“The Bronte sisters” sounds like a singing group. They were first-rate novelists in nineteenth century England. During the Victorian era, it was considered unladylike to be a writer. That’s why these three sisters, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne, acquired male-sounding pen names, Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. When their mom died young, an aunt came to live with them and teach them about running a household, but they were far more interested in writing poems and short stories.
Anne Bronte (1820-1849) was distinctive in her writing style, more of a realist than the customary Romantic writing of her day. She defended the honest portrayal of her characters, “I would rather depict them as they really are than as they would wish to appear.” Anne worked as a governess for two bratty, pampered children. While it was a thankless job, it provided her with plenty of writing material. Her first book, Agnes Grey skewers her culture’s obsession with status and class.
Anne’s dad, a pastor, was earnest to share the gospel with his daughters, but it was a Moravian pastor who brought the message home to Anne. He visited when she became ill while working as a governess. He wrote of their visits, “I found her well-acquainted with the truths of Scripture, but more as law than gospel, more as a requirement for God than the gift of his Son.” He concluded, “Her heart opened to the truths of the Bible.”
Anne’s writing evidences both deep faith and honest doubt. Her poem, “Confidence,” expressed ongoing struggles with sin and doubt yet in the end she falls back on God’s love and mercy, as expressed in the final two stanzas of her poem.
Anne died of tuberculosis at age twenty-nine. Her prayer that follows here is the epitome of trust: