At the age of eight Charlotte, with her older sisters- and might have killed her but for the prompt actions of her father. (The institution was immortalised-and damned forever- in Jane Eyre. For the next few years the four remaining children- Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne- turned in upon themselves and created imaginary worlds whichthey recorded in handwriting so minute as to be almost unreadable.
But this self-imposed apprenticeship, though it produced a great deal of writing, would never in itself have done more than provide a discipline. And the sisters' lives, a continual struggle against ill-health and defeated spirits, were hardly ever extended beyondthe world the daughters of a country parson might know in the middle of the nineteenth century. Even Charlotte's experience of Brussels brought her little more than unhappiness. There was not the slightest hint of that out of their apparently meagre existance and discouraging environment would come, in 1847, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey. The success of the three books is well known; their quality is unique. But the flowering was brief, and within four years both Emily and Anne were dead. Anne had written one more book; Emily's poems, though of remarkable quality, were few. Charlotte published two more novels (a forth was published posthumously) and enjoyed a brief happiness with Arthur Nicholls before she too, died, in 1855, at the age of 39. Patrick Bronte lived on at Haworth, alone in his old age.
The story of the Brontes is, of perennial interest and the family has, in the past, suffered from an excess of enthusiasm that finds too much significance in extraneous detail. However, this is not apparent anywhere on this or connecting sites.
