and Southey’s poems were among the lighter literature; while, as having a character of their own—­earnest, wild, and occasionally fanatical—­may be named some of the books which came from the Branwell side of the family—­from the Cornish followers of the saintly John Wesley—­and which are touched on in the account of the works to which Caroline Helstone had access in “Shirley:”—­“Some venerable Lady’s Magazines, that had once performed a voyage with their owner, and undergone a storm”—­(possibly part of the relics of Mrs. Bronte’s possessions, contained in the ship wrecked on the coast of Cornwall)—­“and whose pages were stained with salt water; some mad Methodist Magazines full of miracles and apparitions, and preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticisms; and the equally mad letters of Mrs. Elizabeth Rowe from the Dead to the Living.”

Mr. Bronte encouraged a taste for reading in his girls; and though Miss Branwell kept it in due bounds, by the variety of household occupations, in which she expected them not merely to take a part, but to become proficients, thereby occupying regularly a good portion of every day, they were allowed to get books from the circulating library at Keighley; and many a happy walk, up those long four miles, must they have had, burdened with some new book, into which they peeped as they hurried home.  Not that the books were what would generally be called new; in the beginning of 1833, the two friends seem almost simultaneously to have fallen upon “Kenilworth,” and Charlotte writes as follows about it:—­

“I am glad you like ‘Kenilworth;’ it is certainly more resembling a romance than a novel:  in my opinion, one of the most interesting works that ever emanated from the great Sir Walter’s pen.  Varney is certainly the personification of consummate villainy; and in the delineation of his dark and profoundly artful mind, Scott exhibits a wonderful knowledge of human nature, as well as a surprising skill in embodying his perceptions, so as to enable others to become participators in that knowledge.”

Commonplace as this extract may seem, it is noteworthy on two or three accounts:  in the first place, instead of discussing the plot or story, she analyses the character of Varney; and next, she, knowing nothing of the world, both from her youth and her isolated position, has yet been so accustomed to hear “human nature” distrusted, as to receive the notion of intense and artful villainy without surprise.

What was formal and set in her way of writing to “E.” diminished as their personal acquaintance increased, and as each came to know the home of the other; so that small details concerning people and places had their interest and their significance.  In the summer of 1833, she wrote to invite her friend to come and pay her a visit.  “Aunt thought it would be better” (she says) “to defer it until about the middle of summer, as the winter, and even the spring seasons, are remarkably cold and bleak among our mountains.”