charlotte is often criticised for being unkind to Branwell as he declined, but my sympathies are with her. She had worked hard, in jobs she didn’t like, to earn a living, while he had failed at every job he got. She had now struggled to her work published and to persuade her sisters to write for publication. Branwell had had a few poems published in newspapers but he was not willing to work hard at preparing a novel for publication. He dismissed novels as easy to write, but his own attempt at novel, is a feeble effort… Now, in 1847/8 he was a serious liability. They didn’t tell him about their success in getting the novels published, because it would upset him or he might give away their identities. His health got worse but the family seem to have been taken aback by the speed of his decline… He died aged 31 in September 1848. The Brontes were grieved and shocked, although he had been a trouble to them. His father felt the loss of his only son, very painfully. Emily went to his funeral; she caught a bad cold, and soon began to show symptoms of TB. Her decline was also very rapid. She refused to let her sisters help her and would not see a doctor. She insisted on doing her housework and normal tasks, although she was getting weaker. By December, she was desperately ill. Always slender, she became bone thin, and afflicted with a terrible tubercular cough. She still refused medical aid, and Charlotte particularly felt helpless. The two sisters had loved each other but had disagreed over things. Emily had insisted on their using pseudonyms. She feared the loss of her privacy and anonymity. When Charlotte and Anne went to London to see her publisher George Smith, Emily refused to go. She had been insistent on staying with her publisher Thomas Newby, who was a dubious character… when Charlotte wanted her to change to Smith's firm. She felt that George Smith had treated her very well with the publication of Jane Eyre, and been “a gentleman” – Emily preferred to stick with Newby, even if it was to her disadvantage. Now, in her final illness, it was very painful and hurtful to Charlotte that her sister still was at odds with her, refusing her sisterly love and offers of help. She told her sisters she would have no “poisoning doctor” near her. Charlotte wrote to a doctor, hoping for some advice, and the doctor replied and sent medicine but Emily would not take it. She was in what Victorians described as “Galloping consumption”, and it’s unlikely that anything would have cured her or even slowed down the progress of the disease. She soon reached a point where she could hardly speak, and finally said that she would see a doctor, if they brought one... but it was too late. She died lying on the sitting room sofa…painfully and traumatically. She was buried on 22 December, 1848 - 3 days after her death. Charlotte was very upset, but soon her last sister, Anne, became ill, displaying symptoms of TB, also. She had probably caught it from Emily. Victorians didn’t realise that the illness could be transferred from person to person, and didn’t take hygiene precautions. The Sisters shared a bedroom… Anne was more tractable than her stubborn sister. She knew that she would probably not recover but she was willing to see medical men and take their advice. Anne’s health got worse, and in the spring of 1849, she expressed a wish to go to Scarborough; she had visited there, with the Robinson family. She went with her sister and Ellen Nussey and died there at the end of May. Charlotte was now left alone with her elderly father, the last of his six children. She had lost 3 siblings in 10 months. Her success as a novelist had raised her hopes that she might write other works. She believed that she would be able to make a living as a writer, rather than have to be a governess again. And that her sisters could do the same. Now her sisters were gone, she was lonely and had no one to discuss her work with…

Beds and Blue Jeans taster, Sam's trying to flirt...

“Yeah but I don’t know.  Pattie’s not the career type.   Thing is Amber, we never –“

Sam broke off. He had been about to say that he and Pattie had never discussed anything much.  They had slipped into a live-in relationship, she had had the baby. He didn’t want to criticise his girlfriend, to another woman.

“My goodness,” Amber interjected suddenly, “I’ve got to go.  Sam, it sure was nice to chat and catch up on things.  But work calls. I’ve got to get back by 2 o’clock.”

She reached for her purse- but he put his hand out and forestalled her.
“No, sweetie, I invited you to lunch.  I’m gonna pay. “

She laughed and then gracefully gave way.

“You’re such a perfect gentleman.  OK.  But this was fun and next time I’ll invite you.”

The story is available on Amazon

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beds-Blue-Jeans-everyday-mayhem-ebook/dp/B01370SMFO/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1472894698&sr=1-1&keywords=beds+and+blue

Charlotte Bronte II

On leaving the Heger School, Charlotte was painfully unhappy. It’s not clear what was said to her, but it seems as if Mme Heger pushed her into leaving Brussels. I believe that Heger realised it too, that his pupil, a plain yet intelligent young woman of whom he was fond, had developed an inappropriate love for him. He and Mme Heger felt that they had to tell her to leave, fearing embarrassment and scandal. Heger was at first sorry for her and believed that she would be better to go home and get over her feelings. Charlotte remained in love for some time. She begged permission of M Heger to write to him but he stipulated that these letters should be limited to "one every 6 months". Charlotte longed to write more often, and wrote some painfully loving but very proper letters. Heger didn’t respond. The story of her continuing love for him is sad to think about, she was so unhappy- desperately pleading for a little friendship and affection from him. Perhaps he got fed up with the letters because he threw some away. Mme Heger rescued them, perhaps because she was aware of the possibility of scandal and wanted to preserve evidence. Charlotte gradually recovered and was occupied with family problems, such as Branwell’s drinking, and her father’s blindness. The girls continued for a while to believe they might be able to set up a school and did some advertising, but no one was interested in sending their daughters to a remote place and the plan eventually languished. Charlotte began to think of other ideas for occupying herself and making some money. She persuaded her sisters to put their poetry together and try to get it published as a joint effort. When the book came out, in 1846, it only sold 2 copies. But Charlotte was a determined young woman and didn’t give up hope. She was always the leader of the 3 of them in trying new schemes, such as setting up their own school or going to Brussels to learn more... or starting to write for publication. They had all written since they could hold a pen, but apart from Branwell, none of them seems to have seriously considered trying to make money or get published. Charlotte had written to the Poet Southey as a girl, asking whether he thought that she had talent, but he responded that literature was not the business of a woman's life. Emily never asked for advice like this, but she positively hated the idea of submitting her work to the gaze of the public. Anne seems to have been quietly willing to agree, once the notion of publication was suggested. She was shy but not completely or aggressively retiring like her sister. Charlotte was the most normal of the girls. She was shy and also quite sharp tongued and critical of people. She disliked most of her employers, and was socially awkward but not to the extent that Emily was. She didn’t have many friends but did engage in social life, later, as a writer. She had two friends, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor, whom she had known from school. At this stage, Patrick was virtually blind and underwent an operation for cataract, which was very painful. It meant that he had to go to Manchester. Charlotte had to accompany him. While he was recovering, she started to write Jane Eyre, and then began to try and get it sold. Her sisters were engaged in writing and submitting their books - Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. But their publisher, Newby, was a rogue, and didn’t treat them very fairly. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was read by George Smith, a young man just starting out in publishing. His reader thought it was so wonderful he urged that it should be published. It was an overnight runaway success. Emily and Anne’s books which were published as a 3 volume, set, (the first 2 volumes was Wuthering Heights and the third one was the short work -Agnes Grey), didn’t do so well, although some discerning critics could see the talent, in Emily’s work. Finally, Charlotte’s pressuring of her sisters and her hard work was beginning to pay off.