One formidable letter (the third he sent) is headed in large letters:  “Sir, read what I write.”  It begins:  “And would to Heaven you would believe in me, for then you would attend to me and act upon it”, and ends:  “You lost an able writer in James Hogg, and God grant you may get one in Patrick Branwell Bronte.”  Another followed, headed:  “Sir, read now at last”, and ending, “Condemn not unheard”.  In a final letter Branwell inquires whether Mr. Blackwood thinks his magazine “so perfect that no addition to its power would be either possible or desirable”, and whether it is pride that actuates him, or custom, or prejudice, and conjures him:  “Be a man, sir!”

Nothing came of it.  Mr. Blackwood refused to be a man.

Yet Branwell had his chance.  He went to London, but nothing came of it.  He went to Bradford and had a studio there, but nothing came of it.  He lived for a brief period in a small provincial Bohemia.  It was his best and happiest period, but nothing came of it beyond the letters and the reams of verse he sent to Leyland the sculptor.  There was something brilliant and fantastic about the boy that fascinated Leyland.  But a studio costs money, and Branwell had to give his up and go back to Haworth and the society of John Brown the stone-mason and grave-digger.  That John Brown was a decent fellow you gather from the fact that on a journey to Liverpool he had charge of Branwell, when Branwell was at his worst.  They had affectionate names for each other.  Branwell is the Philosopher, John Brown is the Old Knave of Trumps.  The whole trouble with Branwell was that he could not resist the temptation of impressing the grave-digger.  He himself was impressed by the ironic union in the Worshipful Master of conviviality and a sinister occupation.

A letter of Branwell’s (preserved by the grave-digger in a quaint devotion to his friend’s memory) has achieved an immortality denied to his “Effusions”.  Nothing having come of the “Effusions”, Branwell, to his infinite credit, followed his sisters’ example, and became tutor with a Mr. Postlethwaite.  The irony of his situation pleased him, and he wrote to the Old Knave of Trumps thus:  “I took a half-year’s farewell of old friend whisky at Kendal on the night after I left.  There was a party of gentlemen at the Royal Hotel, and I joined them.  We ordered in supper and whisky-toddy as hot as hell!  They thought I was a physician, and put me in the chair.  I gave several toasts that were washed down at the same time till the room spun round and the candles danced in our eyes....  I found myself in bed next morning with a bottle of porter, a glass, and a corkscrew beside me.  Since then I have not tasted anything stronger than milk-and-water, nor, I hope, shall, till I return at midsummer; when we will see about it.  I am getting as fat as Prince William at Springhead, and as godly as his friend Parson Winterbotham.  My hand shakes no longer.  I ride to the banker’s at Ulverston with Mr. Postlethwaite, and sit drinking tea, and talking scandal with old ladies.  As for the young ones!  I have one sitting by me just now—­fair-faced, blue-eyed, dark-haired, sweet eighteen—­she little thinks the devil is so near her!”—­and a great deal more in the same silly, post-Byronic strain.