'Excuse my unintelligibility, haste, and appearance of presumption,
and--Believe me to be, sir, your most humble and grateful servant,
'P. B. BRONTE.
'If anything in this note should displease you, lay it, sir, to the
account of inexperience and _not_ impudence.'
In October 1840, we find Branwell clerk-in-charge at the Station of
Sowerby Bridge on the Leeds and Manchester Railway, and the following
year at Luddenden Foot, where Mr. Grundy, the railway engineer, became
acquainted with him, and commenced the correspondence contained in
_Pictures of the Past_.
I have in my possession a small memorandum book, evidently used by
Branwell when engaged as a railway clerk. There are notes in it upon the
then existing railways, demonstrating that he was trying to prime himself
with the requisite facts and statistics for a career of that kind. But
side by side with these are verses upon 'Lord Nelson,' 'Robert Burns,'
and kindred themes, with such estimable sentiments as this:--
'Then England's love and England's tongue
And England's heart shall reverence long
The wisdom deep, the courage strong,
Of English Johnson's name.'
Altogether a literary atmosphere had been kindled for the boy had he had
the slightest strength of character to go with it.
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