'That jump I expect to take when I can model a rival to your noble Theseus, who haunted my dreams when I slept after seeing him. But, meanwhile, I can try my utmost to rouse myself from almost killing cares, and that alone will be its own reward.
'Tell me when I may hope to see you, and believe me, dear sir,
A spirited sketch in pen-and-ink concludes this letter; it represents a bust of himself thrown down, and the lady of his admiration holding forth her hands towards it with an air of pity, while underneath it is the sentence: 'A cast, cast down, but not cast away!'[19]
[19] Charlotte Brontë told her friend 'Mary,' that Branwell had appropriated Cowper's poem, 'The Castaway.'
We have in this letter an instance of Branwell's general coherency under his disappointment, in which the elegance and freedom of his style of composition are combined with a consequent and logical arrangement of the various parts of his subject; but he cannot help concluding his letter with a direct allusion to the lady, whom he believes,--all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding,--to love him with undiminished devotion. Under this fascination he still hopes for the prosperity and happiness of which he had before spoken to his friends.
Moreover it will be seen, from Branwell's letter, that he had seriously undertaken, in the midst of sorrow, suffering, and ill-health,--though, I have reason to believe, that he had sketched some part of it during his tutorship--the production of a novel, one volume of which he had completed. He does not seem to have looked upon it as a great mental effort, but rather as the natural outcome of a painful experience, and the proper alleviation of a present misery. Yet he designed to give a vivid picture of human nature; and, with the strength of experience and the consciousness of power, he evidently hoped that it would be a better work than those productions of the day, of whose composition he speaks so lightly. His experience had, indeed, been such as would well enable one of his quick perception to grasp the character, feelings, and motives of those around him. His knowledge of the country people of the West-Riding was very great; for, sitting, the admired of all observers, in the 'Black Bull,' at Haworth, he had met representatives of all classes of them. By the parlour fire, in the long winter evenings, he had had opportunities enough of entering into the spirit of the people; indeed, his letter to John Brown has shown us how he reviewed some of them. It was not merely for the enjoyment of an hour that he came to their company: he had longed for a glimpse of other life than that lived at the parsonage. And the Yorkshire peasants--whom he nevertheless held at their true value--to those who know their dialect, and can enter into their pursuits, as Branwell did and could, disclose a fund of shrewd observation, a sharp understanding, and a free and natural wit; and they delight in telling the stories of all the country side. But they must be understood before they can be appreciated. Branwell, too, had been a guest at the homesteads of the farmers, in the neighbourhood where he had latterly resided, who were always pleased to see him, when he visited them. But he had had experience of more fiery emotions than those of peasants; he had longed to know something of the deeper life of London, and had found it, at last, in the company of pugilists and their patrons.