Best plays mean secret plays,
they are very nice ones. All our plays are very strange ones. Their
nature I need not write on paper, for I think I shall always remember
them. The 'Young Men's' play took its rise from some wooden soldiers
Branwell had; 'Our Fellows' from 'Aesop's Fables'; and the 'Islanders'
from several events which happened. I will sketch out the origin of
our plays more explicitly if I can. First, 'Young Men.' Papa brought
Branwell some wooden soldiers at Leeds; when papa came home it was
night, and we were in bed, so next morning Branwell came to our door
with a box of soldiers. Emily and I jumped out of bed, and I snatched
up one and exclaimed, 'This is the Duke of Wellington! This shall be
the Duke!' When I had said this Emily likewise took one up and said it
should be hers; when Anne came down, she said one should be hers. Mine
was the prettiest of the whole, and the tallest, and the most perfect
in every part. Emily's was a grave-looking fellow, and we called him
'Gravey.' Anne's was a queer little thing, much like herself, and we
called him 'Waiting-boy.' Branwell chose his, and called him
'Buonaparte.'"
The foregoing extract shows something of the kind of reading in which
the little Brontes were interested; but their desire for knowledge must
have been excited in many directions, for I find a "list of painters
whose works I wish to see," drawn up by Charlotte Bronte when she was
scarcely thirteen: "Guido Reni, Julio Romano Titian, Raphael, Michael
Angelo, Coreggio, Annibal Carracci, Leonardo da Vinci, Fra Bartolomeo,
Carlo Cignani, Vandyke, Rubens, Bartolomeo Ramerghi.
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