Gaskell in her ‘'Lite of Charlotte
Bronte,” is somewhat rehabilitated by
May Sinclair in her book, ‘‘The Three
Brontes.” She calls him a ‘‘poor and
unhappy and innocent’ old man” and
finds that he was better than most
Victorian fathers. The stories of his
savage temper, egotism, selfishness
and moroseness have all been exag
gerated, she thinks. The story of his
cutting up his wife’s silk gown in a fit
of passion resolves itself into his cut
ting out merely the sleeves of a cotton
gown (why, is not explained), after
which he walked into Keighley and
bought her a new silk gown, Tne
storv of his firing pistols to relics e
other fits of fury is a slander based on
his habit of practicing pistol firing as
a sport. That he often went off on
long, solitary walks May Sinclair finds
no sign of moroseness. If he had insist
ed ed on accompanying Charlotte and
Emily and Anne on their walks over
the moors, she says, his conduct would
have been censured just the same.
It is to his lasting credit that in an
age when genius in a woman was con
sidered unwomanly, if not altogether
reprehensible, he ‘‘was profoundly
proud of his daughter’s genius; there
is no record and no rumor of any criti
cism on his part, of any remonstrance
or amazement.” That in hie last
years, when overcome by blindness
and grief because of his son Bram
well’s evil life and early death, he
sometimes drank more than he should,
seems to Miss Sinclair easy to excuse.
