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Title: The Key to the Brontë Works - The Key to Charlotte Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights,' 'Jane - Eyre,' and her other works.
Author: Malham-Dembleby, John
Language: English
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THE KEY TO THE
BRONTË WORKS.
THE KEY TO THE
BRONTË WORKS
THE KEY TO CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S "WUTHERING HEIGHTS,"
"JANE EYRE," AND HER OTHER WORKS.
SHOWING THE METHOD OF THEIR CONSTRUCTION AND THEIR
RELATION TO THE FACTS AND PEOPLE OF HER LIFE.
BY
JOHN MALHAM-DEMBLEBY.
London and Felling-on-Tyne:
THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD.
NEW YORK AND MELBOURNE.
1911.
_All Rights Reserved._
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
I. OUTLINE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S LIFE 13
II. ORIGIN OF THE CANDLE-BEARING BEDSIDE VISITANT AND
THE UNCOUTH SERVANT IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND
"JANE EYRE" 20
III. ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDLING HEATHCLIFFE AND HIS NAME
IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS"--ORIGIN OF THE INSANE
LADY AND THE WHITE VEIL SCENE IN "JANE EYRE" 33
IV. A RAINY DAY IN CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S CHILDHOOD:
THE OPENING INCIDENT IN THE AUTOBIOGRAPHIES
OF THE HEROINES OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND
"JANE EYRE" 37
V. CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S FRIEND, TABITHA AYKROYD, THE
BRONTËS' SERVANT, AS MRS. DEAN OF "WUTHERING
HEIGHTS," AND AS BESSIE AND HANNAH OF "JANE EYRE" 43
VI. CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S CHILD APPARITION IN "THE
PROFESSOR," "WUTHERING HEIGHTS," AND "JANE EYRE" 52
VII. THE ORIGINALS OF GIMMERTON, GIMMERDEN, GIMMERTON
KIRK AND CHAPEL, PENISTON CRAGS, THE FAIRY CAVE,
ETC., IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS," AND OF THE FAIRY
CAVE AND THE FAIRY JANET IN "JANE EYRE" 57
VIII. THE RIVERS OR BRONTË FAMILY IN "JANE EYRE" 69
IX. ORIGIN OF THE YORKSHIRE ELEMENT IN CHARLOTTE
BRONTË'S HUNSDEN OF "THE PROFESSOR"; HEATHCLIFFE
OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS"; ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE";
AND YORKE OF "SHIRLEY" 83
X. HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND ROCHESTER
OF "JANE EYRE" ONE AND THE SAME 90
XI. CATHERINE AND HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS"
AS JANE AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE" 93
XII. EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE.
I. MDLLE. LAGRANGE AND HER MANUSCRIPT
"CATHERINE BELL, THE ORPHAN" 104
XIII. EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE.
II. ACCUSATIONS AND PROTESTATIONS! 120
XIV. THE RECOIL, I. 130
XV. THE RECOIL, II. 143
XVI. THE BRONTË POEMS 156
APPENDIX.
MINOR IDENTIFICATIONS OF PERSONS AND PLACES IN THE
BRONTË WORKS 159
THE HÉGER PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË IN THE
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY 162
INDEX 169
LIST OF SUBSCRIBERS TO THE FIRST EDITION 179
PREFACE.
_The Key to the Brontë Works_ is the absolutely necessary companion
volume to Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_,
_Shirley_, _The Professor_, and _Villette_. Without it the reader cannot
know the real Currer Bell and her people, or see her works as they were
to herself. Great indeed and continuous has been the task of writing
this volume: a comprehension of my duty to law and literature, to
posterity and to Charlotte Brontë, set aside any other consideration. It
could be no compliment to my learned and distinguished subscribers to
assume importance would attach to _The Key to the Brontë Works_ were the
volume a mere skimming of extant Brontë biography, albeit that has its
province of interest. _The Key to the Brontë Works_, I repeat, is the
only book which shows us the life and works of Charlotte Brontë as
intimately known to herself. Herein is my task accomplished; herewith is
my reward. To quote my words from a private correspondence with Sir
Charles Holroyd, Kt., Director of the National Gallery, London:--
"After her return from Brussels in 1844, Charlotte Brontë
conceived the idea of perpetuating the drama of her life. Again
and again, true artist as she was, she cleared her presentations,
till finally the world had those great works which stand as a
signal testimony to the high value of the true artist, and as
testimony to the divine origin of real inspiration. And now
priest, statesman, writer--whatsoever a man may be, he will
discover in the works of Charlotte Brontë salutary instruction,
and at the same time will perceive with thrilling admiration the
greatness of Art when she is at one with Genius. As I pen these
lines to you, Sir Charles, I am reminded of the evanescence of the
halo of romance round so many historic characters and personages
when sober history speaks apart; but Charlotte Brontë we find to
be a greater luminary the closer we approach her."
The utmost possible interest attaches to my sensational evidence, now
first showing Charlotte Brontë to be the author and heroine of
_Wuthering Heights_, a book many have declared "the finest work of
genius written by a woman," and some look upon as "one of the greatest
novels in our or any other literature." In view of my evidence it will
be impossible hereafter to convince the world that Charlotte Brontë did
not write _Wuthering Heights_. _The Key to the Brontë Works_ in his
hands, every reader is an expert upon the subject. By resort to each
indexed reference to Charlotte Brontë's methods I have discovered, and
named Methods I. and II., sensational ratification of all I say hereon
will be found.
It will presently seem incredible the chief argument hitherto advanced
against my assertion that Charlotte Brontë wrote _Wuthering Heights_ was
that _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ are "totally dissimilar in
style, thought, etc.," for my evidence is proof absolute to the
opposite. A recent writer on the Brontës[1] says _Wuthering Heights_
contains nothing whatsoever biographically, or in any way, suggestive of
Emily Brontë and her personality, and admits upon the other hand that
the characteristic of Charlotte Brontë's writing is her full and
intimate self-revelation of the incidents of her own life. Nothing can
recall these words. They are a frank, or an ingenuous, statement of
irrefutable fact; and though the writer did not journey to the logical
conclusion, it is well he is associated with this fundamental admission.
The same significant truth is voiced still more recently by another
writer, who says: "_Wuthering Heights_ reveals nothing of Emily Brontë.
Not one of the characters thought or felt as did the quiet, retiring"
Emily[2].
Much detached yet valuable and interesting evidence I have omitted for
the sake of clearness, but it has aided me in regard to the final
discoveries I now present, and is ready further to substantiate my
conclusions. One of these detached pieces of evidence shows that the
younger Catherine and Hareton Earnshaw--the two lovers who at the close
of _Wuthering Heights_ become teacher and pupil--latterly were to
Charlotte Brontë herself and M. Héger. Apparently she did not wish to
end _Wuthering Heights_ without a picture of reconciled relations
between two characters who could present a phase of M. Héger and
herself. The teacher and pupil relations between Miss Brontë and M.
Héger were most dear and gladdening to her memory. We have a glimpse of
them in _Villette_, _Shirley_, and in _The Professor_, Chapter XIX.,
where Crimsworth is reading a book with Francis Evans Henri, whom he is
teaching to read and pronounce English. These two characters represent
M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë; and Miss Brontë taught M. Héger to read
and pronounce English out of her own favourite old books, "consecrated
to her by other associations," to quote her own words in _Wuthering
Heights_, Chapter XXXI., though often in _The Professor_ she alternates
the position of the characters by an interchange of the sexes, a method
of Miss Brontë I have discovered and termed her Method I. Let the reader
peruse carefully the scene in _The Professor_ in the light of my
reference to Eugène Sue and Charlotte Brontë's old copy in English of
_The Imitation of Christ_ at Brussels, and in the light of the "reading
and pronouncing" scenes in Chapters XXX., XXXI., and XXXII., of
_Wuthering Heights_;
also:--
Charlotte Brontë in a letter:-- _Wuthering Heights_,
Chapter XXXI.:--
"If you could see and hear "I heard him trying to read to
the efforts I make to teach himself, and pretty blunders he
[M. Héger] to pronounce ... and makes!... it was extremely funny
[his] unavailing attempts to ... still, he has no right to
imitate you would laugh to all appropriate what is mine, and
eternity."--Mrs. GASKELL'S make it ridiculous to me with
_Life of Charlotte Brontë_. his vile mistakes and
mispronunciations! Those books,
both prose and verse, are
consecrated to me by other
associations, and I hate to have
them debased and profaned in his
mouth."
Note how in _The Professor_ and _Wuthering Heights_ the male lover is
unable to devote himself to the reading lesson because of the
distraction of the heroine's interesting physiognomy. In this connection
we may glance at the following little parallel of the hen-killing
figure, with which, like the foregoing, I do not deal in the course of
_The Key to the Brontë Works_. Again we perceive Charlotte Brontë's
Method I.:--
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Chapter XXX. Chapter XIV.
Hareton contented himself with Mr. Rochester had been looking
... looking at Catherine instead ... at the fire, and I had been
of the book. She continued looking at him, when, turning
reading. His attention became suddenly, he caught my gaze
... quite centred in the study fastened on his physiognomy.
of her ... curls ... and perhaps
not quite aware to what he did "You examine me, Miss Eyre,"
... he put out his hand and said he; "do you think me
stroked one curl as gently as if handsome?"
it were a bird. He might have
stuck a knife into her neck, she "No sir."
started with such a taking....
"And so under the pretence of
stroking and soothing me into
placidity, you stick a sly
penknife under my ear."
Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre were of course M. Héger and Miss Brontë. It
is indeed important and interesting to find at the old farmstead of
Wuthering Heights scenes reminiscent of the intimately pedagogic
relations that existed between Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger of the
school at Brussels.
Discovering _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ are practically as the
same book, I have disclosed their relationship in parallel columns--the
most satisfactory and conclusive evidence in the world. Herewith we see
both volumes agree in scenes and chapters virtually word for word, and
from beginning to end. Both works we now find are one in origin, each
containing not less than four identical characters portrayed by
Charlotte Brontë from her own life, she herself being the original of
the heroine in each book, and her friend M. Héger in the main the
original of the hero thereof. Charlotte Brontë's brother, Branwell
Brontë, in agreement with her estimate of him as a wreck of selfishness,
is the unhappy fool of both books; while her life-long companion,
Tabitha Aykroyd, who was to her as nurse, mother, and friend, is therein
the indispensable domestic servant and motherly good woman of the humble
class.
I will not occupy my preface with an enumeration of the many important
and interesting Brontë discoveries I have been enabled to make and
present herewith in _The Key to the Brontë Works_. I may briefly
indicate my chief sensational discoveries:--The discovery of the origin
of _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_; the discovery that in _Jane
Eyre_ Charlotte Brontë immortalized not only herself and M. Héger, but
also her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, her brother, four sisters, her
aunt and a cousin, and Tabitha Aykroyd, the Brontë servant or
housekeeper; the discovery first revealing the history of Charlotte
Brontë's life at Brussels and friendship with M. Héger, the original of
her chief heroes; and the discovery of the most sensational fact that
Charlotte Brontë and not Emily wrote _Wuthering Heights_, and was
herself the original of the heroine and M. Héger that of the hero, as I
have mentioned.
My warm thanks are due to Mr. Harold Hodge, who commissioned me to write
my article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" for _The Saturday Review_;[3] and to
Mr. W. L. Courtney, M.A., LL.D., the editor of _The Fortnightly Review_,
who commissioned me to write my article "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil:
A New Study of the Brontë Family."[4] Mr. Courtney's words of
encouragement--those of a true gentleman and an eminent literary scholar
and author--have made bright to me the accomplishment of this work.
I thank Lady Ritchie--the gifted author-daughter of Thackeray the writer
of _Vanity Fair_ to whom Charlotte Brontë in her second edition
dedicated _Jane Eyre_--for her kind permission to use in _The Key to the
Brontë Works_ what her ladyship had written me privately in regard to
her sitting at dinner beside Charlotte Brontë on June 12th, 1850, with
Mr. Thackeray and Mr. George Smith the publisher, when Miss Brontë was
wearing a light green dress, an incident that has relation to the green
dress in the interesting Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë drawn in
1850, now the property of the nation and in the National Portrait
Gallery, London.
I desire to express my gratitude to Miss Catherine Galbraith Welch, who
introduced an outline of my Brontë discoveries to the readers of _The
New York Times Saturday Review of Books_. I thank _The Spectator_, _The
Outlook_, and other organs for their open acknowledgment of the fact
that I have made a discovery at last throwing light upon Charlotte
Brontë's Brussels experiences and her relations with the Hégers at
Brussels. And I wish also to thank the anonymous and scholarly writer
who penned the long and careful article in _The Dundee Advertiser_ under
the heading "The Original of Jane Eyre," containing an encouraging
appreciation of the importance of my discovery I dealt with in my
article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" in _The Saturday Review_.
I would like to give a pressure of the hand to my subscribers for the
first edition of _The Key to the Brontë Works_. Your kind letters to me
and your active interest in _The Key to the Brontë Works_ will ever
dwell among my pleasant memories. One I grieve will never see on earth
these pages--the late Most Honourable Marquis of Ripon, K.G., who
numbered with my earliest subscribers.
The readers of _The Key to the Brontë Works_ will love Charlotte Brontë
more and know her better than ever they have loved or known her in the
past. They will see her books are rich with new-found treasures, and
will recognize her to be a world's writer--a character of signal
eminence, one of the most illustrious of women.
Truth will out, and facts have their appointed day of revelation; thus I
cannot help it that more than sixty years of writing on the Brontës is
placed out of date by my discoveries.
JOHN MALHAM-DEMBLEBY.
THE KEY TO THE BRONTË WORKS.
CHAPTER I.
OUTLINE OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S LIFE.
St. Michael the Prince of Messengers--to him was dedicated the little
church on the hill at Haworth, in the Parish of Bradford, Yorkshire,
whose living gave sustenance to the family of the restless, ambitious
son of Erin, Patrick Brontë.[5] Is it for nothing that a spiritual
banner is raised by man and appeal made for the beneficent influence of
a conception of definite personal character? Within this sacred
circumscription came to be written the works of Charlotte Brontë, and
herefrom the words of a Messenger went out to the uttermost parts of the
world.
The mystery of impulse! The servant is not master, nor is the messenger
he that sendeth. Behind the lives of the great was ever an influence to
do: blind may be the early groping of Genius, stumbling her feet on the
rugged road of a darksome journey begun in the veiling mist of life's
dawn, but onward and ever onward is she impelled to the journey's end.
Ere Night blots out Genius her Message has accomplished. Glancing back
to the literary strivings of Charlotte Brontë's childhood, and upon
those quaint little efforts [Greek: peri tôn apistôn], which her young
brother and sisters sought to emulate,[6] we see her responsive to some
inward prompting that told her she must write.
Born on April 21st, 1816, at Thornton, near Bradford, during her
father's curacy of that parish, Charlotte Brontë was one of a family of
six, whose mother died in 1821. The story of her literary beginnings
shows them to have been of the kind known to many aspirants. There were
the rebuffs of editors and of at least one famous author; and, in
addition, was the divertisement of her life as teacher and governess.
Her correspondence is voluminous. It was ever written down to the
intended recipient. As to the somewhat commonplace Ellen Nussey, whose
friendship, begun at Roe Head, near Dewsbury, the school of a Miss
Margaret Wooler, lasted to the end: she invariably discussed the
domestic and social happenings of the acquaintances known by or of
interest to them. Thus her letters[7] are commonly circumstantial and
seldom soared beyond the capacity, or exceeded the limits of the
departmental interests, of those for whom they were written.
This was primarily the result of Charlotte Brontë's nervous perception
of character and recognition of the want of a truly psychical
reciprocity with her friends. She tells us that of all living beings
only "Rochester" understood her, and her letters to M. Héger, of her
Brussels school--the original of this character--were not preserved. In
the day of high fame, when she corresponded with literary folk, she
felt herself as on parade, rushed to make opinions, as say, on Miss
Austen, whom she criticized somewhat adversely. Obviously she hated to
be at the service of bookish letter-writers. Erratically she responded
to their promptings, trying not to be ruffled, but she could not reveal
her heart. From these letters, and the epistles of the class I have
previously mentioned, Mrs. Gaskell in the main wrote her famous
biography. The Charlotte Brontë known of the recipients of this
correspondence her biographer presented, backed with the necessary local
colour. She had enjoyed in the days of Miss Brontë's popularity a short
acquaintance with her; and when, at the death of Currer Bell, Mr. Brontë
requested her to write his daughter's "life," she was eminently fitted
to give the world Charlotte Brontë as known by her acquaintances.
But of the intimate Charlotte Brontë, and the origin of the Brontë
works, the method of their construction, and their relation to the facts
and people of her life, Mrs. Gaskell could tell us virtually nothing.
Neither could she, nor any succeeding biographer, throw light upon Miss
Brontë's Brussels life, or upon the subject of her friendship with M.
Héger, who is discovered by internal evidence to be the original of
Currer Bell's chief heroes. Charlotte Brontë's was an intensely reserved
nature. She built to herself a universe which she peopled in secret. Her
real life she lived out again in her books. Therein appeared the real
Charlotte Brontë, and see we her life and its people as known to
herself. Whether she thought the secrets of her works would be revealed
I cannot tell; but as the traveller who in far distant lands inscribes
on some lonely rock the relation of his experience, conscious that a
future explorer will read the tale, so does Genius, with the faith which
gave her being, leave her message in the hope of an early day of
revelation, and in the secure knowledge of the final penetration of
truth.
We now, sixty years after, find by aid of the many discoveries I have
made and present my readers in the pages of this, _The Key to the Brontë
Works_, that Charlotte Brontë, penning in her connective works the story
of her life, gave us the spectacle of a living drama wherein she was
herself a leading actor. Herein we see the imperfections and
shortcomings of human nature, and Charlotte Brontë herself is shown
standing in the slippery places. Before our eyes flits the procession of
the people who moved about her, and the air is filled with the
atmosphere through which her genius saw the world. In this new light of
revelation we perceive her great message is--the Martyrdom of Virtue. A
more poignant message I know not! And Charlotte Brontë was martyr in
this moving drama--nay, I believe there also was another. Spending two
years at a Brussels _pensionnat_ she gained the friendship of Monsieur
Héger, a devout Roman Catholic and a man of intellect who, himself once
a teacher at the establishment, as was M. Pelet in _The Professor_ at a
similar school, came to marry the mistress. Miss Brontë went twice to
Brussels, on the first occasion being accompanied by her sister Emily.
Finally, Charlotte Brontë left Brussels abruptly on account, it has been
said, of the harsh attitude of Madame Héger, who even forbade her
husband to correspond with Miss Brontë. Concerning this period and the
incidents associated therewith, I have been enabled to lift the veil. We
have thus, for the first time, external evidence that shows Charlotte
Brontë, at Brussels, endured the greatest ordeal through which it is the
lot of a woman to pass. We see how she and M. Héger emerged triumphantly
from dangerous temptation, and how they were aided, the one by her
Christian upbringing, the other by the influence of his Church.
It was in January 1844 when Charlotte Brontë returned finally from
Brussels; and she and her sisters printed a circular in connection with
a project of starting a private school at Haworth, but no progress was
made. Charlotte Brontë's life at this period will be better understood
by a reference to the chapters on "The Recoil" in this work--it was her
darkest time: when the human in her cried out--as it has, alas! in so
many at the bitter hour. She rebelled. Not violently; but by reproach.
Only her own pen can tell how cruelly she suffered mentally. She had
done no wrong and had resisted a great evil, but the recoil found her
weak: it was the martyrdom of virtue. She was suffering for the sake of
right; and that she cried aloud as in an agony showed her suffering was
intense. The storm left the world _Wuthering Heights_. The tone of
ribald caricature in dealing with the Pharisee Joseph; the impatient,
vindictive pilloring of her own nervous and physical infirmities as
"Catherine"; the ruthless baring of the flesh to show "Heathcliffe's"
heart was stone; the wilful plunging into an atmosphere of harsh levity,
crude animalism, and repulsive hypochondria, all contributed to a sombre
and powerful work of art grand in its perpetration, standing alone in
solemn majesty like the black rack that stretches low athwart a clear
sky--the rearward of the storm. But it bears the story of a sad Night,
and Charlotte Brontë's subsequent works were written in repentance: for
in Heathcliffe and Catherine of _Wuthering Heights_ she had portrayed M.
Héger and herself.
In this dark hour of Charlotte Brontë's life, Emily Brontë, to whom she
afterwards gave _Wuthering Heights_, was writing, on July 30th, 1845,[8]
that she, Emily, was "contented and undesponding," and was engaged upon
and intended to continue some puerile compositions called _The Gondal
Chronicles_, which she spoke of as "delighting" her and Anne. She and
Anne had been engaged upon this effort three and a half years, and it
was yet unfinished.
While making comparison between Emily's and Charlotte's standpoint at
this time--and Charlotte obtained for herself the names of Currer Bell
from Montagu's book which, as I show, contained the "plot," etc., of
_Wuthering Heights_, for her own use in the Brontë poem publishing
project of 1845-46--it is most important to note that but some months
after Emily's diary entry _Wuthering Heights_ was offered by Charlotte
to Messrs. Aylott and Jones, with _The Professor_ and _Agnes Grey_--on
April 6th, 1846. The literal evidence of _The Key to the Brontë Works_
does not require that we ask by what miracle the "contented" Emily
Brontë, who had collaborated three and a half years with Anne on _The
Gondal Chronicles_, and declared an intention at the end of July 1845 to
"stick firmly" to their composition, could come, in addition to
preparing her poems for the press, to begin and to finish _Wuthering
Heights_ by or before April 6th, 1846.[9]
After Charlotte Brontë's return from Brussels the degeneracy of her only
brother, Patrick Branwell Brontë, a young man ambitious, but not
successful, as an artist, made him an object of her disgust and
antipathy, and we find she portrayed him unflinchingly as Hindley
Earnshaw of _Wuthering Heights_, and again as John Reed of _Jane Eyre_.
Emily, we have been told, liked her brother, though an attempt was made
somewhat recently to dissipate the tradition.[10] But Charlotte, after
the deaths of her elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, the eldest of the
family, obviously was piqued from childhood by the advantage Branwell's
sex gave him over her seniority, more especially as he seems to have
been brutal to her:--See "A Rainy Day in Charlotte Brontë's Childhood,"
in _The Key to the Brontë Works_.
It may be observed Charlotte Brontë went to three schools, and that each
had a remarkable influence upon her life and literature. The first was
the Clergy Daughters' School in the Kendal locality, to which her
sisters Maria, Elizabeth, and Emily also went upon the death of the
ailing Mrs. Brontë at Haworth. The second was Miss Wooler's school
already mentioned, and the third the Brussels _pensionnat_. The fact
that _Jane Eyre_ virtually opens with the Clergy Daughters' School
incidents--incidents drawn from her child-memory regarding the temporary
mismanagement of an establishment which subsequently has proved a most
useful foundation--shows she began _Jane Eyre_ with the utmost possible
fidelity to truth in so far as regarded herself and her associations.
The story of how this famous work was sent in 1847 to a firm of
publishers who had just declined her novel _The Professor_ is well known
history, as is the relation of the subsequent success of the book and
the elevation of Charlotte Brontë to the highest recognition.
_Wuthering Heights_ had been published as Ellis Bell's work, a _nom de
guerre_ that also had appeared over Emily Brontë's poems. It was issued
under the condition that the next book by its author went to the same
publisher, a Mr. Newby, which, of course, made impossible thereafter
Charlotte Brontë's acknowledging her authorship of this work, as the
next book by the author of _Wuthering Heights_, her _Jane Eyre_, was
published by another house. But there are evidences in _Shirley_ that
despite her nervous apprehensions, and her letters show she was very
much afraid of this Mr. Newby, who afterwards asserted she wrote
_Wuthering Heights_, she therein carefully placed significations of her
authorship of _Wuthering Heights_.
_Villette_ was published in January 1853, and in the June of 1854 Currer
Bell married her father's curate, the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, whom she
previously had refused. She married him, it may be, as a final
immolation of herself on the altar of Right and Duty. Her married life
was but for some few months--it was so short we yet call her Charlotte
Brontë. Her father outlived her by six years. The last survivor of the
young Brontës, she died in March 1855, within a month of old Tabitha
Aykroyd, her best loved woman friend and companion apart from her own
kinsfolk. Charlotte Brontë, with other members of her family, rests in
the grey fabric which is the modern representative of that early
described as the church of St. Michael the Archangel de Haworth. Her
message is yet with us; the tablets of her life she has bequeathed to
posterity, and the key to open the way to their repository is now in our
hands. Her genius has shown the price of right-doing and the grim and
dangerous valley through which Virtue must go ere break of Day.
CHAPTER II.
THE ORIGIN OF THE CANDLE-BEARING BEDSIDE VISITANT AND THE UNCOUTH
SERVANT IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND "JANE EYRE."
My evidence shows that between 1837 and 1847 Charlotte Brontë was
perusing very attentively a little volume entitled _Gleanings in Craven,
or the Tourist's Guide_, by one Frederic Montagu of Lincoln's Inn, son
of Basil Montagu, second (natural) son of John Montagu, fourth Earl of
Sandwich, whose ancestor brought Charles II. over from Holland on the
Restoration in 1660 and therefor received his earldom.[11] The book,
which had never been associated by any person with the name or works of
Charlotte Brontë till I wrote my article, "The Key to _Jane Eyre_," upon
it for _The Saturday Review_, was in the form of "Six letters to a
friend in India," addressed as, "My dear Howard ... now at Bombay," and
was dedicated by special permission to the Duke of Devonshire, a fact
not mentioned save in the early editions. It was printed at Briggate,
Leeds, by A. Pickard, and published at Skipton-in-Craven in 1838.
Messrs. Simpkin, Marshall & Co. were the London publishers.
Frederick Montagu was a gentleman travelling in Yorkshire for his
health's sake it seems, and it occurred to him to relate in epistolary
form the story of his adventures. He had read the local writers, but it
is most clear Charlotte Brontë was particularly influenced in the
construction of her great masterpieces, _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane
Eyre_, by his purely personal contributions. It was not only as a
gleaner of local hearsay that Montagu wrote the long panegyric upon Miss
Currer which obviously resulted in Charlotte Brontë's choosing the name,
but as one whose attention had been drawn to her literary eminence.
Thomas Frognall Dibdin, who in his _Reminiscences of a Literary Life_
(1836) spoke so good a word for Basil Montagu, Frederic's father,[12]
under whom he had studied for the bar, also devoted in those
_Reminiscences_ many pages to Miss Currer and Eshton Hall. Thus we read
in Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_:--
And now as to literature ... Miss Currer is the head of all the
female bibliopolists (_sic_) in Europe, the library of Eshton Hall
fully bearing out this truth.... In taking my leave of Eshton
Hall, there is a subject upon which I must say a word: it is only
the repetition of the echo I have heard about Eshton.... There was
one name connected by every person with worth and excellence--one
who in the continual performance of charity, like a pure but
imbedded stream, silently pursues her kind course, nourishing all
within her sweet influence:--I believe it may be truly said no
person is more deservedly loved and respected than Miss Currer.
As to "Bell," which like "Currer," came to be chosen by Charlotte Brontë
from Montagu's book for her pen-name in the poem publishing project of
autumn 1845--only some months before _Wuthering Heights_ was supposed to
have been written--Montagu says:--
Kirkby-Lonsdale is a neat, stone-built town, and has a free
Grammar School.... It was at this school that the celebrated
lawyer, and one of his late Majesty's Counsels, the late John
Bell, Esq., received his education.
And three lines before this Montagu has described the views of the Lune,
"and the prospect from the churchyard, taking in Casterton Hall."[13]
This is the very background of the early chapters of _Jane Eyre_.
Indeed, Casterton Hall was the original of Brocklehurst Hall in _Jane
Eyre_, and here resided the Rev. W. Carus-Wilson, the original of Mr.
Brocklehurst, "the black marble clergyman" of the school at Lowood;
while Kirkby-Lonsdale was the original of Lowton of _Jane Eyre_. These
facts compel us to perceive that Charlotte Brontë would naturally be led
by Montagu's words, to recall she too as regards her education had been
associated with the locality mentioned. These references seem to have
made Currer Bell relate in _Jane Eyre_ her experiences in that district.
Neither Miss Brontë nor Mrs. Gaskell, her biographer, gave any
information as to the origin of the "Currer" and "Bell" of Currer Bell,
but it is known the "Bell" was not chosen from the name of the Rev. A.
Bell Nicholls whom she afterwards married.[14]
A further personal contribution by Montagu, one he based on gossip
rather than on tradition, was the story of a foundling who, he says, was
discovered by a shepherd on a rocky elevation. This I find Charlotte
Brontë evolved into "a cuckoo story." The circumstance that this male
child was found on the craggy summit of a hill may have dictated to her
the name of the foundling Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_.
I moreover find that, influenced by Montagu's quaint descriptions of the
wild and remote neighbourhood, Charlotte Brontë made Malham and the
valley of Malham the background of her story, _Wuthering Heights_. With
Malham, Montagu associated the names of Linton and Airton (Hareton); the
Fairy Cave, the Crags, glens, mists; a grey old church in the valley,
the "Kirk" by Malham, Kirkby Malham Church, which Charlotte Brontë calls
in _Wuthering Heights_ Gimmerton Kirk; a rapid stream and a Methodist
chapel. And he draws attention to Malham, being at the foot of a range
of steep mountains--"the Heights," and having an annual sheep fair, when
over one hundred thousand sheep are shown at one time, the which
observation was, we now discover, responsible for Charlotte Brontë's
choice of "Gimmerton" and "Gimmerden," from "gimmer," a female sheep,
and meaning respectively the village of sheep and the valley of sheep, a
characteristic of hers being that she often chose her names on what she
termed the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle.[15]
Having in _Wuthering Heights_ made so pointed a reference to the Fairy
Cave in the neighbourhood of Gimmerton, and having therein associated
with it the names of Airton (Hareton) and Linton, which Montagu
connected with Gimmerton or Malham, Charlotte Brontë had not openly
mentioned in that work the Fairy Janet referred to by Montagu, though
she hinted at "the mysteries of the Fairy Cave." But I find that her
"elfish" imagination induced her later, in _Jane Eyre_, to appropriate
for herself the rôle of the Fairy Janet, the Queen of the Malhamdale or
Gimmerden elves, who ruled in the neighbourhood of Gimmerton and of
Wuthering Heights, the home of Catherine Earnshaw. Thus we see Charlotte
Brontë primarily associated both Catherine Earnshaw, the heroine of
_Wuthering Heights_, and Jane Eyre, the heroine of _Jane Eyre_, with
Malham. And discovering the impetuosity of her imaginative nature and
its romantic turn, I doubt not she was impatient to begin the tale of
the "fairy-born and human-bred" heroine whose surname she took from the
River Aire or Ayre, which sprang, as Montagu carefully indicates, from
Malham, or Gimmerton, as Charlotte Brontë would say in her _Wuthering
Heights_. From this came the suggestion of the "Rivers" family, with
which I deal later, the names employed by Charlotte Brontë being
River(s), Burn(s), Aire or Eyre, Severn, Reed, and Keeldar.
Another of Montagu's personal contributions which greatly influenced
Charlotte Brontë was on the leaf before the mention of John Bell, Esq.,
and on the same leaf as the mention of Casterton Hall, headed "A Night's
Repose." This was the narration of a night's adventure, Montagu telling
how he went to a lonely hostelry and found an unwillingness in the
hostess to give him bed and shelter. He also discovered a mystery
surrounded the hostess and a peculiar, harsh-voiced country-bred
man-servant--who came to be the original of Joseph of _Wuthering
Heights_. At night the apparition of the hostess appears at Montagu's
bedside, white-faced and lighted candle in hand. It is plain the
peculiar man-servant appealed very strongly to Charlotte Brontë, and
thus in both her _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ transcriptions of
the midnight incident this characteristic is marked and recognizable: in
Joseph; and in Grace Poole, by what I have termed Charlotte Brontë's
Method I., interchange of the sexes of characters. In _Wuthering
Heights_, by her same Method I., Montagu's inhospitable hostess became
the inhospitable host Heathcliffe; but in each of Charlotte Brontë's
versions--_Wuthering Heights_ or _Jane Eyre_--a central figure of the
incidents she based upon Montagu's story of "A Night's Repose" was the
uncouth, coarse-voiced country-bred servant.
We also shall see that Montagu's reference to lunacy being an exception
to his objection against the separation of husband and wife, and the use
he made of a verse in his Malham letter, likening the moon to
"A ... lady lean and pale
Who totters forth wrapt in a gauzy veil,
Out of her chamber led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain,"
were responsible for the "plot" of _Jane Eyre_ including an insane lady
who wanders out of her chamber at night and dons a vapoury veil.
And evidence of the enthusiasm with which Charlotte Brontë applied
herself to _Jane Eyre_ is the fact that she at once took from Montagu's
little volume for this her second story based upon the book's
suggestions, the names of
Broughton, Poole (from Pooley), Eshton, Georgiana, Lynn (from
Linton), Lowood (from Low-wood), Mason, Ingram, Helen,[16] and
possibly Millcote (from Weathercote).
Thus far we see Charlotte Brontë drew _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane
Eyre_ from the same source; that in a word, _Jane Eyre_, was Charlotte's
second attempt to utilize and amplify the suggestions in Montagu's work
which had appealed to her when she began _Wuthering Heights_, and we see
the suggestions she utilized in _Jane Eyre_ always bear unmistakable
relationship to those she had utilized in her _Wuthering Heights_. But
the use Charlotte Brontë made of Montagu's book was not in the nature of
literary theft; that volume simply afforded suggestions which she
enlarged upon.
I shall presently show how I find _Jane Eyre_ is the second attempt of
Currer Bell to enlarge upon suggestions that had appealed to her when
she first read Montagu. For a commencement I will refer to the early
construction of her _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_. As simple
stories they both are based upon the description Montagu gives of an
isolated hostelry with an inhospitable hostess, a midnight apparition,
and an air of mystery that surrounds the hostess and a peculiar, uncouth
servant, to whom I have already alluded. The stage properties of this
narrative, the characters, and the "action" or plot, I will give side by
side, as they appear severally, first in Montagu, next in _Wuthering
Heights_, and finally in _Jane Eyre_. Herewith the reader will have
excellent examples of the two chief methods I find Charlotte Brontë
employed often when she drew from a character in more than one work or
instance, or when she desired to veil the identity of her originals.
Charlotte Brontë's Methods I. and II., being discovered equally in
_Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ show, as conclusively as any other
evidence, that she was the author of both works. No consideration
whatsoever can alter the iron fact or depreciate from its significance,
that it was absolutely my discovery of Charlotte Brontë's Methods I. and
II., which revealed to me the sensational verbal and other parallels
between _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ I give in _The Key to the
Brontë Works_:--
Read carefully:--
Charlotte Brontë's Method I.--The interchange of sexes. Thus the
original of A may be a woman, and the original of B a man; but A may be
represented as a man, and B as a woman.
Charlotte Brontë's Method II.--Altering the age of a character
portrayed. Thus the original of C may be young, and the original of D
old; but C may be represented as old, and D as young.
The literal extracts to which I have referred I print as occurring in
the three works:--Montagu the original, _Wuthering Heights_, and _Jane
Eyre_. I will first give the substance, or subject matter, side by
side:--
MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Montagu goes on Lockwood, of whom Jane (Method I.,
horseback to a Montagu was palpably interchange of the
solitary house at a the original, goes sexes) goes to a
distance from any on horseback to a solitary house,
habitable dwelling, solitary house at a alone. Comfort is all
alone, and seeks a distance from any around, but an air of
night's repose. But habitable dwelling, mystery surrounds
though comfort is all alone, and seeks a the master's wife and
around, he finds an night's repose. But a peculiar
air of mystery he finds an air of harsh-voiced female
surrounds the mystery surrounds the servant (Method I.,
inhospitable hostess inhospitable host interchange of the
and her deep-voiced, (Charlotte Brontë's sexes).
Yorkshire Method I.,
dialect-speaking, interchange of the
country-bred sexes) and his
man-servant. harsh-voiced,
Yorkshire
dialect-speaking,
country-bred
man-servant.
Montagu is shown to Lockwood is shown to Jane, in bed one
bed up a step-ladder bed, and sleeps only night, sleeps only
that leads through a fitfully, dreaming. fitfully, dreaming.
trap, and sleeps only He hears noises and She hears noises and
fitfully, dreaming. perceives a gleam of perceives a gleam of
He hears noises and light. He starts to light. She starts to
perceives a gleam of find the white-faced find the apparition
light He starts to apparition of his of her master's wife
find the white-faced host standing at his standing at her
apparition of his bedside, lighted bedside, lighted
hostess standing at candle in hand, his candle in hand, her
his bedside, lighted features convulsed features convulsed
candle in hand, her with diabolical rage. with diabolical rage.
features convulsed The harsh-voiced, The harsh-voiced,
with diabolical rage. Yorkshire peculiar female
The deep-voiced, dialect-speaking servant Jane first
Yorkshire man-servant, a sour encountered after
dialect-speaking old man (Charlotte having gone to the
peculiar man-servant Brontë's Method II., attics and through a
he sees by looking the altering of the trap-door to the
down the step-ladder age of a character roof.
through the trap. portrayed), comes
down a step-ladder
that vanished through
a trap.
In the literal extracts I now give the reader will perceive that in the
description of the bedside, candle-bearing apparition in _Jane Eyre_,
Charlotte Brontë followed Montagu almost word for word, and in the whole
staging of the midnight episode at the house of the inhospitable host in
_Wuthering Heights_ followed him entirely in outlining the story. Both
the _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ versions give unequivocal
evidence of being refractions from Montagu conveyed through one brain
alone, the peculiar idiosyncrasy and elective sensitiveness of which are
undeniably recognizable as Charlotte Brontë's:--
MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
A Night's Repose. A Night's Repose. A Night's Repose.
My servant having Heathcliffe, when he Jane is shown the
lamed his steed ... saw my horse's breast bedrooms of the
I arrived alone at a fairly pushing the secluded Thornfield
small hostelry in a barrier, did put out Hall:--
secluded part of his hand to unchain
the country, and it ... calling as we "Do the servants
apparently at some entered the court, sleep in these
distance from any "Joseph, take Mr. rooms?"
habitable dwelling. Lockwood's horse; and
Having determined to bring some wine." "No ... no one sleeps
rest for the night, here. One would ...
I discovered in the Joseph was an say that if there
woman who seemed to elderly, nay an old were a ghost at
be the hostess an man, very old Thornfield Hall this
anxiety to get rid perhaps, though hale would be its haunt."
of me; but with the and sinewy. "The Lord
usual obstinacy of help us!" he ... I followed ... to
curiosity caused soliloquised in an the attics, and
by this apparent undertone of peevish thence by a trap-door
anxiety, I determined displeasure, while to the roof of the
not to be thwarted; relieving me of my hall ... a laugh
so, putting up my horse, looking ... in struck my ear ...
horse, I entered the my face so sourly "Who is it?"
house, and sat down that I charitably
to a humble but conjectured he must ... the laugh was as
substantial meal, have need of Divine preternatural ... as
prepared during aid to digest his any I ever heard....
my absence in the dinner, and his pious
stable; and though ejaculation had no The ... door opened,
comfort had sway with reference to my and a servant came
all around me, yet unexpected advent. out--a woman of
there was an evident between thirty and
air of profound "Guests are so forty; a set,
mystery between my exceedingly rare in square-made figure
hostess and her this house that I and ... and with a hard,
boy-of-all-work, a my dogs hardly know plain face....
thick-set son of the how to receive them,"
north, with a deep says Heathcliffe. One day Jane, out for
voice and a sturdy a walk, sees a
manner; whilst I, Resuming his horseman approaching
with all the narrative in Chapter who, in sympathy with
malignant pleasure of II., Lockwood tells Montagu's story of
counteracting any us he goes again to laming a horse, has
mystery, secretly Wuthering Heights and an accident.
enjoyed the hope of gains admittance with
discovering the difficulty, after "Did the horse fall
reason of wishing my muttering, "Wretched in Hay Lane?" Jane
absence.... I was not inmates, you deserve asks later of a
at all disconcerted, perpetual isolation servant.
but philosophically ... for your churlish
finished my meal ... inhospitality. I "Yes, it slipped."
and at an early hour don't care, I will
requested to be shown get in." Thus Jane learns the
where I was to rest horseman is the
for the night. "As to staying here," master of Thornfield
Refusing to listen cries Heathcliffe, "I Hall. She discovers
to any excuse, I was don't keep an air of mystery
shown up a ladder accommodations for surrounds the master
into a small room.... visitors: you must of the house; and a
I thanked my guide, share a bed with thick-set woman
and ... laid down Joseph [the servant is involved.
with the expectation country-bred servant]
of sleeping hard, an if you do."
expectation which was Chapter XV.
not realized, for
thoughts obtruded Chapter III. Though I had now
themselves upon me, extinguished my
wholly preventing Lockwood at last is candle and was laid
repose. Midnight had guided to bed by a down in bed, I could
scarcely fallen when servant. While not sleep for
I heard voices in the leading the way, she thinking of the
room below, and by a recommended ... "I [mystery that seemed
light which grew should hide the to surround Mr.
stronger every moment candle, ... for her Rochester].... I
I felt some person master had an odd hardly knew whether I
was about to ascend notion about the had slept or not
the ladder. chamber ... and never after this musing; at
let anybody lodge any rate I started
Before Charlotte there willingly."... wide awake on hearing
Brontë proceeds I sank back in bed a vague murmur.... I
with the dramatic and fell asleep.... wished I had kept my
experiences of this Alas! what could it candle burning; the
terrible night she be that made me pass night was drearily
provides entirely such a terrible dark.... I rose and
original matter night? I don't sat up in bed
independent of remember another that listening;... I was
Montagu, as a I can compare with it chilled with fear....
preface. I will give since I was capable I began to feel the
Montagu his space, of suffering. return of slumber.
however, for we But it was not fated
have here a duet in ... I began to ... I should sleep
unison, so to speak, dream.... I had set that night. A dream
between _Wuthering out on my way home, had scarcely
Heights_ and _Jane with Joseph for a approached my ear
Eyre_. The trio will guide. The snow lay when it fled
be resumed in perfect yards deep in our affrighted.... There
sequence after road. We came to a was a demonia laugh
Montagu has rested a chapel.... Presently ... at my chamber
few bars in the the whole chapel door.... I thought
introduction. My resounded with the goblin laughter
reader will note with rappings and stood at my
sensational interest, counter-rappings; ... bedside.... Something
I am sure, that in at last, to my ... moaned. "Was that
both of Charlotte unspeakable relief, Grace Poole?" [the
Brontë's they awoke me.... thick-set servant]
introductions to the What ... had thought I.... There
appearance of the suggested the tumult? was a candle burning
candle-bearing, ... the branch of a outside.
frenzied, bedside fir-tree that touched
apparition, the my lattice as the
separate narrators blast wailed by.... Chapter XXV.
tell us that a gale
is blowing; that I dreamt again, if ... After I went to
they dreamed most possible still more bed I could not
disagreeably twice. disagreeably than sleep--a sense of
The first dream being before.... I heard anxious excitement
in each instance that the gusty wind, ... I depressed me. The
of journeying upon an thought I rose ... to gale still rising
unknown road, and the unhasp the casement. seemed to my ear to
second dream that of "I must stop [the fir muffle a ... doleful
an unknown ice-cold bough's teasing undersound.... During
little child (always sound]," I muttered, my first sleep I was
referred to in the knocking my hand following the
neuter "it"), which through the glass and windings of an
"wailed piteously" stretching an arm out unknown road; ...
and "clung" to the to seize the ... rain pelted me; I was
narrators in branch; instead of burdened with the
"terror," intense which my fingers charge of a little
horror being closed on the fingers child--a very small
accentuated by their of an ice-cold hand! creature, ... which
being unable to rid The intense horror of shivered in my cold
themselves of the nightmare came over arms and wailed
clinging, shivering me: I tried to draw piteously in my ear.
small "creature," as back my arm, but the
Charlotte Brontë hand clung to it, and I dreamt another
calls "it." The a most melancholy dream.... I still
"doleful" moaning and voice sobbed.... I carried the unknown
the "blast" play discerned ... a little child: I might
their part in each child's face looking not lay it down
version, and in both through the window. anywhere, however
a "branch" is duly Terror made me cruel, tired were my
grasped or seized by and finding it arms--however its
the dreamer. For the useless to attempt weight impeded my
origin of this shaking the creature progress, I must
wailing little off, I pulled its retain it.... I
creature see my wrist on to the climbed the thin
chapter, "Charlotte broken pane, ... wall [of the house]
Brontë's Child rubbing it to and fro with frantic,
Apparition." till the blood ran perilous haste, ...
down; ... still it the stones rolled
Further, the reader wailed ... and from under my feet,
will observe that in maintained its the ivy branches I
both _Wuthering tenacious gripe, grasped gave way, the
Heights_ and _Jane almost maddening me child clung round my
Eyre_ Montagu's with fear. neck in terror, and
bedside, almost strangled
candle-bearing I said, "Let me go!" me.... The blast blew
apparition is not a The fingers relaxed, so strong.... I sat
dream, but a I snatched mine ... down on the narrow
candlelit reality, and stopped my ledge; I hushed the
immediately sequent ears.... Yet the scared infant, ...
to the dream of the instant I listened the wall crumbled; I
tenacious child again, there was the was shaken; the child
phantom. doleful cry, rolled from my knee;
moaning;... I tried I lost my balance,
I will here resume to jump up, but could fell, and awoke.
Montagu's narrative: not stir a limb....
... By a light which
grew stronger every Hasty footsteps "Now, Jane, that is
moment, I felt some approached my chamber all," put in
person was about to door, ... a light Rochester. To which
ascend the ladder. At glimmered ... at the Jane Eyre replies,
this moment every top of the bed. I sat "All the preface; the
murder ... I had shuddering yet, and tale is yet to come."
heard of crowded upon wiping the On waking a gleam
my brain, and I perspiration from my dazzled my eyes; ...
instantly determined forehead. The it was candle
to make the best intruder appeared to light.... A form
fight I could, ... hesitate.... emerged from the
and with my partially closet; it took the
closed eyes turned ... Heathcliffe stood light and held it
towards the near the entrance, in aloft.... I had risen
trap-door. I had only his shirt and up in bed, I bent
just time to make my trousers, with a forward, ... then my
arrangements when, candle dripping over blood crept cold
clad in a white gown, his fingers and his through my veins....
fastened close up to face white.... The It was not even that
her neck, with her first creak of the strange woman Grace
black hair, matted by oak startled him, ... Poole [the thick-set
carelessness, hanging the light leaped from servant].... It
over her collar, and his hold.... seemed ... a woman
as pale as death, ... with thick and
ascended my hostess. "It is only your dark hair hanging
Never shall I forget guest, sir," I called long down her back. I
her dreadfully out. "I had the know not what dress
hideous expression. nightmare." she had on: it was
She came up to the white and straight;
bedside and looked at "Mr. Lockwood ... who but whether gown,
me for a full minute, showed you up to this sheet or shroud I
and after passing the room?" grinding his cannot tell. The
candle carefully teeth to control the features were fearful
before my eyes, left maxillary and ghastly to me;
me, and carefully convulsions. ... it was a savage
descended the ladder. face. I wish I could
"It was your servant, forget ... the
Montagu arises, and, Zillah," I replied, lineaments.... Just
looking down the flinging myself on to at my bedside the
ladder, finds the the floor, and ... figure stopped: the
thick-set servant is resuming my fiery eye glared upon
also astir with the garments.... "The me--she thrust up her
mysterious, hideous place ... is swarming candle close to my
visitant. Then with ghosts and face, and
Montagu hears his goblins." extinguished it under
trap-door replaced; my eyes.
and he wakes to learn "What do you mean?"
he has had the asked Heathcliffe.... "Now," says
nightmare. "Lie down and finish Rochester. "I'll
out the night since explain to you all
you _are_ here...." about it. It was half
dream, half reality:
I descended; ... a woman did, I doubt
nothing was stirring not, enter your room;
... and then Joseph and that woman
[shuffled] down a was--must have
wooden ladder that been--Grace Poole
vanished through a [the thick-set
trap--the ascent to servant]. You call
his garret, I her a strange being
suppose. yourself."
Truly Montagu's description of the coarse-voiced, thick-set,
country-bred servant, and his implication with the mystery of the lonely
house had impressed Charlotte Brontë considerably. Whether she portrayed
him as the Joseph of _Wuthering Heights_ or, by her Method I., as the
Grace Poole of _Jane Eyre_, Charlotte Brontë respects the original
associations of this character as they were figured to her by Frederic
Montagu's little fiction of "A Night's Repose." Herewith have we
evidence as to mental idiosyncrasy and elective-sensitiveness
recognizable as Charlotte Brontë's--proof that her brain and none other
was responsible for both the _Wuthering Heights_ and the _Jane Eyre_
versions of the midnight incident from Montagu.
CHAPTER III.
ORIGIN OF THE FOUNDLING HEATHCLIFFE AND HIS NAME IN "WUTHERING
HEIGHTS"--ORIGIN OF THE INSANE LADY AND THE WHITE VEIL SCENE IN
"JANE EYRE."
We have now seen that Montagu's book provided Charlotte Brontë with the
idea for a lonely house of mystery--a mystery which should surround a
host with a peculiar, harsh-voiced, uncouth, north-country servant, and
I have shown how that idea was adopted by her for _Wuthering Heights_
and afterwards for _Jane Eyre_. At one time Charlotte Brontë wrote the
_Tale of a Foundling_, and she certainly read with interest a remarkable
story told by Montagu of a foundling who, he tells us in the letter next
before the Malham letter, was discovered by a shepherd on the top of a
craggy "mountain," a circumstance which perhaps led her in making use of
this foundling story to name the child Heathcliffe. I will place the
substance of the two stories side by side:--
MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._
On the top of a craggy height In a wild, hilly country, a male
a male infant "was found by a infant was brought home by a
shepherd, who took it to his farmer who had found it
home, and after feeding and homeless. He brought up the
clothing it he had the child child, and the rest of its
named Simon; being himself but career is the obvious "cuckoo
a poor man he was unable to story": the child ousts the poor
maintain the foundling," when farmer's family. It was called
was agreed to by his friends Heathcliffe.
that the child should be kept
"ameng 'em." The child was
called Simon Amenghem.
The cuckoo story derived obviously from the history Montagu gives of the
foundling became thus the backbone of _Wuthering Heights_; but it is
possible that the cuckoo story requiring the foundling should be painted
with all the viciousness and cruelty of character necessary to his part,
Charlotte Brontë found herself dissatisfied with the story. And
portraying herself in the narrative as Catherine Earnshaw, her hero
became M. Héger. This naturally led to an awkward clashing. Whether the
extreme "demonism" of Heathcliffe must be understood as being in the
main due to his rôle as the "cuckoo," who was to oust the poor farmer's
offspring "like unfledged dunnocks," to quote Mrs. Dean, I will not in
this chapter inquire.
Turning again to Montagu's book, Charlotte saw a further suggestion that
contained excellent "plot" possibilities. This was the question of
lunacy being an exception to the objection against the separation of
husband and wife, Montagu's relation being Barry Cornwall (to whom, by
the way, Thackeray dedicated _Vanity Fair_), who was a Metropolitan
Commissioner in Lunacy. To Charlotte Brontë, however, the subject came
simply as a useful suggestion. She had no views upon it, and she desired
only that her heroine would marry Rochester, the hero with an insane
wife. At heart Charlotte was indifferent as to the vital point, even
nullifying the very theme of the plot by making Rochester aver that if
Jane Eyre had been the mad wife, he would still have loved and cherished
her.
It would appear that in conjunction with Montagu's remarks on lunacy and
the separation of husband and wife, an extract he gives from Shelley is
also responsible for a wife's lunacy being the theme of the plot of
_Jane Eyre_. The extract which Montagu quotes in the Malham letter is
where the poet speaks of "The Waning Moon" as like--
"A ... lady lean and pale
Who totters forth wrapt in a gauzy veil
Out of her chamber led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain."
Thus was evidently suggested to Charlotte Brontë the hanging up in the
closet of the "vapoury veil" for the stage purposes of the "insane
lady"; and in _Jane Eyre_ Montagu's night-wandering, candle-bearing
hostess became a lady who passed, after the manner of the lines he
quoted,--
Out of her chamber led by the insane
And feeble wanderings of her fading brain--
became Mrs. Rochester. Norton Conyers, a house near Ripon, it is said,
is associated with the story that a mad woman was once confined
there.[17] If Charlotte Brontë was familiar with this story, and we are
told the interior is somewhat similar to the descriptions of Thornfield,
we can understand that, perusing Montagu's book at the time when she was
utilizing his narrative of the candle-bearing, hideous-faced, white-clad
midnight visitant in a house of mystery, she would the more readily
appropriate the further suggestions his work contained in regard to a
wife's insanity, and the "veil-clad" apparition of a night-roaming
insane lady. It is important to note, however, that the evidence of my
preceding chapter proves indubitably the "mad woman" was but a secondary
suggestion--the primary suggestion responsible for the plot of _Jane
Eyre_ being that of Montagu's midnight apparition. And just as the
thick-set country-bred servant denotes in the question as to the origin
and author of the candle-bearing bedside visitant in _Wuthering Heights_
and _Jane Eyre_, the "gauzy veil" likewise denotes as to the origin of
the mad woman of _Jane Eyre_. So we read in the beginning of Chapter
XXV. of _Jane Eyre_, that Jane leaves the vapoury veil in the closet:--
To conceal the strange, wraith-like apparel it contained; which,
at this evening hour ... gave out certainly a most ghostly shimmer
through the shadow of my apartment. "I will leave you by yourself,
white dream," I said.
Then farther on we read that:--
The moon shut herself wholly within her chamber, and drew close
her curtain of cloud,
which is simply an antithetical paraphrase of Montagu's quoted verse on
"The Waning Moon" which, like
A ... lady ... pale ... totters forth wrapt in a gauzy veil, out
of her chamber.
And in the same chapter of _Jane Eyre_ we read finally that the insane
lady, who has come out of her chamber,
"... took my veil from its place; she held it up, gazed at it
long, and then she threw it over her head, and turned to the
mirror ... it removed my veil from its gaunt head, rent it in two
parts, and flinging both on the floor, trampled on them."
CHAPTER IV.
A RAINY DAY IN CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S CHILDHOOD: THE OPENING INCIDENT IN THE
AUTOBIOGRAPHIES OF THE HEROINES OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND "JANE EYRE."
Seeing Catherine Earnshaw, the heroine of _Wuthering Heights_, was
drawn, as I find, by Charlotte Brontë for her autobiographical self, the
real commencement of that work, in so far as personal narrative was
concerned, is the diary extract she wrote of herself in her earliest
childhood.[18] In _Jane Eyre_ she placed her earliest childhood memories
at the beginning of the story. I will give extracts side by side, when
it will be seen they agree practically word for word. It is of course
undeniable that none but Charlotte Brontë herself would or could have
penned these incidents of her own childhood.
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Chapter III. Chapter I.
A rainy day in the early A rainy day in the early
childhood of Catherine childhood of Jane Eyre,
Earnshaw, as told by herself. as told by herself.
-------- --------
... All day had been flooding There was no possibility of
with rain; we could not go to taking a walk that day, ...
church. the cold winter wind had
brought with it a rain so
penetrating that further
outdoor exercise was out of
the question.
Hindley [Branwell Brontë] and Eliza, John [Branwell Brontë],
his wife [? Sister Maria] basked and Georgiana were now clustered
downstairs before a comfortable round their mamma [Aunt
fire. Branwell] in the drawing-room
... by the fireside ... looking
perfectly happy.
Heathcliffe [Method I., Me she had dispensed from
interchange of the sexes. In joining the group.... A small
the childhood of Heathcliffe breakfast-room adjoined the
Charlotte often portrays drawing-room; I slipped in
herself], myself, and the ... there, ... I possessed myself of
ploughboy were commanded to take a volume, ... I mounted into the
our prayer-books and mount ... window-seat, ... and having
on a sack ... [in the garret. drawn the ... curtain nearly
They go downstairs again]. close, I was shrined in ...
retirement.... With ... [a book]
"You forget you have a master in on my knee I was ... happy; ...
me," says the tyrant [Hindley: but interruption ... came too
Branwell Brontë]. soon. The ... door opened:
"Boh!" cried the voice of John
... We made ourselves ... snug Reed [Branwell Brontë].
... in the arch of the dresser.
I had just fastened our "It is well I drew the curtain,"
pinafores together and hung them thought I, ... but Eliza ...
up for a curtain, when in comes said: "She is in the
Joseph.[19]... He tears down my window-seat, ... Jack
handiwork [the curtain], boxes [Branwell]."
my ears, and ... thrust [a book]
upon us.... I took my ... volume
... and hurled it into the
dog-kennel, vowing I hated a
good book.
Hindley [Branwell Brontë] I came out immediately, for I
hurried up from his paradise on trembled at the idea of being
the hearth, and seizing ... us dragged forth by the said Jack
... hurled both into the [Branwell Brontë].
back-kitchen.
"What were you doing behind the
curtain?" he asked. "I'll teach
you to rummage my bookshelves,
for they _are_ mine; all the
house belongs to me, or soon
will do.... Go ... by the door."
I did so, ... but ... I saw him
lift the book and stand in the
act to hurl it.... The volume
was flung.... He ran ... at
me.... I saw in him a tyrant....
Then Mrs. Reed [Aunt Branwell]
subjoined: "Take her to the
red-room."...
... How little did I dream that ... All John Reed's [Branwell
Hindley [Branwell Brontë] would Brontë's] violent tyrannies ...
ever make me cry so.... My head turned in my disturbed mind....
aches, till I cannot keep it on My head still ached ... no one
the pillow; and still I can't reproved John [Branwell].... How
give over. all my brain was in tumult.... I
could not answer the question
_why_ I thus suffered; now at
the distance of--I will not say
how many years--I see it clearly.
Thus we see the "volume-hurling" incident with which John Reed is
associated had its origin in some incident connected with Charlotte
Brontë's childhood and her brother Branwell. As Catherine, Charlotte
Brontë calls Hindley "a tyrant" in this connection, and as Jane Eyre she
calls John Reed "a tyrant" here. Branwell, as John Reed, is made to tell
Jane in connection with this incident that "all this house belongs to
me, or will do"; and as Hindley Earnshaw he tells his sister Catherine,
"You forget you have a master here." By Charlotte Brontë's Method II.,
altering the age of a character portrayed, Branwell is represented in
the _Wuthering Heights_ scene as a man in years. Without further appeal
it was likely enough that Hindley Earnshaw, Catherine's brother, was
drawn for Charlotte Brontë's brother, seeing Catherine was Charlotte.
Herewith we find an explanation for a fact Mr. Francis A. Leyland has
strongly emphasized in his work _The Brontë Family_, that in _Wuthering
Heights_ incidents (the carving-knife incident, etc.) and epithets known
by his intimates to have been common to Branwell Brontë are associated
with Hindley Earnshaw in the days of his moral deterioration. That
deterioration is reflected in the portrayal of the latter end of John
Reed in _Jane Eyre_; in _Wuthering Heights_ it is given in detail. As
for Emily Brontë, she always liked and commiserated with Branwell
Brontë.[20]
I hope the attempt to interfere with this tradition recently has no
relation to the fact that I briefly stated in my _Fortnightly Review_
article that John Reed and Hindley Earnshaw were one and the same. It is
plain to see that if Emily really liked Branwell, as people stated who
gleaned from hearsay, she could not have portrayed him as Hindley
Earnshaw. But a wrong estimate of the nature of the evidence I promised
to bring has been formed if it were thought I should base my book upon
such a point. It is enough that Charlotte Brontë's private letters
regarding Branwell are quite in agreement with her own harsh portrayals
of him in her _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_.
It is interesting to recall Branwell avowed he, and not Emily, wrote
_Wuthering Heights_. This fact and the association of Branwell Brontë
incidents and epithets with the book induced Mr. Leyland to advocate
Branwell's authorship. _The Key to the Brontë Works_ shows the
absurdness of such a claim. Mr. Leyland suggested Branwell may have
collaborated with Emily; and he professed to discover a break in the
style. I find, however, that though there were violent psychical
fluctuations in the mood of the writer of _Wuthering Heights_, the book
is throughout the work of Charlotte Brontë. This may be proved alone by
the Chapter III., with which I now deal: it is the "key" chapter, and
is, so to speak, a microcosm of _Wuthering Heights_, as the reader will
perceive by help of my index. Whosoever was the writer of this third
chapter wrote the whole of _Wuthering Heights_, and we see it was Currer
Bell.
By Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the sexes, the
interloper Jane in the early chapters of _Jane Eyre_ and the interloper
Heathcliffe in the early chapters of _Wuthering Heights_ become one and
the same; and Hindley's tyrannizing over Heathcliffe is John Reed's
(Branwell Brontë's) tyrannizing over Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë).
Again, by Method I., interchange of the sexes, old Joseph, in
Charlotte's _Wuthering Heights_ version of the rainy day incident in her
childhood, serves the part of the servant Tabitha Aykroyd, for whom
Bessie in the _Jane Eyre_ version of the rainy day incident was drawn.
(See "Joseph" and his bit of garden, _Wuthering Heights_, Chapter
XXXIII.; also my footnote on page 47.) Thus Charlotte Brontë as
Catherine tells us that when she was banished from the comfortable fire
"Joseph" sermonizes, and that she hoped he might give "a short homily
for his own sake"; and in the scene in _Jane Eyre_ drawn from the same
incident Jane was left to Bessie, who "supplied the hiatus by a homily
of an hour's length, in which she proved beyond a doubt that I was the
most wicked and abandoned child ever reared under a roof."
Catherine's story of the rainy day in _Wuthering Heights_ was written by
her in childhood on "a 'red-hot' Methodist's tract." Hence it is
interesting to read Charlotte Brontë's words in _Villette_, where as
Lucy Snowe she says she had "once read when a child certain Wesleyan
Methodist tracts seasoned with ... excitation to fanaticism." As
Caroline Helstone[21] in _Shirley_, Charlotte tells us she had read
"some mad Methodist magazines, full of miracles and apparitions, of
preternatural warnings, ominous dreams, and frenzied fanaticism; ...
from these faded flowers Caroline had in her childhood extracted the
honey--they were tasteless to her now." Let the reader compare Charlotte
Brontë's reference to Briar Chapel and the shouts, yells, ejaculations,
frantic cries of "the assembly" in Chapter IX. of _Shirley_ with the
references in Chapter III. of _Wuthering Heights_ to the frantic zeal of
"the assembly" of the chapel of Gimmerden Sough. It will be at once
recognized that the former is but the extension of the other, amplified
by the same hand.
Thus, in the light of the name Branderham ("Brander'em," from "brander,"
a hot iron over a fire) for the name of the zealous Rev. Jabes
Branderham,[22] of the chapel of Gimmerden Sough, of _Wuthering
Heights_, we see a connection with the play Charlotte Brontë makes upon
"burning and fire" in the hymn sung at Briar Chapel in Chapter IX. of
_Shirley_:--
"For every fight
Is dreadful and loud--
The warrior's delight
Is slaughter and blood;
His foes overturning
Till all shall expire--
And this is with burning
And fuel and fire."
In the rainy day incident Charlotte Brontë as Catherine vowed "she hated
a good book," and this rebellion against the thrusting upon her of
religious "lumber," as she calls it in _Wuthering Heights_, was a
characteristic of her childhood shown also in the "Jane Eyre and Mr.
Brocklehurst" incident, where the latter asks--
"And the Psalms? I hope you like them?"
"No, sir," replied Jane.
"No? Oh, shocking!"
At heart, however, Charlotte Brontë was a true Christian, though
disliking excessive zealousness in the demonstrations of the members of
any church. Read what M. Emanuel says in Chap. XXXVI. of _Villette_; the
last paragraph. Lockwood tells us in the incident connected with
Catherine's diary that "a glare of white letters started from the dark
as vivid as spectres--the air swarmed with Catherines." This, Charlotte
Brontë's idea of spectral writing running in the air, occurs in Chap.
XV. of _Jane Eyre_, where Rochester speaks of a phantom hag (see
Charlotte Brontë's phantom hag in Chap. XII. of _Wuthering Heights_),
who "wrote in the air a memento which ran in lurid hieroglyphics all
along the house-front." Says Lockwood in _Wuthering Heights_,
continuing:--"An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown
Catherine, and I began ... to decipher her hieroglyphics"--the diary.
CHAPTER V.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S FRIEND, TABITHA AYKROYD, THE BRONTËS' SERVANT,
AS MRS. DEAN OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS," AND AS BESSIE AND HANNAH OF
"JANE EYRE."
It is a remarkable fact that of all the members of Charlotte Brontë's
home circle the one to whom, excepting herself, she gave most prominence
in her works was Tabitha Aykroyd, the Brontës' servant or housekeeper.
For I find this good woman was portrayed by Charlotte Brontë as Mrs.
Dean of _Wuthering Heights_, Bessie and Hannah of _Jane Eyre_, and, on
occasion, as Mrs. Pryor of _Shirley_. Indeed, strange though it may
sound to say, my discovery that Tabitha Aykroyd, as she appealed to
Currer Bell, was the original of these characters, alone explains the
chief mystery of _Wuthering Heights_, and shows clearly enough Charlotte
Brontë was its heroine and its author. In a word, we see by this
discovery that _Wuthering Heights_ is book the first of Charlotte
Brontë's life as told by herself from old Tabitha's standpoint, and
_Jane Eyre_ book the second, giving her life's story and confession as
related by herself entirely from her own point of view.
Never in _Wuthering Heights_ did Nelly Dean really understand Catherine,
and "the honest but inflexible servant," as Currer Bell calls Tabitha as
Hannah of _Jane Eyre_, never yielded herself to a surrender of her
rough-hearted but genuine nature wherein Charlotte was concerned.
"Tabby," said Mrs. Gaskell, "had a Yorkshire keenness of perception into
character, and it was not everybody she liked." That Tabitha Aykroyd
would readily appeal to Charlotte Brontë as fitted for the narrator of
the histories in _Wuthering Heights_ we may easily perceive by reading
Mrs. Gaskell's further words on this Brontë servant:--
"When Charlotte was little more than nine years old ... an elderly woman
of the village came to live as servant at the parsonage. She remained
there, as a member of the household, thirty years [Hannah was thirty
years with the Rivers family in _Jane Eyre_--an approximate date, of
course, when that work was written] and from the length of her faithful
service, and the attachment and respect she inspired is deserving of
mention. Tabby was a thorough specimen of a Yorkshire woman of her
class, in dialect, in character. She abounded in strong, practical sense
and shrewdness. Her words were far from flattering, but she would spare
no deeds in the cause of those whom she kindly regarded. She ruled the
children pretty sharply; and yet never grudged a little extra trouble to
provide them with such small treats as came within her power. In return
she claimed to be looked upon as a humble friend.... Tabby had lived in
Haworth in the days when the pack-horses went through once a week....
What is more, she had known the 'bottom' or valley in those primitive
days when the fairies frequented the margin of the 'beck' on moonlight
nights, and had known folk who had seen them. [See references to
'Bessie's' fairy tales in _Jane Eyre_, Chaps. I., II., and IV.].... No
doubt she had many a tale to tell of bygone days of the countryside: old
ways of living, former inhabitants, decayed gentry, who had melted away,
and whose places knew them no more; family tragedies and dark
superstitious dooms; and in telling these things, without the least
consciousness that there might ever be anything requiring to be softened
down, would give at full length the bare and simple details."
Says Mrs. Dean, the Yorkshire servant who narrates the family tragedies
of _Wuthering Heights_ just after the manner of Tabitha Aykroyd:--
"But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you, ... I
could have told Heathcliffe's history, all that you need hear, in
half-a-dozen words."
"Sit still, Mrs. Dean," cried Lockwood, "... you've done just
right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like....
Excepting a few provincialisms, ... you have no marks of the
manners ... peculiar to your class; ... you have been compelled to
cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for
frittering your life away in silly trifles."
Mrs. Dean laughed. "I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable
kind of body," she said; "not exactly from living among the hills
and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from
year's end to year's end; but I have undergone sharp discipline
which has taught me wisdom."
"Jane" says of Mrs. Dean as "Bessie" of _Jane Eyre_, Chap. IV., Method
II., altering the age of characters portrayed:--
When gentle, Bessie seemed to me the ... kindest being in the
world;... I wished ... intensely ... she would always be so
pleasant and amiable, and never push about or scold, or task me
unreasonably, as she was ... wont to do. Bessie Lee[23] must, I
think, have been a girl of good natural capacity, for she was
smart in all she did, and had a remarkable knack of narrative; so,
at least, I judge from the impression made upon me by her nursery
tales.... But she had a capricious and hasty temper and
indifferent ideas of principle or justice ["Hannah" would have
driven off the destitute Jane Eyre], still, such as she was, I
preferred her to any one else at Gateshead Hall.
"Mrs. Dean"[24] in her turn says of "Catherine"--Charlotte Brontë:--
"She was never so happy as when we were all scolding her at once
and she defying us.... I vexed her frequently by trying to bring
down her arrogance; she never took an aversion to me though."
In Chap. IV. of _Jane Eyre_ Bessie says to Jane Eyre, after the latter
has asked her not to scold:--
"Well, I will, but mind you are a very good girl, and don't be
afraid of me. Don't start when I chance to speak sharply."
"I don't think I shall ever be afraid of you again, Bessie,
because I have got used to you."
Jane suggests Bessie dislikes her, to which is replied:--
"I don't dislike you.... I believe I am fonder of you than of all
the others."
"You don't show it."
"You sharp little thing!... What makes you so venturesome and
hardy?"
The idiosyncratic appeal Tabitha Aykroyd made to Charlotte is related
identically wherever she is portrayed. That Charlotte Brontë had been
initially entranced by her fairy tales, and the old songs she sang, is
shown more especially in the phases she gives of Tabitha as Bessie and
as Ellen Dean. Thus we read in _Jane Eyre_, Chap. IV., in the close of
the scene just given:--
"That afternoon lapsed in peace and harmony; ... in the evening Bessie
told me some of her most enchaining stories, and sang me some of her
sweetest songs. Even for me life had its gleams of sunshine." And in
_Wuthering Heights_, Chap. XXII., Ellen Dean says of Miss Catherine
Linton (see my reference to this character as a phase of Charlotte
Brontë, in my preface):--"From dinner to tea she would lie doing nothing
except singing old songs--my nursery lore--to herself, ... half
thinking, half dreaming, happier than words can express." So in the same
work, Chap. XXIV., the same Catherine says:--"He was charmed with two or
three pretty songs [I sang]--_your_ songs, Ellen." The italics are
Charlotte Brontë's.
_Jane Eyre_, Chap. III., says:--
Bessie had now finished ... tidying the room ... she sang:--
"In the days we went agipsying
A long time ago."
I had often heard the song before, and always with lively delight;
for Bessie had a sweet voice--at least I thought so. But now,
though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an
indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she
sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly: "a long time ago,"
came like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into
another ballad.
Tabby Aykroyd going to the Parsonage when the motherless Charlotte
Brontë was but nine, Charlotte seems to have been drawn to look upon
her as a new-found friend, and afterwards she idealized those memories
associated with her. It is noticeable she had been impressed in
childhood by her singing and the sympathetic sweetness of her voice.
There is a world of meaning--a gracious waiving aside of qualifying fact
in the sentence, "Bessie had a sweet voice--at least I thought so."
Charlotte was fond of Scottish ballads, and in _Villette_, Chapter XXV.,
she identifies herself in her phase as Paulina (see my further reference
to this phase of Charlotte Brontë) with a a love for a Scottish song.
With Tabitha Aykroyd she loved to associate the singing of her favourite
ballads, as we have seen in her reference to the songs of Tabitha in her
phases as Bessie of _Jane Eyre_ and Mrs. Dean of _Wuthering Heights_.
And so it is we find Mrs. Dean telling us in Chapter IX. of _Wuthering
Heights_, 'I was rocking Hareton on my knee, and humming a song that
began:--
"It was far in the night and the bairnies grat,
The mither beneath the mools heard that."'
Whether traits of Nancy Garrs or her sister, or Martha Brown, the other
Brontë servants, contributed to Charlotte's portrayal is doubtful. I
think they did not. We see in this chapter the original of Bessie of
_Jane Eyre_ was certainly the original of Mrs. Dean of _Wuthering
Heights_--Tabitha Aykroyd; and as Charlotte Brontë portrayed Mrs. Dean
as an elderly woman servant, before she began _Jane Eyre_, we must
decide the question of the real age of the original of Bessie by that
fact. Confirming is the portrayal of the same character by Charlotte as
the elderly Hannah in _Jane Eyre_. See my chapter on "The Rivers or
Brontë Family."[25]
Of "Dean" or Tabitha Aykroyd in the rôle of Hannah of the family "Jane"
says:--"I had a feeling that she did not understand me, ... that she was
prejudiced against me." Nevertheless she says to her: "You ... have been
an honest and faithful servant, I will say so much for you."
Much stress is placed by Tabitha Aykroyd, as Nelly Dean, and Bessie, on
Charlotte Brontë's passionateness. Says Mrs. Dean of Catherine in
_Wuthering Heights_:
"The doctor had said that she would not bear crossing much, she
ought to have her own way; and it was nothing less than murder in
his eyes, for any one to presume to stand up and contradict her,
... serious threats of a fit ... often attended her rages."
Thus I find there is a connection between Catherine's "fit of frenzy"
and delirium in _Wuthering Heights_, Chapters XI. and XII., and the
scenes attendant upon Jane's fit of frenzy in _Jane Eyre_, Chapters I.,
II., III. The one is told by Charlotte as from Tabitha Aykroyd's
(Bessie's) standpoint, the other from Catherine's (Charlotte Brontë's),
an inversion of attitude which proves Charlotte Brontë to be the author
and heroine of _Wuthering Heights_.
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Charlotte Brontë in the locked Charlotte Brontë in the locked
chamber, and Tabitha Aykroyd, chamber, and Tabitha Aykroyd,
the Brontë servant, told by the Brontë servant, told by
Tabitha, as it were. Charlotte.
-------- --------
She [Catherine--Charlotte I [Jane--Charlotte Brontë] sat
Brontë] rang the bell till it looking at the white bed, ...
broke.... I [Tabitha--Nelly occasionally turning a
Dean] entered leisurely. It was fascinated eye towards the ...
enough to try the temper of a mirror ... I hushed my sobs,
saint, such senseless, wicked fearful lest ... signs of grief
rages! There she lay dashing her might waken a preternatural
head against the ... sofa and voice ... or elicit from the
grinding her teeth.... I brought gloom some haloed face.... This
a glass of water; and as she ... I felt would be terrible....
would not drink, I sprinkled it At this moment a light gleamed
on her face. In a few seconds on the wall; ... shaken as my
she stretched herself out stiff, nerves were by agitation, I
and ... assumed the aspect of thought the swift-darting beam
death. was a herald of some coming
vision from another world. My
Linton [? Mr. Brontë] looked heart beat thick, my head grew
terrified. "There is nothing the hot; a sound filled my ears
matter," ... and I which I deemed the rushing of
[Tabitha--Mrs. Dean] told him wings: something seemed near me;
how she had resolved ... on I was oppressed, suffocated;
exhibiting a fit of frenzy. I endurance broke down; I rushed
incautiously gave the account to the door and shook the lock
aloud, ... she [Charlotte in desperate effort. Steps came
Brontë] started up ... and then running along the ... passage,
rushed from the room. The master ... Bessie and Abbot entered.
directed me to follow; I did to
her chamber door; she ... "Miss Eyre, are you ill?" said
secured it against me.... On the Bessie [Tabitha Aykroyd].
third day Catherine [Charlotte
Brontë] un-barred her door, ... "What a dreadful noise! It went
desired a basin of gruel, for through me!" exclaimed Abbot.
she believed she was dying.
"Take me out!" was my cry.
"These ... awful nights; I've
never closed my lids--and oh!... "... Are you hurt? Have you seen
I've been ... haunted, Nelly! something?" demanded Bessie
[Tabitha]. But I begin to fancy [Tabitha].
you don't like me.... They have
all turned to enemies; ... "Oh! I ... thought a ghost would
_they_ have, the people _here_." come."
Tossing about, she increased her "She has screamed on purpose,"
feverish bewilderment of declared Abbot [?].... "And what
madness.... "Don't you see that a scream! If she had been in
face?" she inquired, gazing pain one would have excused it,
nervously at the mirror.... "Oh! but she only wanted to bring us
Nelly [Tabitha], the room is all here: I know her naughty
haunted! I'm afraid of being tricks."
left alone...."
... Mrs. Reed [Aunt Branwell]
I [Nelly Dean--Tabitha] came.... "Silence!" she
attempted to steal to the door exclaimed; "this scene is
... but I was summoned back by a repulsive." I was a precocious
piercing scream. actor in her eyes. She sincerely
looked upon me [Charlotte] as a
... "As soon as ever I barred compound of virulent passions,
the door," proceeded Catherine mean spirit, and dangerous
[Charlotte Brontë], "utter duplicity.... I suppose I had a
darkness overwhelmed me, and I species of fit: unconsciousness
fell on the floor. I couldn't closed the scene.... The next
explain ... how certain I felt thing I remembered is waking ...
of having a fit, or going mad." with a feeling as if I had had a
frightful nightmare ...
"A sound sleep would do you agitation, uncertainty, and a
good," said Nelly Dean--Tabitha predominant sense of terror
Aykroyd. confused my faculties.... Bessie
[Tabby] stood at the bed-foot
with a basin in her hand.
"Do you feel as if you could
sleep, Miss?" asked Bessie
[Tabitha Aykroyd] rather softly.
For me [Charlotte] the watches
of that long night passed in
ghostly watchfulness; ear, eye,
and mind were alike strained by
dread, such dread as children
only can feel.
By her Method II.: altering the age of a character portrayed, Charlotte
Brontë gives us Tabitha Aykroyd as a young woman in Bessie; and by the
same Method II, in the scene just read from _Wuthering Heights_, we have
an instance of her presenting, as an incident in womanhood, an incident
which the testimony of _Jane Eyre_ and other evidences show occurred
really in Charlotte's own childhood. As she relates in _Jane Eyre_, her
dread was "such dread as children only can feel"; and she goes on to say
"this incident [of the locked room] gave my nerves a shock of which I
feel the reverberation to this day." Thus in both _Wuthering Heights_
and _Jane Eyre_ Charlotte paints an excellent picture of the
matter-of-fact but good-hearted Tabitha Aykroyd going to the room in
response to her, Charlotte Brontë's, frantic appeal, sceptical and
certainly unsympathetic.
The part played by the wild summoning of Tabitha to the room, the
references to "a fit," the ghost and haunted chamber, the dread of the
mirror, the suggestion that the frenzy of fear was wilfully assumed, the
piercing scream, Tabitha Aykroyd with her basin and her final suggestion
of sleep, are in themselves ample evidence that Charlotte Brontë in both
_Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ drew this scene from an experience
of the kind in her own childhood. In each work stress is laid by her
upon her own hypersensitiveness, and we learn how the Brontë household
misunderstood her excessive passionateness and misread it as wicked
acting[26].
We see Tabitha best in Mrs. Dean of _Wuthering Heights_, as Hannah of
the Rivers family of _Jane Eyre_, and by Currer Bell's Method II.,
alteration of age of the character portrayed, as Bessie of that work.
Tabitha Aykroyd lives and breathes her life through the pages of
Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ to-day, and ever
will she remain in literature, a real Yorkshire woman amazingly
translated from the wide Yorkshire hearth with its great, wind-whitened
fire and smell of hot cakes, to the pages of two of the finest examples
of the English novel. Her portrayal I declare to be one of the most
admirable achievements in the works of Charlotte Brontë.
CHAPTER VI.
CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S CHILD APPARITION IN "THE PROFESSOR," "WUTHERING
HEIGHTS," AND "JANE EYRE."
Mrs. Gaskell, the Brontë biographer, relates that a friend of Charlotte
Brontë said Charlotte had told her "a misfortune was often preceded by
the dream which she gives to Jane Eyre of carrying a wailing child. She,
Charlotte Brontë, described herself as having the most painful sense of
pity for the little thing.... The misfortunes she mentioned were not
always to herself. She thought such sensitiveness to omens was ...
present to susceptible people...." This in the main explains the origin
of the child-apparition as an omen of disaster in Charlotte Brontë's
works.
It would seem by Charlotte's statement in _Jane Eyre_ that Tabitha
Aykroyd, as "Bessie," was responsible for the origin of this little
superstition; and it is instructive to find the child-apparition as an
ill-omen in connection with Tabitha Aykroyd as Mrs. Dean in _Wuthering
Heights_. I have shown John Reed and Hindley Earnshaw represent Branwell
Brontë; we may notice, therefore, that the child-apparition is given
equally in _Wuthering Heights_ and in _Jane Eyre_ as coming before
disaster or disgrace to Branwell Brontë.
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Chapter XI. Chapter XXI.
Tabitha Aykroyd's child-apparition Tabitha Aykroyd's child-apparition
as a token of calamity to Branwell as a token of calamity to Branwell
Brontë. Brontë.
-------- --------
Says Mrs. Dean [Tabitha]: "I Presentiments are strange
came to a stone which serves as things! ... and so are signs....
a guide-post to ... the Heights Sympathies I believe exist (for
and the village.... Hindley instance, between far-distant
[Branwell Brontë] and I held it ... wholly estranged relatives).
a favourite spot twenty years When I was a ... girl I heard
before, ... and ... it appeared Bessie [Tabitha Aykroyd] say
that I beheld my ... playmate that to dream of children was a
seated on the ... turf, ... his sure sign of trouble.... During
little hand scooping out the the last week scarcely a night
earth."[27] had gone ... that had not
brought ... the dream of an
"Poor Hindley!" [Branwell infant which I ... watched
Brontë] I exclaimed playing with daisies on a lawn
involuntarily. I started--my or ... dabbling its hands in
bodily eye was cheated in the running water.[27] It was a
belief that the child lifted its wailing child this night, ... a
face and stared straight into laughing one the next, ... but
mine! It vanished in a whatever mood the apparition
twinkling; but immediately I evinced ... it failed not ... to
felt an irresistible yearning to meet me.... I grew nervous....
be at the Heights. Superstition It was from companionship with
urged me to comply with this this baby-phantom I had been
impulse--"Suppose he were dead! roused ... when I heard the cry:
... supposing it were a sign of and on the ... day following ...
death!" I found a man [Bessie's husband]
waiting for me; ... he was ...
in deep mourning, and the hat in
his hand was surrounded with a
crape band.
"I hope no one is dead," I said.
And the man replies that John
Reed [Branwell Brontë] had got
into great trouble and was dead.
Branwell Brontë was not dead when Charlotte Brontë wrote those two
versions, but it seems certain that an apparition of a child in some
period of Charlotte's life preceded a further debasement of Branwell,
the original of Hindley Earnshaw and John Reed. We may note Charlotte
Brontë's Method II., in regard to Hindley.
In Charlotte Brontë's _The Professor_ we find reference to her
child-phantom wailing outside, and to the eerie, premonitory signal made
against a lattice, as in her _Wuthering Heights_:--
_Wuthering Heights._ _The Professor._
Chapter III. Chapter XVI.
Scene: An isolated homestead on Scene: An isolated homestead on
a winter's night, snow-wind a winter's night, snow-wind
blowing, storm threatening. blowing, storm threatening.
-------- --------
While leading me upstairs she Take care, young man
[Zillah, the stout housewife] [recommended "the herdsman's
recommended that I should hide wife"], that you fasten the door
the candle and not make a noise, well, ... whatever sound you
... they had so many queer hear stir not and look not out.
goings-on. The night will soon fall, ...
strange noises are often heard
He sleeps and is awakened by-- ... you might chance to hear, as
it were, a child cry, and on
The branch of a fir that touched opening the door to give it
my lattice.... I listened succour ... a shadowy goblin dog
doubtingly, ... I heard the might rush over the threshold;
gusty wind and the driving of or more awful still, if
the snow;... I heard also the something flapped, as with
firbough repeat its teasing wings, against the lattice, and
sound.... I ... endeavoured to then a raven or a white dove
unhasp the casement, ... flew in and settled on the
knocking my knuckles through the hearth, such a visitor would be
glass, and stretching an arm out a sure sign of misfortune.
to seize the ... branch; instead
of which my fingers closed on The stranger, left alone,
the fingers of a little ice-cold listens awhile to the muffled
hand.[28]... I tried to draw snow-wind.
back my arm, but the hand clung
to it and a melancholy voice
sobbed--"Let me in--let me in!"
... As it spoke, I discerned
obscurely a child's face looking
through the window.... Still it
wailed "Let me in!" and it
maintained its tenacious gripe,
almost maddening me with fear.
"How can I?" I said.... "Let
_me_ go, if you want me to let
you in." I stopped my ears to
exclude the lamentable prayer,
... yet the instant I listened
again, there was the doleful cry
moaning on!
"Begone!" I shouted; "I'll never
let you in, not if you beg for
twenty years."
In _Wuthering Heights_ Charlotte Brontë has worked the child-phantom
into the story proper, setting it for the spirit of the departed
Catherine, who as a child again (Method II., altering age of the
character portrayed) seeks Heathcliffe. The building of the
child-phantom in the plot of _Wuthering Heights_ created a peculiar
state of affairs; but as we have seen by Charlotte Brontë's reference to
it in the extract from _The Professor_, she was impressed by its
possibilities of giving a weird spiritual atmosphere, and she did not
extend the idea in _The Professor_. The substance of Charlotte Brontë's
two versions of the child-phantom wailing outside a house for admittance
is identical:--
_The Professor._ _Wuthering Heights._
Scene: An isolated homestead on a Scene: An isolated homestead on a
winter's night, snow-wind blowing, winter's night, snow-wind blowing,
storm threatening. Young stranger storm threatening. Young stranger
admonished by the good housewife admonished by the good housewife
that there are queer goings-on that there are queer goings-on
thereabouts. thereabouts.
Subjunctive Mood. Indicative Mood.
Something might brush against Something brushes against the
the lattice, and a phantom-child lattice, and a phantom-child
might wail outside for succour. wails outside for succour.
On opening to admit it an awful, On opening to admit it an awful,
supernatural incident might occur. supernatural incident occurs.
Thus we perceive the famous child-phantom incident in Chapter III. of
_Wuthering Heights_ had its origin (1) in Montagu's lonely-house
incident; (2) in Charlotte Brontë's awe of a child-apparition; (3) in
Charlotte Brontë's Method II., alteration of age of character portrayed,
by which Catherine the woman becomes a child again; and (4) in Charlotte
Brontë's notion, as evidenced in _Shirley_, Chapter XXIV., that a loved
dead one can "revisit those they leave"; can "come in the elements";
that "wind" could give "a path to Moor(e)"--Heath(cliffe), "passing the
casement sobbing"; that the loved dead one could "haunt" the wind.
These, then, we see were the notions in Charlotte Brontë's head
responsible for Catherine's returning so sensationally to the abode of
her lover as a child-spectre. For Catherine's love for Wuthering Heights
was not simply because of the place and its moors, as so many writers
have wrongly contended, but because it was associated with
Heathcliffe.[29] Let my reader peruse again the "wailing child" passages
I quote from _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ in Chapter II. of _The
Key to the Brontë Works_.
Truly the testimony of Charlotte Brontë's child-phantom were alone the
sign-manual that she and none other wrote _Wuthering Heights_.
CHAPTER VII.
THE ORIGINALS OF GIMMERTON, GIMMERDEN, GIMMERTON KIRK AND CHAPEL,
PENISTON CRAGS, THE FAIRY CAVE, ETC., IN "WUTHERING HEIGHTS," AND OF THE
FAIRY CAVE AND THE FAIRY JANET IN "JANE EYRE."
The uncommon stress Charlotte Brontë has laid upon the outlandishness of
the _Wuthering Heights_ country and its solitudes assuredly would have
been absent from that work had she drawn her background from the
comparatively characterless Haworth moors on the skirts of manufacturing
towns, and not from impressions created in her mind by Montagu's
description in his _Gleanings in Craven_ of the wildest and weirdest
scenery in Yorkshire. There has been a noticeable tendency on the part
of town-bred, and also of romantic, biographers to be awed by the
ordinary moorland surroundings of Haworth, and to associate with them
all the wildness of the Craven or Scottish Highlands, though Miss Mary
Robinson, whose work entitled _Emily Brontë_ is in effect an
"appreciation" of _Wuthering Heights_, says frankly regarding the house
standing beyond the street on the summit of Haworth Hill, shown as the
original of _Wuthering Heights_, that to her thinking "this fine old
farm of the Sowdens is far too near the mills of Haworth to represent
the God-forsaken, lonely house." But of course an author can place a
given abode against any background. Wuthering Heights has been connected
by some people with a locality called Withins--how wrongly a reference
to the origin of Gimmerton and Gimmerden alone shows. The primary origin
of the name and title of "Wuthering Heights" I reveal in the final
chapter on "The Recoil."
The following passage from _Wuthering Heights_ tells that Charlotte
Brontë's imagination was enjoying the latitude of a half-realized,
suggested background. It reads just like the traveller Montagu with his
horse, attendant servant on horseback, roadside inns, hostlers, and
description of country. But the connection of Montagu with Lockwood of
_Wuthering Heights_ we have already seen in the early chapters of _The
Key to the Brontë Works_:--
1802--This September I was invited to devastate the moors of a
friend in the North, and on my journey ... I unexpectedly came
within fifteen miles of Gimmerton. The hostler at a roadside
public-house was holding a pail of water to refresh my horses when
a cart of very green oats ... passed by, and he remarked--
"Yon's frough Gimmerton, nah! They're allus three wick after other
folk wi' ther harvest."
"Gimmerton?" I repeated; my residence in that locality had already
grown dim and dreamy. "Ah, I know. How far is it from this?"
"Happen fourteen mile o'er th' hills; and a rough road." A sudden
impulse seized me to visit Thrushcross Grange. It was scarcely
noon, and I conceived that I might as well pass the night under my
own roof as in an inn.... Having rested a while, I directed my
servant to inquire the way to the village; and, with great fatigue
to our beasts, we managed the distance in some three hours. I left
him there, and proceeded ... down the valley alone. The grey
church looked greyer, and the churchyard lonelier. I
distinguished a moor sheep cropping the short turf on the
graves.... The heat did not hinder me from enjoying the delightful
scenery above and below; had I seen it nearer August, I'm sure it
would have tempted me to waste a month among its solitudes. [Be it
observed he would rather have done so than have gone to "the
moors" of his friend.] In winter nothing more dreary than those
glens shut in by hills,[30] and those bluff, bold swells of heath.
So we too would imagine, judging by Montagu's description of the
district in his little work.
Throughout _Wuthering Heights_ we hear mention of Gimmerton, but it is
apparent the village was "dim and dreamy" to Charlotte Brontë--somewhere
about the little valley we should imagine, to conclude by general
observations. However, clear it is that Gimmerton and Gimmerden were
drawn by Charlotte Brontë merely from impressions created in her mind by
other than a personal acquaintance with the district. Where then, and in
what peculiar circumstances, did Charlotte receive these
suggestions--suggestions that must have appealed to her at a time
immediately coincident with her commencing this foundling story with
the house of mystery, the inhospitable host, the uncouth man-servant,
and the candle-bearing bedside visitant--all from Montagu's book? My
evidence declares these suggestions also came from Montagu's little
work, and that the originals of Gimmerton in _Wuthering Heights_, and
Gimmerden, or the valley of Gimmerton, were Malham and Malhamdale, or
the valley of Malham. This district Montagu describes as being "most
interesting ... in its own variety of wildness."
I believe Kilnsey Crags, which Montagu describes on the last page of the
letter next to that written from Malham, figured in Charlotte Brontë's
mind as the originals of Peniston Crags ("Peniston" may have been
suggested by Montagu's mention of Pennigent). Montagu's description of
Kilnsey Crags I will place side by side with the reference to Peniston
Crags in _Wuthering Heights_:--
MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._
Chapter XVIII.
KILNSEY CRAGS. PENISTON CRAGS.
A lofty range of limestone rocks The abrupt descent of Peniston
... stretching nearly half a Crags particularly attracted her
mile along the valley, and notice; especially when the
rendered perhaps, more striking setting sun shone on it and the
by contrasting with the vale topmost heights, and the whole
immediately at its base. extent of the landscape, besides
[by contrasting] lay in shadow.
Clearly Joseph's "leading of lime" from Peniston Crags in _Wuthering
Heights_ was suggested to Charlotte Brontë by the "Kiln" of Kilnsea
Crags, and Montagu's reference to the crags being limestone. Dean
describes them to Cathy, and her words are simply Montagu's
description--treated antithetically--of Gordale Scar in the Malham
letter:--
MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._
Chapter XVIII.
In the clefts in the rocks' They were bare masses of stone,
sides, or wherever a lodgement with hardly enough earth in
of earth appears [is] the ... their clefts to nourish ... a
yew. tree.... One of the maids
mentioning the Fairy Cave, quite
turned her head....
In his Malham letter Montagu describes a Fairy Cave, and of course
Gimmerton has the Fairy Cave in its neighbourhood. It is placed under
the Crags, but we have no description in _Wuthering Heights_:--
MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._
Chapter XVIII.
Montagu has a boy-guide "adapted Says Catherine Linton to the boy
to show the prominent features Hareton:--"I want ... to hear
to strangers." He takes Montagu about the _fairishes_, as you
on to Malham, where Montagu sees call them.".... Hareton opened
the Fairy Cave. This boy-guide the mysteries of the Fairy Cave
was called Robert Airton, and he and twenty other queer places.
was aged twelve.[31] But ... I was not favoured with
a description of the interesting
objects she saw. I could gather,
however, that her guide had been
a favourite.
The name of Linton appears in Montagu in the letter next that in which
he describes the Fairy Cave. We may understand that Charlotte Brontë's
romantic imagination was entranced, as she says Catherine Linton's was,
with the mention of the Fairy Cave; and _Jane Eyre_ is testimony that
after writing _Wuthering Heights_ she turned again to consider its
possibilities of suggestion.
In fact, I find that Charlotte Brontë when she chose the name of Janet
Eyre for herself was also calling herself the Fairy Janet. And where,
then, read Charlotte Brontë of the fairy Janet Eyre? The evidence of
Montagu's work proves that when she wrote the name Eyre, she was
implying by this Derbyshire variant the name Aire or Ayre, meaning the
river Ayre. Where acquired Charlotte Brontë so intimate an acquaintance
with the history of the Fairy Janet of the Aire as to take upon herself
poetically, the rôle of that Craven elf and her name?
Mr. Harry Speight recently, in _The Craven Highlands_, told us "the
Fairy Jennet or Janet was queen of the Malhamdale elves" who frequented
the enchanted ground round the source of the Aire. But prior to
Montagu's dealing with Janet's Cave, the home of the Malhamdale fays,
the queen-elf had been referred to as Gennet. Montagu spelt the name
Jannet, and later writers having referred to him, the fairy cave now
bears the name Janet's Cave. A Malham writer prior to Montagu referred
only briefly to the Fairy Cave, and quite prosily. In his Malham letter
Montagu says:--
"Leaving a farmhouse at the entrance of the vale to the left, we [he and
his boy-guide] proceeded over two fields, then ascended about twenty
yards, suddenly turned an acute angle, and penetrating some bushes we
stood at the entrance of a deep and narrow glen, before a perpendicular
fall of water. At the foot of this cascade is
JANNET'S CAVE.
It is so called from the queen or governess of a numerous tribe of
faeries, which tradition assures us anciently held their court here; and
as there may be some of my readers who may like at the moonlit hour to
be entertained at one of Jannet's banquets, I will give an idea as to
the mode of obtaining admission into such society.... On the evening
when I first learned the mystic lore, the golden sun had kissed every
flower, even unto the retiring lily, and was gliding westward when, from
the heart's couch of a moss rose, there came the eldest daughter of
faeryland, probably the self-same Jannet's daughter, saying:--
'I have come from whence
Peace with white sceptre wafting to and fro,
Smooths the wide bosom of the Elysian world,'
and who, upon being informed that I was desirous of swearing allegiance
to her sweet mother, said that she would bring intelligence whether I
might be admitted to her pretty vassalage; she then bade her attendants
bring her car, which was a leaf of a favourite hyacinth, drawn by two
lady-birds who were guided by reins of gossamer; the mellow horn of the
herald bee summoned her attendants, who, to the number of twenty, obeyed
the call; and taking the coronets from off their brows, made low
obeisance to their young princess, which she pleasingly acknowledged.
Then they each captured a sphere of thistle-down, and seating themselves
thereon, followed their princess; who, attended by her guards, each
armed with a maiden's eye-lash, journeyed onwards towards the realms of
enchanted ground. I should think that not many minutes elapsed when the
cavalcade returned, and the charter written upon the leaf of a
'forget-me-not,' with the gold from a butterfly's wing, was placed into
my hand by 'a fay,' with injunctions not to divulge the secrets of the
order. I would have promised but awoke from this pleasant dream."
We will now read Montagu's description of the Fairy Janet, and a fairy
coming to him at sundown when adapted by Charlotte Brontë in _Jane
Eyre_.
Adèle asks Rochester whether she is to go to school without her
governess, Jane Eyre:--
"Yes," he replied; ... "for I am to take mademoiselle to the moon,
and there I shall seek a cave in one of the white valleys among
the volcano tops, and mademoiselle shall live with me there, and
only me."
"... But you can't get her there...."
"Adèle ... late one evening ... I sat down to rest me on a stile
... when something came up the path.... Our speechless colloquy
was to this effect--
"It was a fairy, and come from Elf-land, it said.... It told me of
the alabaster cave and silver vale.... I said I should like to
go.... 'Oh,' returned the fairy.... 'Here is a talisman which will
remove all difficulties' and she held out a pretty gold ring...."
"But what has mademoiselle [Jane Eyre] to do with it? I don't care
for the fairy...."
"Mademoiselle [Jane Eyre] is a fairy," he said, whispering
mysteriously.
But Adèle assures him she made no account of his "_contes de fée_."
For the present it is enough to know that in the main and ostensibly the
Fairy Janet Eyre was Charlotte Brontë's adaptation of Montagu's Fairy
Janet, the queen-elf of the Malhamdale fairies, said to frequent the
enchanted land round the source of the Aire.
The fairy idea, Charlotte discovered, served well to give a certain
gallantry to Rochester's bestowing of epithets. These the reader may
have interest in finding in _Jane Eyre_. For instance, when Jane,
returning from her visit to a dead relative, informs Rochester, he
says:--
"A true _Janian_ reply! [italics mine]. Good angels be my guard!
She comes from the other world--from the abode of people who are
dead, and tells me so when she meets me alone here in the
gloaming! If I dared, I'd touch you, to see if you are substance
or shadow, you elf!--but I'd as soon offer to take hold of a blue
_ignis-fatuus_ light in the marsh."
A few lines lower Rochester asks:--
"Tell me, now, fairy as you are--can't you give a charm?"
And then farther down:
"Pass, Janet: go up home and stay your weary little wandering feet
at a friend's threshold."
When Rochester's bed is in flames, and he awakes to find Janet has
thrown water upon it, he demands:--
"In the name of all the elves in Christendom, is that Jane Eyre?"
And so I might continue. It is observable Charlotte Brontë never allows
Rochester to call Jane Eyre "Janet" and "fairy" in the same breath. She
permits the use of Janet, however, when the fairy notion is concealed,
as when Rochester says:
"Just put your hand in mine, Janet, that I may have the evidence
of touch as well as sight, to prove you are near me."
Certain it is that in Charlotte Brontë's inmost heart her
autobiographical self was called Janet Aire.[32]
Charlotte Brontë's conceptions, when she let her imagination have play
and forgot the world of readers were, like Jane Eyre's thoughts,
"elfish." See the fairy tale, _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert_
(attributed by Charlotte Brontë to her pen in her fifteenth year). It
has been remarked this story is not in the handwriting Charlotte Brontë
affected at this period, and that the manuscript has not Charlotte's
customary title-page.[33] In view of the evidence of _The Key to the
Brontë Works_, it is of interest to make a comparison between _Alembert_
and Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_, published eight years later than
the date Charlotte Brontë ascribed to its completion. The association of
the family of Lambert with hypothetical high treason and with being
extinct; with the Malham country as described by Montagu--the
references, so frequent in his pages, to the awe inspired by the
wildness of the scenery, to the underground torrent, the contrasting
range of crags, the lake, the fairy cave, the fairy and the admittance
into faerydom; to "the mellow hum of the bee," etc., are interesting in
the extreme, seeing by aid of Montagu that Malham as presented by him
became Gimmerton of _Wuthering Heights_. Whether "coincidence" has to do
with this matter of _Alembert_ and Montagu, or Charlotte Brontë has for
some reason ante-dated _Alembert_, I leave to the reader to decide.
MONTAGU. _The Adventures of Ernest
Alembert._
Montagu, speaking of the church Charlotte Brontë begins by
of Kirkby-Malham, "in the ... relating that there once lived
vale of Malham," says:--"Some of an Ernest Alembert. One of the
the Lamberts are buried Alemberts having been "beheaded"
here--here is a monument to ... for "high treason,"[34] "the
John Lambert, who aided Cromwell family had decayed" until the
in his murder of Charles the only survivor was Ernest
First (as all did who were Alembert. We are told that he
implicated in Cromwell's beside a valley; and the river
rebellion)[34]--after the became a lake. A stranger
Restoration lived he died putting him under a spell,
banished and forgotten at [A]lembert accepts him for a
Guernsey. The family is now guide, and they wend their way
extinct." up the valley.
In the chapter on Malham, [A]lembert finds himself at a
Montagu accepts a guide who place where the torrent goes
takes him up the vale of Malham. underground.
He mentions Malham Lake, or
Tarn, and says of the River Aire
in the connection that the water
"delves into the mountain, and
does not appear again until it
reaches the village of Airton,
below Malham."
We have descriptions of wild We have descriptions of wild
moor, "tremendous" precipices, moors and precipices, and
and "grand and terrific foaming cataracts. When they
cataracts":--"At last we stopped to rest after a climb
attained the summit of the "the scene was grand and awful
mountain, when, looking down in in the extreme.... The mellow
the chasm beneath, horror and hum of the bee was no longer
immensity were defined with heard.... Above rose tremendous
thrilling truth." precipices, whose vast shadows
blackened all that portion of
the moor [see "Peniston Crags,"
page 59], and deepened the frown
on the face of unpropitious
nature."
Montagu and his guide go to a [A]lembert and his guide go to a
cave--the cave of the Fairy cave. Farther on the guide
Janet. Montagu falling asleep as vanishes, but [A]lembert wakes
it were, a fairy comes to his to find him by his side as a
side and tells him he is in the fairy [Charlotte Brontë, Method
realm of fairies. She promises I., interchange of the sexes],
to induct him into the wonders who addresses [A]lembert as
of faeryland, and "the mellow follows:--
horn of the herald bee" summoned
her attendants. And so on. See "I am a fairy. You have been,
Charlotte Brontë's mention in and still are, in the land of
_Alembert_ of "the mellow hum of fairies. Some wonders you have
the bee." seen; many more you shall see if
you choose to follow me." And so
on in extension.
I have often wondered why no one has ever observed before that the hand
which wrote _The Adventures of Ernest Alembert_ must assuredly have
written every line of _Wuthering Heights_. We may well understand why
Charlotte Brontë in _Wuthering Heights_ wrote of Catherine Linton that
"the mentioning the Fairy Cave quite turned her head" with interest. And
that the original of the Fairy Cave in _Wuthering Heights_ was the Fairy
Cave of Malhamdale Montagu mentions at such length in his Malham
letter, the use of the names Linton and Airton in the connection
irrefutably proves without other appeal: Hareton--that variant of Aire,
cannot be associated with Derbyshire like "Eyre"; and despite the use of
"Eyre," Aire was the name in Charlotte Brontë's mind, just as "Airton"
was when she wrote "Hareton."
Both the "boy-guide" and "Gimmerton's mist" were obviously suggested to
Charlotte Brontë for _Wuthering Heights_ by Montagu, the original, as I
have shown, of Lockwood:--
MONTAGU. _Wuthering Heights._
I ... took leave of my host and Says Heathcliffe:--"People
followed the youthful steps of familiar with these moors often
my guide whose services I had miss their road on such an
accepted.... Upon the summit of evening."
the mountain is Kilnsea Moor,
over which it is impossible to "Perhaps I can get a guide among
find a route to Malham Water your lads, ... could you spare
without a guide, more one?" asks Lockwood of his host.
particularly as a mist creates a
difficulty, even to a person
well acquainted with the
locality.
Montagu's frequent references to the mountainous character of the Malham
country were doubtless responsible for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the
word "heights" used in her title. Why the name of Gimmer, from "gimmer"
a female sheep, and signifying with "ton" the place of sheep, was chosen
by her for Gimmerton, is clear when we read the etymology Montagu gives
of Skipton. He mentions Skibden and Skipton, proceeding to explain that
"Skipton, or Sceptown (from the Saxon word 'scep,' a sheep)" meant "the
town of sheep"; and Montagu tells us a native spoke of the village as
"the town of Malham." Hence we perceive why Charlotte Brontë coined
"Gimmerton," the village of sheep, and "Gimmerden," the valley of sheep,
for Malham and Malhamdale with the source of the Aire, the Fairy Cave,
the Sough, the adjacent crags, the heights, the glens, the rising mists,
the Methodist chapel and kirk in the lonely vale, when in the light of
all the foregoing we read in Montagu's work that:--
"Here [at Malham] there is an annual fair held on the 15th of October,
appropriated entirely for the sale of sheep.[35] I am within the limit
of fact when I say that upwards of one hundred thousand [sheep] have
been shown at one time. [Joseph takes cattle to "Gimmerton Fair," of
course not in October.] The houses are mostly built of limestone, and
covered with grit slates, and irregularly situated at the base of a
range of steep mountains"--"the Heights."
Malham he describes as "a small township, divided into east and west
portions by a rapid stream"--"the beck down Gimmerton." "There is a
Methodist chapel at Malham," he states, and says that the old church of
Kirkby-Malham "is in the very bosom of the vale of Malham." Thus
Gimmerton Kirk, in the lonely valley of Gimmerton,[36] was Charlotte
Brontë's name in _Wuthering Heights_ for the kirk by Malham, in the
lonely vale of Malham. This insight into the origin of the name of
"kirk" for a Yorkshire church excuses what, without it, would have been
an anachronistic misnomer. As for the Nonconformists' place of worship,
Dean is made to remark:--"They call the Methodists' or Baptists'
place--I can't say which it is at Gimmerton--a chapel."
In the light of the foregoing evidence it is impossible to ignore the
reference Montagu makes to "the sinks," where the water from Malham Tarn
sinks underground for a considerable distance. Whether Charlotte Brontë
thought this would produce a quag in the neighbourhood I cannot tell;
but if she has used the word "sough" (pronounced _suff_) in its ordinary
acceptance in Yorkshire, she originally meant "a subterranean passage or
tunnel, draining water as from a sink," if I may quote a definition in
Dr. Joseph Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_. There is every sign in
her writings of a loose, composite adaptation of Montagu's topography,
etc., yet Charlotte Brontë was ever jealous of associations, and under a
guise or not she frequently preserved carefully recognizable
characteristics necessary to locality and to personality; and we see
Montagu had associated a sough with Malham. We have mention of Gimmerton
Sough in Chapter III. of _Wuthering Heights_, and in Chapter X.:--"...
the valley of Gimmerton, with a long list of mist winding nearly to its
top (for very soon after you pass the chapel ... the sough that runs
from the marshes joins a beck which follows the bend of the glen).
Wuthering Heights rose above this silvery vapour." And we have read what
Montagu says about the mists of Malham.
The influence of Montagu's descriptions of this wild locality is
likewise observable in the scenery and the background of _Jane
Eyre_,[37] as I mentioned in the article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" I
wrote in _The Saturday Review_. The yews and evergreens, mentioned by
Montagu in connection with Malham, and introduced by Charlotte Brontë,
with other trees of the fir-tribe, in descriptions of Morton in _Jane
Eyre_, Chap. XXX., etc., and in _Wuthering Heights_, are not common to
Haworth.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE RIVERS OR BRONTË FAMILY IN "JANE EYRE."
Charlotte Brontë, while she often portrayed the main characters of her
stories from people in her own life, was quite at home with them in
whatsoever condition or surroundings she placed them.[38] She loved the
memory of Tabitha Aykroyd--that faithful servant, companion, and friend;
hated the vices of her brother Branwell Brontë, and was obsessed by
thoughts of M. Héger, her Brussels friend. So she placed the good old
housekeeper of the parsonage--under an ecclesiastical cognomen truly--as
Mrs. Dean at Wuthering Heights; set up her brother Branwell on the same
premises as Hindley Earnshaw, and put her Brussels friend in the
position of master of that abode.
In _Jane Eyre_ Tabitha Aykroyd is Bessie of Mrs. Reed's household, and
Hannah of the Rivers family; Branwell is among better surroundings as
John Reed, and M. Héger is portrayed more proportionately as the master
of Thornfield; while in the same work Charlotte Brontë portrays her own
sister Maria Brontë, and makes her say she is a native of Northumberland
and describe the scenery round her birthplace there!
In _Shirley_ Charlotte admits to having placed Emily Brontë as "Shirley
Keeldar," surrounded by the environment of a wealthy woman--a landed
proprietress in the Dewsbury neighbourhood; and she gives us phases of
M. Héger as a resident of Yorkshire, in the two Moores.
_Villette_ contains in Dr. John, towards the close, a portrait of the
Rev. Mr. Nicholls, who became her husband, as a resident of the foreign
town Villette--for I find the character Dr. John was a portrait not
wholly drawn, as is supposed, from Mr. Smith of Messrs. Smith & Elder,
the Brontë publishers; and glimpses of Mr. Thackeray as a Villette
lecturer appear in a flitting usurpation of M. Héger's rights as the
original of M. Paul.
Charlotte Brontë's thus placing given characters against any background
is doubtless responsible for the fact that when I wrote the _Fortnightly
Review_ article, "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil: A New Study of the
Brontë Family," in March, 1907, nigh on sixty years of readers of the
Brontë works had failed to recognize Charlotte Brontë had portrayed in
_Jane Eyre_ not only herself and her sister, Maria Brontë, as was
commonly known, but also her brother, Branwell Brontë; her Aunt
Branwell; her cousin, Eliza Branwell; her sister, Elizabeth Brontë; her
sister, Emily Brontë; her sister, Anne Brontë; her father, the Rev.
Patrick Brontë; and also Tabitha Aykroyd, the Brontë servant. Perhaps it
was because readers believed Morton was Hathersage, Derbyshire, that a
suspicion of the Rivers family being the Brontë family at Haworth never
had been entertained.
I found, however, that all the above-mentioned members of the Brontë
family were placed in _Jane Eyre_ under a "Rivers" surname; and
proceeding into the inquiry as to their identity, I perceived this
discovery of the Brontë family in _Jane Eyre_ numbered with the more
important of my Brontë discoveries, and that despite her purposed and
reasonable cross-scents--the spired church, the mention of
knife-grinders, and the hinting at the proximity of Sheffield, all so
necessary in her day to permit the portrayal of phases of the life at
Haworth Parsonage--Morton to Charlotte Brontë was in the main Haworth.
What importance would attach to a discovery of an unknown portrait group
of his family deliberately painted from life by an old master! Such is
the importance of this discovery of the Brontë family drawn by the pen
of Charlotte Brontë herself in _Jane Eyre_. Currer Bell portrayed with
unvarying truth; and with cunning artistry she brought forward in her
literary legacy to the English novel the sure characteristics--the very
soul, the shallowness, the pretty affectionateness, the cooing
"dove-like voice," the "blue steel glance," of those she had watched and
loved and feared.
Now, in the selection of a Christian name for the heroine Jane Eyre, in
whom she had portrayed herself, there was every reason why Charlotte
Brontë would be unlikely to adopt the second name of her sister, Emily
Jane. We have seen, however, that Charlotte Brontë had been led by
Montagu's mention of the Fairy Jannet, or Janet, poetically to make her
heroine a Fairy Janet. This evidence shows, therefore, that "Jane" was
really only secondary. The Fairy Cave which this fairy was supposed to
frequent is near Malham or Gimmerton, and, as I have said, the Fairy
Janet is termed "the queen of the Malhamdale elves that frequent the
enchanted land round the source of the Aire." Montagu mentions the fact
that the river Ayre takes its rise at Malham--at Malham Tarn, and hence
Charlotte Brontë seems to have named her heroine originally Janet Aire.
Obvious it is she would be led, naturally, to use later some variant of
Aire or Ayre; and the fact that she visited in the summer of 1845
(evidence shows she had read Montagu at the time)[39] her friend Miss
Nussey, then at Hathersage in Derbyshire, where Eyre is a common name,
would suggest she was led to adopt this variant through her visit there.
We already have seen Charlotte Brontë used the variant of "Hare" for
"Air" in _Wuthering Heights_ for the boy Hareton from Montagu's
boy-guide, Robert Airton. And that she wished in _Jane Eyre_ to break
through the confines of the variant she had chosen for Aire, and give
open expression to her original and poetic idea, is seen plainly enough
where Adèle asks:--
"And Mademoiselle--what is your name?"
"Eyre--Jane Eyre."
"Aire? bah, I cannot say it."
Having made this interesting discovery, I further found that, not
satisfied with appropriating for herself the "stream" surname, she
placed such a surname upon those who were related to her and whom she
had portrayed in _Jane Eyre_. So she used Burns from "burn," a stream
spelt with an "s," for Maria Brontë; Rivers, from a river also spelt
with an "s," for Emily Brontë, Anne Brontë, and the Rev. Patrick Brontë,
with Tabitha Aykroyd in attendance as Hannah; Reed, from the river of
that name for Charlotte's Aunt Branwell, her cousin Eliza Branwell, and
her brother, Branwell Brontë; Severn, from the river of that name for
her sister Elizabeth Brontë--just as she used Aire from the river of
that name for herself, as Janet Aire.
A reference to Mrs. Gaskell's Brontë _Life_ were sufficient to establish
the identifications, when I say that by Charlotte Brontë's Method II.
(the alteration of the age of a character portrayed) the Rev. Patrick
Brontë is represented as a young man in the Rev. St. John Eyre
Rivers--certainly a very necessary obfuscation, for it is to be seen the
home at Morton gives a most enlightening insight into the life at the
Haworth Parsonage. A death is supposed to have occurred in the Rivers
family; and when it is remembered Thornfield to Charlotte Brontë
represented the Hégers' establishment at Brussels, and that she left
Brussels the first time on account of the death of her aunt, Miss
Elizabeth Branwell who, after being the female head of the parsonage
some years, died there in the close of 1842, we may know for whom the
Rivers family were really in mourning. Charlotte Brontë tells us that,
looking through the window of Moor House--Haworth Parsonage:--
I could see ... an elderly woman [Tabitha Aykroyd--the Mrs. Dean
of _Wuthering Heights_], somewhat rough-looking, but scrupulously
clean, like all about her, ... knitting a stocking.... Two young,
graceful women [Emily and Anne Brontë]--ladies in every
point--sat, one in a low rocking-chair, the other on a lower
stool; both wore deep mourning, ... which sombre garb singularly
set off very fair necks and faces: a large old ... dog [Emily had
a favourite dog] rested his massive head on the knee of one
girl--in the lap of the other was cushioned a black cat. A strange
place was this humble kitchen for such occupants [but they were
ever fond of it]. Who were they? They could not be the daughters
of the elderly person at the table [Tabitha]; for she looked like
a rustic, and they were all delicacy and cultivation. I had
nowhere seen such faces as theirs; and yet, as I gazed on them I
seemed intimate with every lineament. I cannot call them
handsome--they were too pale and grave for the word: as they each
bent over a book they looked thoughtful almost to severity. A
stand between them supported a second candle and two great volumes
to which they frequently referred; comparing them ... with the
smaller books they held in their hands like people consulting a
dictionary to aid ... in the task of translation. This scene was
as silent as if all the figures had been shadows and the fire-lit
apartment a picture.
"Listen, Diana [Emily Brontë]", said one of the absorbed students,
... and in a low voice she read ... in German.... The other girl,
who had lifted her head to listen to her sister, repeated, while
she gazed at the fire, a line.... "Good!" ... she exclaimed, while
her dark and deep eyes sparkled, ... "I like it!"
"Is there ony country where they talk i' that way?" asked the old
woman [Tabitha, using her Haworth Yorkshire dialect], and being
told there is:--"Well, for sure case, I knawn't how they can
understand t'one t'other: and if either o' ye went there, ye could
tell what they said, I guess?"
"... Not all--for we are not as clever as you think us, Hannah. We
don't speak German...."
"And what good does it do you?"
"We mean to teach it some time--or at least the elements, as they
say; and then we shall get more money than we do now."
"Varry like; but give ower studying: ye've done enough for
to-night."
"I think we have.... I wonder when St. John [the Rev. Patrick
Brontë] will come home."
"Surely he will not be long now: it is just ten" (looking at a
little gold watch she drew from her girdle). "It rains fast.
Hannah, will you have the goodness to look at the fire in the
parlour?"
Charlotte seems to have portrayed particularly those happy months at
home in 1842, when, after the death of their aunt, all three sisters
were together and their brother Branwell was away. It is Anne Brontë
who, as Mary Rivers, consults her watch. For the circumstances in which
she acquired this gold watch see the will of Miss Elizabeth Branwell,
her aunt.[40]
The woman [Tabitha] rose: she opened a door, ... soon I heard her
stir the fire in an inner room. She presently came back: "Ah
childer!" said she, "it fair troubles me to go into yond room now:
it looks so lonesome wi' the chair empty and set back in a
corner."
The Brontë sisters were "always children in the eyes of Tabitha."
Continuing her description of her sisters, Charlotte as Jane says:--
Both were fair complexioned and slenderly made; both possessed
faces full of distinction and intelligence. One [Emily Brontë] to
be sure had hair a shade darker than the other, and there was a
difference in their style of wearing it: Mary's [Anne Brontë's]
pale brown locks were parted and braided smooth; Diana's [Emily
Brontë's] duskier tresses covered her neck with thick curls....
[She] had a voice toned to my ear, like the cooing of a dove. She
possessed eyes whose gaze I delighted to encounter. Her whole face
seemed to me full of charm, Mary's [Anne Brontë's] countenance was
equally intelligent--her features equally pretty; but her
expression was more reserved; and her manner, though gentle, more
distant. Diana looked and spoke with a certain authority [it was
Emily Brontë's manner]: she had a will.... It was my nature to
feel pleasure in yielding to an authority supported like hers; and
to bend, where my conscience and self-respect permitted, to an
active will.
The following is the portrait of Charlotte Brontë's father (Method II.,
the altering the age of the character portrayed) as her imagination
pictured him to have been in his young days. St. John's was the Rev.
Patrick Brontë's college at Cambridge:--
Mr. St. John ... had he been a statue instead of a man ... could
not have been easier. He was ... tall, slender; his face riveted
the eye; it was like a Greek face, very pure in outline; quite a
straight classic nose, quite an Athenian mouth and chin. It is
seldom indeed an English face comes so near the antique models as
did his.... His eyes were large and blue, ... his high forehead,
colourless as ivory, was partially streaked over by careless locks
of fair hair.... He ... scarcely impressed one with the idea of a
gentle ... or even of a placid nature; ... there was something
about his nostril, his mouth, his brow, which ... indicated
elements within either restless, or hard or eager.
Charlotte Brontë's references herewith, and in other instances, to the
passionate nature of her father are interesting reading, especially in
view of the fact that this point has been the subject of controversy. To
return to _Jane Eyre_:--
Mr. Rivers [Mr. Brontë] now closed his book, approached the table,
and, as he took a seat, fixed his pictorial-looking eyes full upon
me. There was an unceremonious directness, a searching, decided
steadfastness in his gaze now which told that intention ... had
hitherto kept it averted ... St. John's eyes, though clear enough
in a literal sense, in a figurative one were difficult to fathom.
He seemed to use them rather as instruments to search other
people's thoughts, than as agents to reveal his own: the which
combination of keenness and reserve was considerably more
calculated to embarrass than to encourage.
Mrs. Gaskell states that even in his old age Mr. Brontë[41] was a tall
and a striking-looking man, with a nobly shaped head and erect carriage,
and that in youth he must have been unusually handsome. And to use the
words of Hannah, "Mr. St. John when he grew up would go to college and
be a parson." Continuing, Mrs. Gaskell further says:--
The course of his life shows a powerful and remarkable character,
originating and pursuing a purpose in a resolute and independent
manner--separating himself from his family. There was no trace of
his Irish origin in his speech; he never could have shown his
Celtic origin in the straight Greek lines and long oval of his
face.
Another writer accentuating this says Mr. Brontë was "proud of his Greek
profile," and we have now seen that Charlotte Brontë herself says his
(St. John's) face was "like a Greek face, pure in outline." Mr. Brontë
had also "fine blue eyes," like Mr. St. John. "His (Mr. Brontë's)
passionate nature was compressed down with stoicism, but it was there,
notwithstanding all his philosophic calm and dignity of demeanour,
though he did not speak when displeased. He was an active walker,
stretching away over the moors for many miles. He dined alone, and did
not require companionship."
Which is, of course, all consonant with what we read of St. John Eyre
Rivers. Charlotte Brontë continues:--
As to Mr. St. John, the intimacy which had arisen so naturally ...
between me and ... [my] sisters did not extend to him. One reason
of the distance ... observed between us was, that he was
comparatively seldom at home: a large proportion of his time
appeared devoted to visiting the sick and poor among the scattered
population of his parish. No weather seemed to hinder him in these
pastoral excursions: rain or fair, he would, when his hours of
morning study were over, take his hat and ... go out on his
mission of love and duty.... But, besides his frequent absences,
there was another barrier to friendship with him: he seemed of a
reserved, an abstracted, and even a brooding nature. Zealous in
his ministerial labours, blameless in his life and habits, he yet
did not appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content
which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and
practical philanthropist. Often of an evening, when he sat at the
window, his desk and papers before him, he would cease reading or
writing, rest his chin on his hand, and deliver himself up to I
know not what course of thought; but that it was perturbed and
exciting might be seen in the frequent dilation of his eye.
I think, moreover, that Nature was not to him that treasury of
delight it was to his [my] sisters. He once expressed, and but
once in my hearing, a strong sense of the rugged charm of the
hills, and an inborn affection for the dark roof and hoary walls
he called his home; but there was more of gloom than pleasure in
the tone and words in which the sentiment was manifested; and
never did he roam the moors for the sake of their soothing
silence--never to seek out or dwell upon the thousand peaceful
delights they could yield.
Incommunicative as he was, some time elapsed before I had an
opportunity of gauging his mind. I first got an idea of its
calibre when I heard him preach in his own church.... I wish I
could describe that sermon; but it is past my power. I cannot even
render faithfully the effect it produced on me.
It began calm, and indeed, as far as delivery and pitch of voice
went, it was calm to the end: an earnestly felt, yet strictly
restrained zeal breathed soon in the distinct accents, and
prompted the nervous language. This grew to force--compressed,
condensed, controlled.... Throughout there was a strange
bitterness; an absence of consolatory gentleness; stern allusions
to Calvinistic doctrines--election, predestination,
reprobation--were frequent.... It seemed to me ... that the
eloquence to which I had been listening had sprung from a depth
where lay turbid dregs of disappointment--where moved troubling
impulses of insatiable yearnings and disquieting aspirations. I
was sure St. John Rivers, pure-lived, conscientious, zealous as he
was--had not yet found that peace of God which passeth all
understanding: he had no more found it ... than had I: with my
concealed and racking regrets for my broken idol and lost elysium.
"Charlotte Brontë," says Miss Laura C. Holloway, "early exhibited
antagonistic feelings towards the Calvinistic views of her father." And
so I might continue at great length. Excluding the love passages
necessary to "story" and the missionary suggestions for which it seems
that Brussels priest whom I may call Charlotte Brontë's Fénelon was
originally responsible, the portrayal of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, like
that of Charlotte's sisters, is absolutely true to prototype and
fact.[42] We discover that at heart Charlotte Brontë loved her father,
hence she honoured him--the head of the "Rivers" family--by giving him
the final word in her autobiography, speaking of him as he appeared to
her: an old man whose days were drawing to a close. Jane relates of
Morton:--
Near the churchyard, and in the middle of the garden, stood a
well-built though small house, which I had no doubt was the
parsonage.
In Charlotte Brontë's mind this was Haworth Parsonage; but it is clear
that, despite the church "spire" and other efforts at obfuscation, she
did not dare to portray her sisters and father in the parsonage. Thus
she placed the family in another house. And now we will have another
glimpse of Tabitha Aykroyd, this time as "Hannah," speaking her Haworth
Yorkshire dialect:--
"Have you been with the family long?"
"I've lived here thirty year. I nursed them all three.... I thowt
more o' th' childer nor of mysel'.... They've like nobody to tak'
care on 'em but me ... I'm like to look sharpish."
Hannah was evidently fond of talking [see my chapter on Tabitha
Aykroyd]. While I picked the fruit and she made the paste for the
pies, she proceeded to give me sundry details about ... her
deceased ... mistress, and "the childer," as she called the young
people.... There was nothing like them in these parts, nor ever
had been; they had liked learning, all three, almost from the time
they could speak; and they had always been "of a mak" of their own
[had individual character]. They had lived very little at home for
a long while, and were only come now to stay a few weeks on
account of their father's [aunt's] death: but they did so like
Marsh End and Morton [Haworth] and all these moors and hills
about. They had been in ... many grand towns, but they always said
there was no place like home; and then they were so agreeable with
each other--never fell out nor "threaped" [asserted beyond the
argumentative point]. She did not know where there was such a
family for being united.
Emily Brontë as Diana says it is "a privilege we exercise in our home to
prepare our own meals when ... so inclined, or when Hannah [Tabby] is
baking, brewing, washing or ironing," which of course was true at
Haworth Parsonage. To give yet another description:--
The Rivers [Brontës] clung to the purple moors behind and around
their dwelling with a perfect enthusiasm of attachment. I could
comprehend the feeling, and share both its strength and truth. I
saw the fascination of the locality, ... my eye feasted on the
outline of swell and sweep.... The strong blast and the soft
breeze; the rough and the halcyon day; the hours of sunrise and
sunset ... developed for me ... the same attraction as for
them--wound round my faculties the same spell that entranced
theirs.
Then follow pictures of the life at Haworth Parsonage, which tell us how
Charlotte Brontë adored her sisters; and with the modesty of true genius
she places herself at their feet, as it were. We have a sketch of
Tabitha Aykroyd ironing Aunt Branwell's lace frills and crimping her
nightcap borders in _Jane Eyre_, Chapter I., wherein both figure as
Bessie and Aunt Reed. Years ago it came to be thought the original of
Jane Eyre's Aunt Reed was Miss Branwell, the aunt of the Brontë
children, though one writer identified her with a certain Mrs. Sidgwick
whose son threw a book at Miss Brontë in her governess days, because
"the son of Mrs. Reed" threw a Bible at Jane Eyre. The fact the
rainy-day narrations in _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ establish,
that Charlotte Brontë associated a "volume-hurling" incident with her
childhood and Branwell Brontë's "tyranny," disposed finally of the
Sidgwick identifications. John Reed we have now seen was, like Hindley
Earnshaw, Catherine's brother, drawn by Charlotte Brontë from her
brother Branwell Brontë. Always she wrote of him vindictively, and with
a retributive justice, her strong characteristic. At about the period
when Currer Bell was penning _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_
Branwell was a source of considerable distress to her. He was disgraced;
his habits were the reverse of temperate, and it was daily feared that
in a fit of delirium he might make an attempt upon his own life. Indeed
Charlotte Brontë palpably writes of Branwell Brontë and those miserable
associations which brought trouble upon Mrs. Gaskell's first edition of
the Brontë _Life_, in _The Professor_, Chapter XX., where she says:--
Limited as had yet been my experience of life, I had once had the
opportunity of contemplating, near at hand, an example of the
results produced by a course of ... domestic treachery.... I saw
it bare and real, and it was very loathsome. I saw a mind degraded
... by the habit of perfidious deception, and a body depraved by
the infectious influence of the vice-polluted soul. I had suffered
much from the forced and prolonged view of this spectacle.
Charlotte's letters also show she was ashamed of and losing patience
with him. John Reed is spoken of as "a dissipated young man; they will
never make much of him, I think.... Some people call him a fine-looking
young man; but he has such thick lips." For obfuscation's sake he is
"tall," and Mrs. Gaskell in speaking of Branwell's profile says:--"There
are coarse lines about the mouth, and the lips, though handsome in
shape, are loose and thick, indicating self-indulgence." Aunt Reed
exclaims at the last of her favourite:--"John is sunken and degraded,
his look is frightful--I feel ashamed for him when I see him." It was
near the time that Aunt Branwell died at Haworth there was this decided
degradation of her favourite nephew Branwell. For story purposes
Charlotte Brontë makes her aunt a married woman in _Jane Eyre_, and
places her nephew Branwell and her niece Eliza Branwell in the relation
of children to her as John and Eliza Reed--Georgiana is no doubt a
Brontë relative of whom we have not heard, and Charlotte thought vain.
The fact that in _Jane Eyre_, Chapter XXI., her name is mentioned in
connection with "a title," would show Currer Bell early apportioned her
a place in the book by reason of Montagu's reference to a Lady
Georgiana.
A child, sympathetic and intensely emotional, Charlotte Brontë,
evidently, felt injustices with an acuteness not easy to understand
without reading her _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ by aid of _The
Key to the Brontë Works_. It would be like Maria Brontë to protest with
her younger sister on her holding resentment against Aunt Branwell; and
with the inference that she herself had endured her harshness, she says
as Helen Burns:--"What a singularly deep impression her injustice seems
to have made on your heart! No ill-usage so brands its record on my
feelings. Would it not be happier if you tried to forget her severity,
together with the passionate emotions it excited?"
Of Eliza Reed (Cousin Eliza Branwell), as seen by Jane at the death of
Aunt Reed, we are told: "she was now very thin, and there was something
ascetic in her look." She wore "a nun-like ornament of a string of ebony
beads and a crucifix. This I felt sure was Eliza, though I could trace
little resemblance to her former self in that elongated and colourless
visage." In 1840 Charlotte Brontë wrote of her "Cousin Eliza Branwell"
that she spoke of nothing but botany, her own conversion, Low Church,
Evangelical clergy, and the Millennium.[43] And thus in _Jane Eyre_ we
read of Cousin Eliza Reed, by way of emphasis on this side of her
character:--
Eliza ... had no time to talk, ... yet it was difficult to say
what she did.... Three times a day she studied a little book which
I found ... was a Common Prayer Book. I asked her once what was
the great attraction of that volume, and she said 'the Rubric.'
Three hours she gave to stitching, with gold thread, the border of
a square crimson cloth; ... she informed me it was ... for the
altar of a new church.... Two hours she devoted to ... working by
herself in the kitchen garden. [Cousin Eliza's parterre is also
referred to in Chapter IV. of _Jane Eyre_.] Eliza [attended] a
saint's-day service at ... church--for in matters of religion she
was a rigid formalist: no weather ever prevented the punctual
discharge of what she considered her devotional duties; fair or
foul she went to church thrice every Sunday, and as often on
week-days as there were prayers. And by way of climax, Jane Eyre
tells us that Cousin Eliza says:--"I shall devote myself ... to
the examination of the Roman Catholic dogmas, and to a careful
study of the workings of their system; if I find it to be, as I
half suspect it is, the one best calculated to ensure the doing of
all things decently and in order, I shall embrace the tenets of
Rome and probably take the veil."
The river Reed, I may remark, has its rise close to the Cheviot Hills,
within about five miles of the source of the Keeldar Burn, which name
Charlotte Brontë used later in _Shirley_ for the surname of Shirley
Keeldar who, the world knows, is really Emily Brontë. To quote a ballad
of Leyden,
"The heath-bell blows where Keeldar flows,
By Tyne the primrose pale."
The Reed has a Rochester near, which doubtless provided a name for
Charlotte's hero.
Having now the key to this method of Charlotte Brontë, we also discover
portrayed in _Jane Eyre_ an utterly neglected sister of Currer Bell in
Julia Severn, called after a river. Remembering that Emily Brontë would
be younger than Charlotte, we perceive Julia must mean Elizabeth Brontë,
born, like Emily, in July. We almost had forgotten this sister was at
the Clergy Daughters' School. One of two things was responsible, it
seems, for the choice of "Julia": either her natal month or her going to
the above school in July. Elizabeth Brontë, the second sister of
Charlotte Brontë, was born at Hartshead, near Dewsbury.
"Miss Temple," cries Mr. Brocklehurst, "... what--_what_ is that
girl with curled hair--red hair, ma'am, curled--curled all over?"
"It is Julia Severn," replies Miss Temple quietly, ... "Julia's
hair curls naturally."
Thus from this discovery the world learns for the first time that Diana
Rivers represents Emily Brontë, afterwards Shirley Keeldar;[44] Mary
Rivers, Annie or Anne Brontë; St. John Eyre Rivers, the Rev. Patrick
Brontë; and the elderly Hannah, the old, dialect-speaking Tabitha
Aykroyd--the original of Charlotte Brontë's Mrs. Dean and Bessie; that
Aunt Reed represents Aunt Branwell; Cousin Eliza Reed, Cousin Eliza
Branwell; John Reed, Charlotte Brontë's brother Branwell; and Julia
Severn, her sister Elizabeth Brontë, all of whom but for _The Key to the
Brontë Works_ would have remained for ever hidden and unrecognized in
_Jane Eyre_.
I have refrained from extending this volume with full extracts from the
Brontë books, once having indicated the place and nature of my
references. I must emphasize, however, that in dealing with the Rivers
family Charlotte Brontë gives most appealing portrayals of the various
phases of the life at Haworth Parsonage:--The studying, the
painting,[45] the minor interesting domestic incidents dear to her
memory, the parting of the Brontë sisters with St. John (Mr. Brontë),
the "house-cleaning"--so very "Yorkshire"!--the preparations for
Christmas, the return home of the Brontë girls, and many other facts and
associations that render _Jane Eyre_ in the light of _The Key to the
Brontë Works_ the surpassing of all Brontë biographies. Presented for
posterity by her own sure hand, Charlotte Brontë's picture is bright and
exhilarating; and as we glance uneasily again to Mrs. Gaskell's sombre
portrayal, we on a sudden remember that biographer wrote in the shadow
of death. But it is with life we have to do.
CHAPTER IX.
THE ORIGIN OF THE YORKSHIRE ELEMENT IN CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S HUNSDEN OF
"THE PROFESSOR"; HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS"; ROCHESTER OF "JANE
EYRE"; AND YORKE OF "SHIRLEY."
M. Héger, Miss Brontë's Brussels friend, by the showing of all evidence
was essentially the original of her leading male characters.[46] M.
Sue's _Miss Mary_ and its "Manuscript of Mdlle. Lagrange," which I
present farther on, are sufficient testimony that M. Héger was the
original of the inner Heathcliffe and Rochester, and Charlotte Brontë's
other chief male characters. An inquiry, therefore, is at once required
as to the significance of Mrs. Gaskell's statement that she suspected
Charlotte Brontë drew from the sons of the Taylor family[47] "all that
was of truth in the characters of the heroes of her first two works."
That the Yorkshire element of her heroes was provided by a living model
or models from one family, is proved by a consistency of the
characterization in this regard. I find, truly enough, that male members
of the Taylor family were indeed the originals to which she referred in
the composition of a Yorkshire-Héger.[48] The Taylors, of the Red House,
Gomersall, (obviously the Briarmains of the Yorkes), and of Hunsworth,
were mill-owner friends, and Independents, with whom Charlotte Brontë
visited. In _Shirley_ Miss Brontë ostensibly portrayed Mr. Taylor and
his two daughters, her friends Mary and Martha, as Mr. Yorke and Rose
and Jessie. Mary and Martha Taylor were at school with Charlotte at Roe
Head, near Dewsbury and Huddersfield. They were also at Brussels with
Charlotte, though not at the Hégers'. Martha was taken ill and died at
Brussels; a touching reference to her death is made where she is
portrayed as Jessie Yorke, in _Shirley_, Chapter XXIII. Mary Taylor
(Rose Yorke) was in New Zealand when Charlotte Brontë died. Her fondness
for travel is mentioned in the _Shirley_ chapter named. The male members
of this family were thought by Currer Bell most characteristic Yorkshire
folk, hence the name of Yorke. I mention Yorke Hunsden as one of the
Yorkshire-Hégers of Miss Brontë's method of dual portraiture. I believe
this important character in _The Professor_ will be found, like his
fellows, to be entirely a Taylor-Héger. The name for Hunsden was
apparently dictated by the Taylors' connection with Hunsworth, and it
may be noted his Christian name of Yorke came to be later the surname of
Mr. Taylor as portrayed in _Shirley_.
But the Héger element was always superior to the Yorkshire element in
Charlotte Brontë's heroes. The latter might provide useful and necessary
external characteristics, but the "intensitives" were the lines she drew
from her model, M. Héger. Of him as M. Pelet in _The Professor_, she
writes:--
His face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes hollow; his
features ... had a French turn, ... the degree of harshness
softened by ... a melancholy, almost suffering expression of
countenance; his physiognomy was _fine et spirituelle_.
This "melancholy almost suffering expression of countenance" she thus
described was evidently once a marked characteristic of M. Héger's
physiognomy. A reference to it occurs in M. Sue's _Miss Mary_, in the
French and "adapted" version, where we find M. de Morville, whom I
identify as a phase of M. Héger, sitting in a reverie:--
... l'expression de légère souffrance habituelle à sa physionomie,
d'ailleurs si ouverte, s'est compliquée d'une sorte de contrainte
lorsqu'il se trouve au milieu de sa famille. Seul, et ne subissant
pas cette contrainte ... M. de Morville semble profondément
attristé.
Thus, of Yorke Hunsden in _The Professor_, we read:--
His general bearing intimated complete ... satisfaction, ... yet,
at times, an indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his
countenance, and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong
inward doubt of himself, ... an energetic discontent, ... perhaps
... it might only be a bilious caprice.
And again of Hunsden, in the same vein:--
I discerned ... there would be contrasts between his inward and
outward man; contentions too.... Perhaps in these
incompatibilities of the "physique" with the "morale" lay the
secret of that fitful gloom; he _would_ but _could_ not, and the
athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion, ... his
features ... character had set a stamp upon ... expression re-cast
them at her pleasure, and strange metamorphoses she wrote, giving
him now the mien of a morose bull, and anon, that of an ... arch
girl.
Regarding these facial metamorphoses Charlotte Brontë wrote similarly
concerning M. Héger.[49]
I remark that M. Héger's harshness evidently had impressed Charlotte
Brontë considerably at first, and thus reflects her thoughts on this
point in the introduction of the phases she gives of him in her books.
So we read of Yorke Hunsden, of Heathcliffe, and of Rochester:--
_The Professor._ _Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
I said to myself "his Heathcliffe's "walk There was something
rough freedom pleases in" expressed the in the forced, stiff
me not at all."... sentiment "Go to bow, in the
There was something the Deuce."[50]... impatient, yet formal
in Mr. Hunsden's I think that tone which seemed ...
point-blank mode of circumstance to express: "What the
speech which rather determined me Deuce is it to me
pleased me than to accept the whether Miss Eyre be
otherwise, because it invitation; I felt there or not?[50] At
set me at my ease. interested in a this moment I am not
I continued the man who seemed disposed to accost
conversation with more exaggeratedly her." I sat down,
a degree of reserved than quite disembarrassed.
interest.... myself. A reception of
Hunsden's manner now finished politeness
bordered on the would probably have
impertinent, still confused me, ... but
his manner did not harsh caprice laid me
offend me in the under no
slightest--it only obligation....
piqued my curiosity; Besides, the
I wanted him to go eccentricity of the
on. proceeding was
piquant. I felt
interested to see how
he would go on.
We read of Rochester:--"The frown, the roughness of the stranger
set me at my ease"; and in _Villette_, we read of M. Héger as M.
Paul:--"Once ... I held him harsh and strange, ... the darkness, the
manner displeased me. Now ... I preferred him before all humanity,"
which explains why Charlotte Brontë wrote of Rochester:--"The sarcasm
that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only
like keen condiments in a choice dish," and explains why she admits to
the piquancy in exploiting the possibilities of Heathcliffe's startling
harshness.
And again, as further evidence of the influence of M. Héger over her
Yorkshire Hunsden, we find this character in the close of _The
Professor_ implicated with a mysterious "Lucia," whom he would have
married but could not, which Lucia we discover to have meant really the
original of the Lucy Snowe of _Villette_--Charlotte Brontë herself.
It is obvious that while Currer Bell, for "story" and other purposes,
made use of a composite method in presenting a portrait, she drew from
characters who possessed much in common: as with the composite character
of the Rev. Mr. Helstone, meant for her father, a clergyman, but
presenting also a phase of another clergyman, the Rev. Hammond Roberson;
and as with Dr. John Bretton, a composite character drawn from the two
Scotsmen, Mr. Smith her publisher, and the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, who
subsequently became her husband. Doubtless, characteristics in the
Taylors were similar to some of M. Héger's. Perhaps the fact that they
spoke French and sojourned on the Continent, accentuated to her these
characteristics. In a letter, Miss Brontë described all the Taylors as
"Republicans." And so of Yorke Hunsden in _The Professor_, Chap. XXIV.,
we read, "republican, lord-hater, as he was, Hunsden was proud of his
old ----shire blood ... and family standing." Thus, in _Shirley_, Chap.
IV., in which work that character appears stripped of the Héger element,
as Mr. Yorke, we read of the latter:--
Kings and nobles and priests ... were to him an abomination....
The want of ... benevolence made him very impatient of ... all
faults which grated on his strong, shrewd nature: it left no check
to his ... sarcasm. As he was not merciful, he would sometimes
wound ... without ... caring how deep he thrust.... Mr. Yorke's
family was the first and oldest in the district.
_Viâ_ Yorke Hunsden of _The Professor_ and Mr. Yorke of _Shirley_ the
reader has returned to a character who typified more than any other of
Charlotte Brontë's Yorkshire-Héger portrayals the merciless, strong and
shrewd-natured Taylor--Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_. But the
Yorkshire element in Heathcliffe was a caricature and an exaggeration
for the purposes of the "cuckoo story," resulting from the tale Montagu
tells of a foundling; and the emphasis laid upon his barbarity was
largely a result, too, of the consideration I mention in the chapters
entitled "The Recoil," which consideration had to do with the Héger
phase of Heathcliffe. The fact that evidence shows Heathcliffe to have
been, like Hunsden and Rochester, a composite character drawn from a
dual model--the Taylor-Héger model--traceable in origin absolutely to
Charlotte Brontë's idiosyncratic estimate of two male characters who are
shown to have seriously interested her, in itself sufficiently
demonstrates her authorship of _Wuthering Heights_, and is indeed of
great interest.
If reference be made to a letter written by Charlotte Brontë in
1846, the year when she offered _Wuthering Heights_ to a publisher,
it will be found she mentioned that one of the Taylors had--like
Heathcliffe--suffered in the teens of years from hypochondria, "a most
dreadful doom," Charlotte called it, and related she herself had endured
it for a year.[51]
Having herself suffered thus, there was a temptation--at what I
elsewhere call the dark season of Charlotte Brontë's inner life, at the
season of the recoil--to present in her work _Wuthering Heights_ the
Yorkshire-Héger with the hypochondria of her Yorkshire model, and let
his demon be the original of her Catherine Earnshaw--be herself. To this
temptation Charlotte Brontë gave no opposition, much to her regret
later. Herewith we have the origin of Heathcliffe's miserable
hypochondria and monomania--his digging for Catherine in the grave till
his spade scraped the coffin, in _Wuthering Heights_, Chap. XXIX., and
his saying because his "preternatural horror" always haunted, but never
abided with him:--
"She showed herself, ... a devil to me! And, since then ... I've
been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal--keeping my
nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut,
they would long ago have relaxed.... It racked me! I've groaned
aloud.... It was a strange way of killing! not by inches, but by
fractions of hairbreadths, ... through eighteen years!" Mr.
Heathcliffe paused, ... his hair wet with perspiration, ... the
brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the
grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of
trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one
absorbing subject.
In the light of the foregoing, therefore, we may understand the truth of
Charlotte Brontë's narration in _The Professor_, Chap. XXIII.:--
My nerves ... jarred ... A horror of great darkness fell upon me;
I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly, ... I was
... a prey to hypochondria. She had been ... my guest ... before
... for a year.... I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me,
she ate with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills,
where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear
veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree;
taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom and holding me with
arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such hours!... How
she would discourse to me of her own country--the grave.... I was
glad when ... I could ... sit ... freed from the dreadful tyranny
of my demon.
Both by reason of Mrs. Gaskell's suspicion that she had drawn from them
in the portrayals of the heroes of her first books and by reason of the
undeniable evidence of her works, we must accept the Taylors as the
originals of most that was "Yorkshire" in Charlotte Brontë's Yorke
Hunsden, Heathcliffe, Rochester, and Yorke, understanding the term in
Currer Bell's implication of "independent," "hard," and "open-spoken."
But M. Héger contributed what Charlotte Brontë calls in Chap. XXVII. of
_Villette_, in speaking of him as M. Paul Emanuel--"that swart, sallow,
southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood," and this gave colour
to the physiognomy of "the swart, sallow" Heathcliffe and Rochester.[52]
In the succeeding chapters I deal more particularly with the relation of
Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_, to Rochester of _Jane Eyre_, and I
promise my readers to present therein most important and sensational
revelations.
CHAPTER X.
HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE" ONE
AND THE SAME.
Without herewith further entering into the question as to the original
of the morose and harsh characters who were the heroes of Charlotte
Brontë's novels, I will at once show she had drawn from the same model
in both _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_. I have given in the
foregoing chapter the introduction of Lockwood to Heathcliffe and that
of Jane to Rochester side by side. Let us also read the following:--
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Heathcliffe. Rochester.
With a stubborn countenance ... Most people would have thought
Heathcliffe is a dark-skinned Mr. Rochester an ugly man; yet
gipsy in aspect, in dress and there was an unconscious pride
manners a gentleman; ... rather in his port; so much ease in his
slovenly, perhaps, yet not demeanour; such a look of
looking amiss with his complete indifference to his own
negligence, because he has an appearance ... that ... one
erect and handsome figure; and inevitably shared the
rather morose. Possibly some indifference, and even in a
people might suspect him of a blind sense put faith in his
degree of under-bred pride; I confidence.... He was proud,
have a sympathetic cord within sardonic; ... in my secret soul
that tells me it is nothing of I knew his kindness to me was
the sort: I know by instinct his balanced by unjust severity to
reserve springs from an aversion others. He was moody, too, ...
to showy displays of feeling--to and when he looked up a morose,
manifestations of mutual almost a malignant, scowl
kindliness. He'll love and hate blackened his features.
equally under one cover, and
esteem it a species of
impertinence to be loved or
hated again. No, I am running on
too fast; I bestow my own
attributes over liberally on
him.
Heathcliffe and Rochester are both black-avised, stubborn of
countenance, negligent as to external appearance, moody, proud in carry,
and morose. Charlotte Brontë tells us of one that on external judgment
"most people would have thought him" possessed of a disqualification,
and of the other that "some people might suspect him" of having a
disqualification. And in each case a similar offset--the internal
reading of the man's character--is brought forth by Charlotte Brontë as
Lockwood or Jane:--"A sympathetic cord within" tells the former that
Heathcliffe's reserve read as under-bred pride springs from an aversion
to "manifestations of mutual kindliness"; and Jane, commenting on
Rochester's being proud and sardonic, says, "In my secret heart I
knew ... his kindliness to me was balanced by unjust severity to
others."
I find the singular expression indicated by the "hell's light" epithets
applied to Heathcliffe's eyes was an expression Charlotte Brontë had
apparently noticed in the original of this character. Rochester's eyes
in _Jane Eyre_ have "strange gleams," and we are told "his eye had a
tawny--nay, a bloody light in its gloom," and so forth. Indeed,
Heathcliffe's eyes, which were "clouded windows of hell" with
"black-fire in them," are seen in Rochester's clearly enough, and the
singular "hell's light" is associated with them at considerable length,
in
_Jane Eyre_:--
And as for the vague something--was it a sinister or a sorrowful
... expression?--that opened upon a careful observer ... in his
eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth
partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and
shrink, as if I had been wandering amongst volcanic-looking hills,
and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape.
The following description of Heathcliffe could be read as of Rochester,
whose "olive cheek" and "deep eyes" Jane describes:--
_Wuthering Heights._
His cheeks were sallow and half-covered with black whiskers, the
brows were lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered
the eyes. His upright carry suggested his having been in the army
[M. Héger had fought as a soldier] ... His countenance ... looked
intelligent. A half-civilized ferocity lurked in the depressed
brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, and his
manner was even dignified, though too stern for grace.
In view of the general evidence that Heathcliffe, like Rochester, was
drawn by Charlotte Brontë from M. Héger, her Brussels friend the
professor, it is not surprising that Heathcliffe's was "a deep voice and
foreign in sound." Her reference in _Wuthering Heights_ to his Spanish
extraction reminds us of M. Paul Emanuel's "jetty hair and Spanish face"
in _Villette_, and of course it is well known M. Paul Emanuel was drawn
by Currer Bell from M. Héger.
CHAPTER XI.
CATHERINE AND HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AS JANE AND ROCHESTER
OF "JANE EYRE."
We have already seen Catherine in _Wuthering Heights_ represented
Charlotte Brontë as intimately portrayed by herself in the work, and
that Heathcliffe was drawn by her from the original of the Rochester of
_Jane Eyre_. So faithfully did Charlotte Brontë tell again in _Jane
Eyre_ the history of her life in relation to her family and M. Héger,
that she gives the main lines of her biography in both works. I will
show them side by side.
For the literal parallels when not given in this chapter see the index.
My amazing discovery on the return of the runaway Heathcliffe to
Catherine and the return of the runaway Jane to Rochester I give
literally herewith.
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Opening scene: A rainy day in Opening scene: A rainy day in
Catherine's (Charlotte Brontë's) Jane's (Charlotte Brontë's)
childhood. She is treated childhood. She is treated
unkindly by the rest of the unkindly by the rest of the
household. It is impossible to household. It is impossible to
go out on account of the rain. go out on account of the rain.
She had been commanded to keep She had been commanded to keep
aloof from the family group. aloof from the family group.
This group included in This group included in
particular, little Catherine particular, little Jane tells us
tells us with bitter feeling, with bitter feeling, John Reed
Hindley Earnshaw (Branwell (Branwell Brontë), who
Brontë), who luxuriated in the luxuriated in the warmth of the
warmth of the fire with other fire with other members of the
members of the family. family.
Nevertheless, though banished, Nevertheless, though banished
Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) herself, Jane (Charlotte Brontë)
makes herself snug in a recess makes herself snug in a recess
behind a curtain, and believes behind a curtain, and believes
herself secure, when Hindley herself secure, when John Reed
Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë), (Branwell Brontë), coming up
coming up from his paradise on from his paradise on the hearth,
the hearth, makes her come out makes her come out of the recess
of the recess precipitantly, precipitantly. He hurls the book
after she has hurled the book she was reading. Little Jane
she was reading. Little (Charlotte Brontë) sees a tyrant
Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) in John Reed (Branwell Brontë).
sees a tyrant in Hindley He tells her that he is the
Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë). He master of the house, or soon
tells her that he is the master will be.
of the house.
Later, Catherine complains to Later, Jane complains to herself
herself of her brother Hindley's of John Reed's (Branwell's)
(Branwell's) tyrannies. He has tyrannies. He has made her cry
made her cry and her head ached, and her head ached, she says, as
she says, as a result of his a result of his behaviour.
behaviour.
Little Catherine (Charlotte Little Jane (Charlotte Brontë),
Brontë), although she was held although she was held to be
to be passionate, and was passionate, and was treated
treated harshly and almost as an harshly and almost an outsider
outsider by the rest of the by the rest of the household,
household, finds a kind, but finds a kind, but apparently
apparently unsympathetic, friend unsympathetic, friend in a
in a woman-servant, Nelly Dean, woman-servant, Bessie, who has a
who has a remarkable gift of remarkable gift of narrative,
narrative, like Tabitha Aykroyd, like Tabitha Aykroyd, whom
whom Charlotte Brontë loved, and Charlotte Brontë loved, and who
who came to the Haworth came to the Haworth parsonage
parsonage when Charlotte was when Charlotte was about nine
about nine years of age. But years of age. But even Bessie
even Nelly Dean (Tabitha (Tabitha Aykroyd) sometimes
Aykroyd) sometimes tasked and tasked and scolded Jane
scolded Catherine (Charlotte (Charlotte Brontë) unreasonably,
Brontë) unreasonably, and and mistrusted her.
mistrusted her.
She even believes that Catherine She even believes that Jane
(Charlotte Brontë) is an actor (Charlotte) is an actor and
and feigns in regard to certain feigns in regard to certain fits
fits of frenzy. of frenzy.
On the occasion of one of these On the occasion of one of these
bouts of frenzy, Catherine bouts of frenzy, Jane (Charlotte
(Charlotte Brontë) is in a room, Brontë) is in a room, the door
the door of which has been of which has been locked.
locked.
In a paroxysm of alarm, In a paroxysm of alarm, Jane
Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) (Charlotte Brontë) summons
summons Mrs. Dean (Tabitha Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd)
Aykroyd) frantically, and with a frantically, and with a piercing
piercing scream. The latter scream. The latter enters
enters annoyed, and quite annoyed, and quite
unsympathetic. unsympathetic.
It is suggested Catherine was It is suggested Jane was only
only acting, and Catherine acting, and Jane overhears this.
overhears this. She had desired She finds Bessie (Tabitha
Mrs. Dean (Tabitha Aykroyd) to Aykroyd) at the foot of her bed
bring her a basin of gruel. with a basin in her hand.
Catherine (Charlotte) relates Jane (Charlotte) relates her
her fears of the locked room: fears of the locked room: How
How she thought it haunted; she she thought it haunted; she
showed fear of the mirror, and showed fear of the mirror, and
describes excitedly to Mrs. Dean describes excitedly to Bessie
(Tabitha) her terrifying (Tabitha) her terrifying
sensations previous to her sensations previous to her
losing consciousness, and how losing consciousness. She
she supposed she must supposed she must immediately
immediately have had a species have had a species of fit.
of fit.
Mrs. Dean (Tabitha) suggests Bessie (Tabitha) suggests sleep
sleep to Catherine (Charlotte to Jane (Charlotte Brontë).
Brontë).
Mrs. Dean (Tabitha) believes Bessie (Tabitha) believes that
that to see the apparition of a the apparition of a child is a
child is a sign of calamity sign of calamity having befallen
having befallen some one near some one near akin. Jane dreams
akin. One day Mrs. Dean sees a of a child-apparition, and fears
child-apparition, and fears it it may be a sign of calamity,
may be a sign of calamity to and the day following Bessie's
Catherine's (Charlotte's) husband brings word of the
brother, Hindley Earnshaw disgrace of John Reed (Branwell
(Branwell Brontë). He is really Brontë, Charlotte's brother).
in disgrace.
Catherine falls in love with Jane falls in love with a
a morose, "sallow-cheeked" morose, "olive-cheeked"
individual with deep eyes, that individual with deep eyes, that
have a singular expression, have a singular expression,
which makes the narrator which makes the narrator
associate "hell's light" with associate "hell's light" with
them. He has a handsome, erect them. He has a handsome, erect
carry, but is rather negligent carry, but is rather negligent
in his apparel. His speech is in his apparel. His speech is
abrupt. (His name is abrupt. (His name is Rochester.)
Heathcliffe.)
But Catherine loved him, and he But Jane loved him, and he loved
loved Catherine. Indeed, Jane. Indeed, Jane likens
Catherine likens themselves to a themselves to a cloven tree,
cloven tree by saying that which is one at the root, but
whosoever would come between divided by storm. Thus she
them to divide them would meet believes in the "twin-soul" or
the fate of Mïlo, who, of the elective affinities, and
course, endeavoured to drive says of Rochester:--
asunder a cloven tree held
firmly at its base, and was
himself trapped by it for his
pains. Thus she believes in the
"twin-soul" or the elective
affinities, and says:--
"It would degrade me to marry "I feel akin to him.... I have
Heathcliffe now; so he shall something in my brain and heart
never know how I love him; and that assimilates me mentally to
that not because he's handsome, him.... I know I must conceal my
... but because he's more myself sentiments.... Yet, while I
than I am. Whatever our souls breathe and think, I must love
are made of, his and mine are him."[53]
the same."[53]
However, Heathcliffe and However, Rochester and Jane
Catherine part, Heathcliffe part, Jane running away
running away unexpectedly. unexpectedly.
(Method I., interchange of
the sexes of characters.)
Catherine dreams she is in Jane finds refuge with the
heaven, but broke her heart to Rivers family (the Brontë family
come to earth again, upon which at Haworth). She is tempted to
the angels flung her out near take to a religious
Heathcliffe's abode, where she life:--"Angels beckoned, and
awoke sobbing for joy: Catherine Heaven rolled together like a
preferred her lover to scroll," but she heard
heaven.[54] Rochester's voice calling,
though he was miles away. Jane
preferred her lover to
heaven.[54]
The two parted lovers, however, The two parted lovers, however,
meet again, and by Charlotte meet again, and by Charlotte
Brontë's Method I., (interchange Brontë's Method I., (interchange
of the sexes of characters of the sexes of characters
portrayed), we arrive at another portrayed), we arrive at another
of my sensational and important of my sensational and important
Brontë discoveries. Brontë discoveries.
THE RETURN OF THE RUNAWAY LOVER THE RETURN OF THE RUNAWAY LOVER
HEATHCLIFFE TO CATHERINE.[55] JANE TO ROCHESTER.[55]
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Chapter X. Chapter XXXVII.
On [an] ... evening ... I was ... I came, just ere dark ...
coming from the garden.... It the darkness ... of dusk
had got dusk, ... the moon gathered.... I beheld the
causing ... shadows to lurk in house--scarce by this dim light
the corners of ... portions of distinguishable.... Entering a
the building. I set my burden on portal fastened by a latch, ...
the house steps by the ... door I stood.... The windows were
and lingered to rest ... my back latticed, ... the front door was
to the entrance, when I heard a narrow; ... one step led up to
voice behind me say:-- it.... I heard a movement--that
narrow front-door was unclosing,
"... Is that you?" and some shape was about to
issue from the grange.
It was a deep voice, and foreign [Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering
in sound.... Something stirred Heights_ version of the returned
in the porch; and moving nearer runaway lover, is also staged at
I distinguished a tall man "the grange."] It opened slowly:
dressed in dark clothes, with a figure came out into the
dark face and hair. He leant twilight and stood on the step;
against the side, and held his a man, ... he stretched forth
fingers on the latch as if his hand.... Dusk as it was I
intending to open for had recognized him--it was my
himself.... A ray fell on his master ... Rochester. I stayed
features; the cheeks were my step, almost my breath....
sallow, and half-covered with His form was of the same strong
black whiskers; the brows and stalwart contour as ever:
lowering, the eyes deep-set and his port was still erect, his
singular. I remembered the eyes. hair was still raven-black: nor
were his features altered or
sunk.... But in his countenance
I saw a change: that looked
desperate and brooding--that
reminded me of some wronged and
fettered wild beast or bird,
dangerous to approach in his
sullen woe.... He closed the
door. I now drew near and
knocked: John's wife opened for
me.... She started as if she had
seen a ghost: I calmed her. To
her hurried "Is it really you,
"What!" I cried, uncertain Miss, come at this late
whether to regard him as a hour...?" I answered by taking
worldly visitor, and raised my her hand.
hands in amazement. "What! you
come back? Is it really you? Is "... Tell your master ... a
it?" person wishes to speak to him."
"Yes; Heathcliffe," he replied When she returned, I inquired
... "where is she?... Is she what he had said.
here? Speak! I want to have one
word with her--your mistress "You are to send in your name
[Catherine]. Go, and say some and business," she replied.
person ... desires to see her."
She then proceeded to fill a
"... And you _are_ Heathcliffe. glass of water, and place it on
But altered!" a tray, together with candles.
... I could not persuade myself "Is that what he rang for?" I
to proceed. At length I resolved asked.
on making an excuse to ask if
... [Catherine] would have the "Yes; he always has candles
candles lighted, and I opened brought in at dusk...."
the door. [She] sat ... by a
window whose lattice lay back. "Give the tray to me, I will
carry it in."
"What does he want?" asked
Catherine. ... Mary opened the door for
me.... Mr. Rochester turned
"I did not question him," I mechanically.
answered.
"This is you, Mary, is it not?"
... Mr. Edgar inquired ... who
it was? "Mary is in the kitchen," I
answered.
"Some one mistress does not
expect," I replied. "That "_Who_ is it? _What_ is it? Who
Heathcliffe.... Hush! you must speaks?"
not call him ... names.... She'd
be sadly grieved to hear you. "... I came only this evening,"
She was nearly heart-broken when I answered.
he ran off. I guess his return
will make a jubilee to her." "Great God!--what delusion has
come over me? What sweet madness
"Oh, ... Heathcliffe's come has seized me?... Oh! I _cannot_
back--he is," panted Catherine. see.... Whatever--whoever you
"... I'll ... secure my guest. are--be perceptible to my touch
I'm afraid the joy is too great or I cannot live!"
to be real!"
I arrested his hand and prisoned
"... Catherine, try to be glad it in both mine.
without being absurd! The whole
household need not witness the "Is that Jane?"
sight of your welcoming a
runaway servant." "... This is her voice," I
added.... "My dear master, ... I
I ... found Heathcliffe ... and am Jane Eyre:... I am come back
ushered him into the presence of to you."
the master and mistress.
"In truth?--in the flesh? My
... Now, I was amazed [by] the living Jane?"
transformation of
Heathcliffe;... A half-civilized "You touch me, sir--you hold me.
ferocity lurked yet in the I am not vacant like air, am I?"
depressed brows and eyes full of
black fire, but it was subdued, "... But I cannot be so blest
quite divested of roughness, after all my misery. It is a
though too stern for grace.... dream: such dreams I have
He took a seat opposite had.... But I always woke and
Catherine, who kept her gaze found it an empty mockery; and I
fixed on him, as if she feared was desolate and abandoned."
he would vanish were she to
remove it. He did not raise his ... I began ... to withdraw
to her often; a quick glance now myself from his arms--but he
and then sufficed; but it eagerly snatched me closer:--
flashed back each time; ... the
undisguised delight he drank "No, you must not go. No--I have
from hers.... Catherine ... rose touched you, heard you; ... my
and seized Heathcliffe's hands very soul demands you.... Who
again, and laughed like one can tell what a dark, hopeless
beside herself. life I have dragged on for
months past? ... feeling but a
"I shall think it a dream ceaseless sorrow, and at times a
to-morrow!" she cried. "I shall very delirium of desire to
not be able to believe that I behold my Jane again. Yes; for
have seen and touched, and her restoration I longed....
spoken to you once more.... Will she not depart as suddenly
Cruel Heathcliffe! You don't as she came? To-morrow ... I
deserve this welcome. To be shall find her no more....
absent and silent for three Cruel, cruel deserter! O Jane,
years, and never to think of what did I feel when I
me!" discovered you had fled and left
Thornfield?"
"... I've fought through a
bitter life since I last heard "Jane! ... my heart swells
your voice, and you must forgive with gratitude to the beneficent
me, for I struggled only for God of this earth just now.... I
you!" did wrong: I would have sullied
my innocent flower: the
"... The event of this evening," Omnipotent snatched it from me.
said Catherine, "has reconciled I, in my stiff-necked rebellion,
me to God and humanity! I had almost cursed the dispensation:
risen in angry rebellion against instead of bending to the decree
Providence--oh, I've endured I defied it.... Of late, Jane,
very, very bitter misery.... I ... I began to experience
can afford to suffer anything remorse, repentance; the wish
hereafter! Should the meanest for reconciliation to my
thing alive slap me on the Maker.... Now I thank God."
cheek, I'd not only turn the
other, but I'd ask pardon for
provoking it.... I'm an angel!"
(Later on in _Wuthering Heights_
Charlotte Brontë, temporarily
neglecting her use of Method I.,
interchange of the sexes, in
this connection, makes
Heathcliffe say to Catherine:--
"Why did you betray your own
heart, Cathy?... You loved me,
then what _right_ had you to
leave me?... Because misery and
degradation and death and
nothing that God or Satan could
inflict would have parted us,
_you_ of your own will did it.").
The above parallel descriptions, it will be found, agree practically
word for word. I will now give the substance side by side, and let the
reader keep in mind Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the
sexes of characters:--
_Wuthering Heights._ _Jane Eyre._
Catherine and Heathcliffe love Jane and Rochester love each
each other, but Heathcliffe other, but Jane suddenly
suddenly disappears. disappears.
One evening Heathcliffe as One evening Jane as suddenly
suddenly returns. The narrator returns. The narrator of the
of the return of the runaway return of the runaway Jane tells
Heathcliffe tells us that it is us that it is evening, and she
evening, and she is outside the is outside the house, when in
house, when in the dim light she the dim light she distinguishes
distinguishes the figure of a the figure of a man, a stranger
man, a stranger she has not seen she has not seen for some time.
for some time. Dusk as it is, Dusk as it is, she recognizes
she recognizes Heathcliffe. Rochester.
In his countenance, however, In his countenance, however,
there is "a transformation, ... there is "a change--that looked
a half-civilized ferocity lurked desperate and brooding--that
yet in his eyes full of black reminded ... of ... some
fire, but was subdued." fettered wild beast ...
dangerous to approach in his
sullen woe."
"What! you come back? Is it "Is it really you, Miss, come at
really you?" cries the servant, this late hour?" cries the
"raising her hands, uncertain servant, "starting as if she had
whether to regard him as a seen a ghost," addressing the
worldly visitor," addressing the runaway Jane.
runaway Heathcliffe.
"I want to have one word with "... Tell your master a person
your mistress," says Heathcliffe wishes to see him," says Jane to
to the servant. "Go and tell her the servant.
some person ... desires to see
her."
But there is a difficulty, and But there is a difficulty, and
eventually, to accomplish the eventually, to accomplish the
meeting of the parted lovers, meeting of the parted lovers,
the taking in of the candles is the taking in of the candles is
considered as a pretext. considered as a pretext.
Catherine cries:--"Heathcliffe's Rochester cries:--"... What
come back--he is.... I'm afraid sweet delusion has come over me?
the joy is too great to be What sweet madness has seized
real!" me?"
"I shall think it a dream "I am come back to you," says
to-morrow. I shall not be able Jane.
to believe I have seen and
touched and spoken to you once "I have touched you, heard
more," says Catherine to you.... To-morrow I fear I shall
Heathcliffe. And reproachfully find [you] no more," says
he exclaims:-- Rochester to Jane. And
reproachfully he exclaims:--
"I've fought through a bitter
life since last I heard your "Who can tell what a dark,
voice, and you must forgive me, hopeless life I have dragged on
for I struggled only for you." for months past? ... feeling ...
but ... a ceaseless sorrow and
"Cruel Heathcliffe, you don't ... a very delirium of desire to
deserve this welcome," says behold my Jane again. Yes; for
Catherine; "to be absent ... and her restoration I longed....
never think of me." Cruel, cruel, deserter! O Jane,
what did I feel when I
discovered you had fled from
Thornfield?" says Rochester.
Catherine had risen in angry Rochester had risen in angry
rebellion against God because of rebellion against God because of
the cruel fate that had divided the cruel fate that had divided
her and Heathcliffe; but now him and Jane, but now that she
that he was restored to her, she was restored to him, he was
was reconciled, and was thankful reconciled, and was thankful of
of heart. heart.
-------- --------
And thus, from the rainy day And thus, from the rainy day
incident in Catherine's early incident in Jane's early
childhood to the reconciliation childhood to the reconciliation
of Catherine and Heathcliffe, we of Jane and Rochester, we have
have the main narrative of the the main narrative of the
heroine and hero of _Wuthering heroine and hero of _Jane Eyre_,
Heights_, obviously written by obviously written by Charlotte
Charlotte Brontë from facts in Brontë from facts in her own
her own life. life.
The absolute dependence of Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane
Eyre_, and _Villette_ upon her own inner life in relation to M. Héger is
proved by the evidence in the chapter on "The Rivers Family," in the
chapters on "Eugène Sue and Charlotte Brontë's Brussels Life," and in
those entitled "The Recoil."
CHAPTER XII.
EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE.
I.
MDLLE. LAGRANGE AND HER MANUSCRIPT "CATHERINE BELL THE ORPHAN."
When Mrs. Gaskell published her Brontë biography it was discovered that
while she had been enabled by aid of the mass of commonplace Brontë
correspondence to present an interesting picture of the domestic
conditions at the Haworth parsonage, she had yet been unable to throw
any light upon that episode in Charlotte Brontë's life which, it had
been suspected, was responsible for the extraordinary love passages in
the Brontë works and Miss Brontë's insistence in choosing the hero of
each of her books from the same model.
It is therefore most miraculous and sensational that after having found
Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_ was the key to _Wuthering Heights_ and
_Jane Eyre_, I should further come to discover, what the world had
thought would never be found: external evidence throwing light upon Miss
Brontë's real relations with the Hégers at Brussels, to whose
_pensionnat_ she went in the 'forties. This discovery was the subject of
my article "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil" Mr. W. L. Courtney
commissioned me to write in the _Fortnightly Review_. Therein I showed
Eugène Sue had presented the whole history of M. Héger's passion for
Charlotte Brontë, and Madame Héger's jealousy, in a work entitled _Miss
Mary ou l'Institutrice_, published in 1850-51--seven years before the
publication of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life_, and before the publication of
either _The Professor_ or _Villette_; and we saw that M. Héger knew all
Miss Brontë's literary secrets in 1850.
Skilfully enough Eugène Sue in this story--the first version of which
was issued serially in September 1850, from _The Weekly Times_ Office,
London, whence were published many of M. Sue's serials;[56] the second,
an abridged and altered version for French readers, published in Paris
in March 1851--gave two phases of Charlotte Brontë, something after the
method we see Miss Brontë herself employed in _Jane Eyre_, wherein she
gave two phases of Tabitha Aykroyd, one in the beginning as Bessie,
another later on as Hannah of the Rivers family.[57]
Indeed it will be found that in this work Eugène Sue also imitated
Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the sexes of characters
portrayed from life.
The two phases of Miss Brontë in this romance are Miss Mary Lawson, an
Irish governess at the de Morville establishment; and Mademoiselle
Lagrange, a former governess at the same house. The Mademoiselle
Lagrange is, however, always referred to in the abstract, and serves to
illustrate, it appears, Miss Brontë before her first departure from and
return to Brussels, as well as after, for she was twice at the Hégers.
And it may be observed that Charlotte Brontë was called "Mademoiselle
Charlotte" at the Héger _pension_ when she was governess there in 1843.
Certainly the choice of Lagrange for Miss Brontë was pertinent: _la
grange_ is French for "the barn," and may have been suggested by the
Eyre of _Jane Eyre_, which to a French ear would recall _aire_--a barn
floor. Mdlle. Lagrange who had left the de Morville (_Anglicè_, Morton.
As we have seen, Morton of _Jane Eyre_ was Haworth to Charlotte Brontë)
establishment on account of the jealousy of Madame de Morville, whom I
identify as Madame Héger, is a plain-featured literary aspirant, and she
writes a manuscript entitled not exactly Currer Bell, but "Kitty Bell,
the Orphan."
This manuscript has been sent by the author for an opinion of its merits
to M. de Morville, who reads it aloud to his family. It is a parody, as
it were, of _Jane Eyre_, with an imitation of Charlotte Brontë's methods
of introducing private biographical facts. For instance, in presenting
the Lowood school incidents it calls the school "the Kendall Institute,"
named after "a Mr. Kendall, its founder." Evidently the writer had
heard, as only few indeed had at this early day, that the Lowood school
of _Jane Eyre_ was afterwards removed to Casterton in the Union of
Kendal, or had heard that in a wise it was connected with a place of
that name.
Other extraordinary facts with which he shows acquaintance are, that
Charlotte Brontë had a sister Elizabeth at this school; that Helen Burns
was her sister; that there was a West Indian girl at the school; that
Charlotte Brontë was born on or about the 21st of April; that she might
be called Kitty (Currer) Bell at home, but she must be called Catherine
(Catherine Earnshaw); that Miss Brontë was the governess-daughter of an
Irishman; that the original of John Reed was her brother and was no
hero, and had shown strange signs of insanity during the last year or
two, as it is now known he had at the time; that a female relative had
provided Miss Brontë the money for the _pensionnat_; that skin disorders
as well as the typhus fever were prevalent at the Clergy Daughters'
School (it is in a private letter that Miss Brontë referred to scrofula
at this school); that the original of Mr. Rochester was a foreigner and
a resident abroad, an ex-soldier, and married to a lady who was not
pretty, albeit "la vivacité, l'agrément de sa physionomie expressive,
suppléaient à la beauté qui lui manquait"; that Charlotte Brontë had had
in her possession since her childhood an old copy in English of _The
Imitation of Christ_; that Miss Brontë was called a _bas bleu_ at the
_pensionnat_; that to form an opinion of her character by Madame Héger's
estimate of her disposition would be completely erroneous; that M. Héger
was accustomed to read _feuilletons_ aloud; that religious differences
existed between her and others at the establishment where Charlotte
Brontë was; that Catherine's (Catherine Earnshaw's) rival was Isabella
(Heathcliffe's wife--Madame Héger of the Rue d'Isabelle); that Miss
Brontë travelled alone to Brussels and was accosted by _deux jeunes
gens_--compare the opening chapters of _Miss Mary_ with Lucy Snowe's
arrival at Villette, evidently in some wise founded on fact, as to these
two young men. See also _The Professor_, Chapter VII.
But to return to "Mdlle. Lagrange's Manuscript," the pseudo _Jane Eyre_,
which of course at once identifies its author, Mdlle. Lagrange, as
Charlotte Brontë, I find therein the whole Lowood school incidents--the
typhus fever, the hair-cutting incident, the death of the consumptive
Helen Burns, etc., amplified with biographical additions. For instance,
take the hair-cutting incident of _Jane Eyre_ as represented in
"Lagrange's Manuscript"--
The master called out:--
"Elizabeth----"
... Meanwhile all the Elizabeths in the school must have felt the
claws of the tiger in their necks, for who could tell which of them
it was?...
"Superintendent of the Kendall Institute! you are aware, madam, one
of the rules of this establishment enjoins you to cut short the
hair of every new girl.... And yet what do I see? Six girls with
long hair...."
The last of these had not been a week at the institution. She was a
girl of fourteen, very dark, ... with a fine tinge of the Creole in
her face. How well I thought did Isabella Hutchinson, with her
dark, West Indian head, look by the side of the fair Yorkshire
girl, Sophia Leigh, whose pale, straw-coloured locks, looked paler
still by the side of that dark heap of hair, blacker than a raven's
wing...[!]
We have seen in the chapter on "The Rivers or Brontë Family in _Jane
Eyre_" that Charlotte Brontë portrayed in the character Julia Severn,
who is first mentioned in connection with the hair-cutting incident, her
sister Elizabeth, and it is most significant that M. Sue made play upon
the name Elizabeth in the connection. In regard to the mention of a West
Indian girl at the Lowood school and her being coupled with a
fair-haired Yorkshire girl, it is important to note that no reference is
made in _Jane Eyre_ to a West Indian girl at this school. It is indeed
astonishing how much M. Sue knew of Charlotte Brontë's private life.
Here we find him telling the world in 1850 of a West Indian girl being
with Charlotte Brontë at the Clergy Daughters' School, and not till
seven years later did Mrs. Gaskell learn of the Rev. Patrick
Brontë--Charlotte Brontë was then dead--that a girl from the West Indies
had been Charlotte's friend at this school. Her name, he thought, was
Mellany Hane, so far as he could remember to pronounce it. Mysteriously
enough, the words "West Indies" or "West Indian" in this connection have
been deleted from the later editions of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of
Charlotte Brontë_. See the Second Edition.
"Lagrange's Manuscript" is of considerable length and interest, and can
be drawn upon in future editions of _The Key to the Brontë Works_.
Frequently it follows in parallel to _Jane Eyre_, but as parody
interspersed with biographical details which must have been intended
chiefly for Charlotte Brontë herself, as scarcely any one else could at
that day have understood the pertinence of the references.[58] Take a
Helen Burns incident whereby M. Sue shows he is aware she was a Brontë
sister, older than Charlotte--Maria Brontë who died of consumption:--
But the inexorable hand ... was upon Agnes Jones [Helen Burns].
Day by day I saw her pretty cheeks growing thinner and thinner,
her eyes sinking still more deeply into her head, her little mouth
becoming more blue and ashy, her long, thin fingers more
transparent. Her voice, at all times so meek and low, dwindled
away to that thin and tiny sound to which we listen as to
something absent--already gone--something that comes from above or
below us--that is not living amongst us--not breathing as we
breathe--a retreating echo, rather than a living voice--a sigh,
and not a sound.... It was not much I had learned from Agnes
[Helen] since I had been at the institution; but never till then
had I known her spirit so genial, her heart so lovingly
persuasive; the beneficent lessons of those days, burning like
candles within me, have since guided me well through life: _she
spoke to me like a prophet, and I listened to her like a
believer_. Oh, I could have lived for ever in that chamber, and
Agnes [Helen] might have been to me the world! How often, as our
cheeks lay against each other have I wished that I, too, had been
ill, so that I also might have died, as she was dying, in my
innocence!... One evening, ... just at that pleasant hour of
twilight when two of God's wonders--night and day--cross each
other like ships on the sea, Agnes [Helen] said:--'Life has its
holiness as well as death, Catherine [Jane]; and you may live in
the world as purely and justly as those who die in the cradle.'
"The world is full of temptation?"
"So it is, but there lies the merit, my dear; wrestle with
temptation and do what is right, ... you must not allow my death
to afflict you much, since I rejoice at it.... If you think of me,
think of me living, not dead. Think of your playfellow in the
garden; think of your elder sister who lived with you for six
years."
Maria Brontë, Charlotte's eldest sister, and the original of Helen
Burns, died when Charlotte was eight or nine. It is sensational indeed,
that M. Sue thus identified Helen Burns seven years before the
publication of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_. The death of
this character in "Lagrange's Manuscript" is in perfect agreement with
that of Helen Burns. I will place the two side by side:--
_Jane Eyre._ "Kitty Bell, the Orphan."
Chapter IX. By the Mademoiselle Lagrange, of
Eugène Sue's _Miss Mary ou
By Currer Bell. L'Institutrice_.
The death of Helen Burns. The death of Agnes Jones.
That forest dell, where Lowood The Master of the Kendall
lay, was the cradle of ... Institution ... had ... been
fog-bred pestilence, which ... very much shocked by the ravages
crept into the Orphan Asylum, of typhus fever, and since the
breathed typhus through [it] ... reports of Agnes's health had
and transformed the seminary become serious, had sent several
into a hospital.... One evening times to ascertain how she
... Mr. Bates came out, and ... was.... "Miss Bell, I am come to
a nurse.... I ran up to her. inquire after our friend, Miss
Jones."
"How is Helen Burns?"
"... Agnes is always calm and
"Very poorly," was the easy-minded.... This is very
answer.... Two hours later ... I kind of you."
reached ... Miss Temple's room,
... I looked in. My eye sought ... As I was preparing to lie
Helen, and feared to find down in the room, Agnes called
death.... "Helen!" I whispered to me:--
softly; "are you awake?"
"Catherine, my dear, I feel
... I got on to her crib and rather cold to-night; will you
kissed her: her forehead was sleep with me?"
cold, and her cheek both cold
and thin, and so were her hand Of course I complied, and we lay
and wrist, but she smiled as of talking in each other's arms
old. until the sweet dove fell
asleep. Poor Agnes, she was
"Jane, ... lie down and cover indeed cold; a strange chill
yourself with the quilt." came through me as I lay by her
side.... I still heard my sister
I did so: she put her arm over orphan breathe and pant.... Why
me, and I nestled close to her. did I listen ... so greedily?
Why--when the poor thing turned
... I clasped my arms closer round once in the night, and
round Helen; she seemed dearer said: "Another kiss,
to me than ever; I felt as if I Catherine!"--why did I feel in
could not let her go; I lay with giving it her, as if a hundred
my face hidden on her neck. steel arrows had gone through my
Presently she said:--"... Don't heart? How long I lay awake and
leave me, Jane; I like to have thinking--wondering at the cold
you near me." emerging from the pure body at
my side, I know not! I must have
"I'll stay with you, _dear_ slept, too; for I remember
Helen; no one shall take me opening my eyes with the first
away."... She kissed me, and I dawn, before the bells rang.
her; and we soon slumbered. When
I awoke it was day; an unusual "Agnes!" said I, softly; "are
movement roused me. you awake?"
A day or two afterwards, I But there was no answer!... I
learned that Miss Temple, on called again--then a third, and
returning to her own room at a fourth time! But still ... no
dawn, had found me laid in a reply! Wondering at this
little crib; my face against silence, ... I listened for that
Helen Burn's shoulder, my arms hard breathing I knew so well.
round her neck. I was asleep, But nothing--not a sound could I
and Helen was--dead. hear! Alarmed, but unwilling to
trust my fears, I felt for her
hand. Oh, God! it was cold as
ice, and rigid as stone! Wild
with affright, ... I started up
... and rushed out to call the
Superintendent [Miss Temple]. I
found her preparing to come to
us.... When we entered the
chamber, we found no Agnes
there! No; her spirit had fled,
and all we saw was the lifeless
body of a poor houseless girl.
Another biographical passage occurs where Catherine Bell first sees the
Miss Temple of "Lagrange's Manuscript," who herself, under the name of
Ashton (Eshton),[59] is at times Miss Brontë, who took the name of the
original of Miss Temple (Evans) for herself in the phase of Frances
Evans Henri in _The Professor_, a work not published, we must note, till
after Charlotte Brontë's death:--
"I love you, madam," I said.
"Your name, I believe, is Catherine Bell, is it not?"
"Kitty Bell, if you please, madam," I answered.
"Kitty Bell at home, my dear, but here we must call you Catherine;
for a school, you know, is where many forms must be observed. How
old are you?"
"I shall be ten next birthday, madam."
"And when will that be?"
"On the 23rd of April."
"Shakespeare's Day, I declare!"
The above is, of course, not in _Jane Eyre_. There is a stroke of
sarcasm in the last sentence. It would appear that Currer Bell playfully
had moved her birthday forward two days, in her private conversation
with one from whom M. Sue had gleaned information--and this could be
only M. Héger himself. Charlotte Brontë, as Lucy Snowe, in _Villette_,
Chapter XLI., tells us that M. Paul Emanuel (M. Héger) said:--
"I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret. How often
has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and needful caution!
How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my affairs are the
secret of Polichinelle!" And this had doubtless a reference to some such
indiscretions as resulted in M. Sue whilst at Brussels (and he was
publishing _L'Orgueil_ from Brussels in 1844, in the January of which
year Charlotte Brontë arrived home from the Belgian capital), learning
the literary secrets of _Jane Eyre_, and perhaps _Wuthering Heights_.
A further reference to Currer Bell's literary aspirations--in the spirit
of Mdlle. Reuter's sneers, in _The Professor_, at Mdlle. Henri's
literary ambition--occurs in M. Sue's _feuilleton_ in another version of
the fortune-telling incident of _Jane Eyre_:--
"Here," said I, to a brown, sunburnt damsel, ... "take this
shilling and tell me when I shall be Empress of Morocco?"
I held out my hand.... The young girl looked at it, ... then shook
her head doubtfully:--
"Your life, lady, will be a troubled one--full of hopes and
fears!"
"So I suppose; most people's lives are pretty well divided in this
manner."
"But not so much as yours will be.... First, you are without
father or mother?... Without fortune, too?"
"True, what more?"
"You will be married and not married."
"That's impossible. What can you mean by married and not married?"
"That deserves another shilling!"
"No; I only want a shillingsworth, ... that will do for to-day."
"Mdlle. Lagrange's Manuscript" was bound in blue morocco leather, and
the term "Empress of Morocco" may have a reference to a literary
ambition, as has the "Shakspeare's Day, I declare!" passage.
For constructive purposes the West Indian girl, or Creole, in
"Lagrange's Manuscript," is made to take the place of the Mrs. Rochester
of _Jane Eyre_, who is therein represented as a Creole:--
I did my best [continues Catherine Bell] to make a friend of her,
but to no purpose. Whatever was the reason she disliked me from
the first. ["I am convinced she does not like me," wrote Charlotte
to Emily of Madame Héger.] I felt intuitively she was my enemy....
Had we been thrown together when I was a child [!] I should
probably have suited her ... for at that time I was a little given
to flattery myself. But that was before I had learned how many
better things there are than mere beauty.... Perhaps ... I
preferred more solid advantages, because my vanity assured me that
I had them myself, whilst my personal appearance was insignificant
compared with hers. I was certainly fond of talking of what I
knew, which answered very well with those who knew as much, and
was rather pleasing to those who knew more. [M. Héger seems to
have found pleasure in his intellectual talks with Currer Bell],
but to Isabella [this, as I have said, is the name of Catherine's
rival in _Wuthering Heights_, who was married to Heathcliffe] it
was hateful. She imagined I wanted to expose her ignorance.
I have given some of the biographical facts respecting Miss Brontë
embodied in Mdlle. Lagrange's story, and before closing this chapter
dealing with that extraordinary manuscript I will print a further
extract or so from it. The opening is as follows:--
"KITTY BELL, THE ORPHAN."
I was not above four years old when my mother died, my father
having gone to his grave two years before.... Oh, it is a sad, sad
thing to be an orphan!... My little head has been cut with more
than one fall, and blood has flowed down my neck. But nobody
cared.... It was only Kitty Bell.... There was no loving heart to
take me to itself and soothe me.... I had been taken home by some
relation of my mother, ... a widow [Mrs. Burke], and though she
treated me with great rigour, she melted on her death-bed.
She is locked in the room wherein Mrs. Burke died, after the manner of
the same incident in _Jane Eyre_, and the writer takes an opportunity of
inserting the most distinctive feature of _Jane Eyre_, the light-bearing
apparition, the original of which I have shown Charlotte Brontë found in
Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_:--
Suddenly there came a gleam of light through the key-hole, ... and
now I could hear a short, heavy tread upon the stairs--it was
coming up.... The gleam shot through the key-hole a third time,
with treble radiance. But what had I seen?... Was it a vision? was
it a ghost? It was a tall figure in white, like a winding sheet,
with a hideous face and balls of gleaming fire where the eyes
should be. The sight had stunned and levelled me almost like a
blow on the temple.... I cannot say how long I continued in this
swoon, but when I began to recover myself I was in my own bed.
She had received medical treatment, she learns as did Jane Eyre in the
similar incident. The "ghost," however, had been only George Burke--the
John Reed of _Jane Eyre_. Hence the choice of the name Burke by reason
of its connection with the Hare of the Burke and Hare association, the
writer by this choice showing his acquaintance with the fact that in
real life the Reeds and Jane Eyre were relations. After this incident
the story is for a while occupied with the petty happenings connected
with this orphan who "was not yet nine years old." An aunt of the Burkes
[? Aunt Branwell] comes to live with them, a "poor, quiet, elderly
spinster who paid a small stipend in order to preserve her independence
and keep up her dignity.... I must not attempt to describe her ... she
was fully six feet high." This is palpably antithetical: Miss Branwell
was not tall. And it is this aunt who provides the money for Catherine
Bell to go to school. Under the guise of presenting the Lowood school in
"Lagrange's Manuscript," M. Sue gives us often the Héger _pensionnat_.
Aunt Branwell provided Charlotte Brontë the money that enabled her to go
to the Hégers'.
I will give in parallel columns the arrival of Charlotte Brontë at the
Clergy Daughters' Institute as it is described in "Mademoiselle
Lagrange's Manuscript," and in _Jane Eyre_ the original:--
_Jane Eyre._ "Kitty Bell, the Orphan."
By the Mademoiselle Lagrange,
By Currer Bell. of Eugène Sue's _Miss Mary ou
L'Institutrice_.
The first days at the The first days at the
Institution. Institution.
The coach door was open and ... We got to Kendall House.... I
a servant was standing at it: I had been sitting near my trunk
saw her ... by the light of the on the outside of the coach, and
lamps. my legs were numb with cold. I
was quite unable to move, so the
"Is there a little girl called coachman lifted me down along
Jane Eyre here?" she asked. I with my box. The door was open
answered "Yes," and was lifted when the coach stopped; a
out, my trunk was handed down. servant was standing there with
a lamp. "Are you Catherine Bell
we expects down here to-day?"
she asked me.
"My name is Kitty Bell, if you
please," replied I.
The servant led me ... into a The girl returned no answer, but
room, with a fire, where she having ushered me into a
left me alone.... I stood and spacious room with a fire in it,
warmed my numbed fingers over she left me there by myself; ...
the blaze; ... there was no there was no candle. I stood ...
candle. warming my numb hands and limbs.
I heard the door open ... and I
The door opened, and an saw a face ... I never can
individual entered, ... a tall forget. My heart told me
lady with dark hair, dark eyes, directly it was Miss Ashton
and a pale and large forehead [Eshton]. Dear, noble girl! her
[Miss Temple. Her real name was face was rather large, but
Miss Evans], her countenance was accurately oval--just as you see
grave, her bearing erect. them in the fine sacred pictures
of Murillo--those pictures of
grand female beauty.
She considered me attentively Everything in that face was
for a minute or two. great, open, frank, truthlike,
... and yet there was a grave
... "Are you tired?" she asked, ... melancholy overspreading
placing her hand on my shoulder. that regal countenance.... It
was singular to see a woman
... "A little, ma'am." acting as the manager of a
benevolent institution and
living apart from the world who
might have shone in any court in
Europe and ... perhaps had no
equal on any throne ... [!] She
advanced towards me stately, but
kindly, touched my cheek with
her finger, and then seeing me
smile, she smiled in return,
and, after scanning my features
a moment, she lifted me up and
kissed me.
"I love you, madam," I said.
Then she set me down ... and,
putting her hand upon my head,
she asked me:--
"Your name is Catherine Bell, is
it not?"... [Here follows the
"Shakespeare's Day" reference I
have already given.]
I have not ... alluded to the I had been at the Kendall
visits of Mr. Brocklehurst [Rev. Institute about three weeks
Mr. Carus Wilson]; his absence without seeing Mr. King [Mr.
was a relief to me.... One Brocklehurst] the master or
afternoon (I had ... been three registrar.... One morning when I
weeks at Lowood) ... I woke up I heard the bells in the
recognized almost instinctively dormitories ringing louder than
that gaunt outline, ... it was ever....
Mr. Brocklehurst.
I knew without being told this
After some lines we have the strange man was Mr. King.
hair-cutting incident I have
quoted already from "Lagrange's "Catherine Bell!" called out
Manuscript." This incident comes Miss Ashton.
after and not before Catherine
(Jane) has been commanded to
stand before the class.
On hearing my name I left my
place in the rank, and
advanced....
"So! this is Catherine Bell, is
it?" cried Mr. King. "I have
heard her kind friends at home
speak of Catherine Bell, and
... "Fetch that stool," said Mr. they tell me she is a naughty,
Brocklehurst.... "Place the vicious, headstrong child--very
child upon it." ungrateful to those for whose
generosity she ought to have so
And I was placed there. much respect and gratitude! Is
this true, Catherine Bell?"
"Miss Temple, ... children, it
becomes my duty to warn you that "No, sir; not a word of it."
this girl ... is a little
castaway, ... this girl is--a "What, child!... Are you a
liar!... Let her stand ... on little liar as well as an
that stool." ingrate? Stand here!"
What my sensations were no The passions and feelings of a
language can describe.... I child are only known to
mastered the rising hysteria ... children. Grown-up people seem
and took a firm stand on the to have forgotten them.[60] I
stool. stood there with cheeks burning
with shame, indignation, and
anger.... My pride had been
savagely assailed. I did not
want pity. I wanted ... a
refutation of the cruel charge;
I was not a liar; and those who
taxed me with ingratitude had no
gratitude to claim from me.
Great God! what emotions there
were raging in my breast! and
how my little heart did swell!
Often Mdlle. Lagrange's "Kitty Bell the Orphan" is mysterious in its
allusions. As when Catherine Bell says she does not like a French lady
teacher. The seed-cake incident of Chapter VIII. of _Jane Eyre_, which
is given at length in "Lagrange's Manuscript," is herewith worked in
again:--
"I don't like Madame Dubois...."
"Why so? she is a very good sort of a woman."
"That may be, but she takes snuff...."
"What is that to you or me, Catherine Bell? Surely it is no
business of ours?"
"Sometimes it is, though.... I gave her a slice of my seed-cake
yesterday, and she returned me half of it."
"That showed a good disposition in poor Madame Dubois; did it
not?"
"Yes; but when I was going to eat it myself I was seized with a
fit of sneezing, which I shall not forget in a hurry, I promise
you!"
"You took snuff then, Catherine Bell, for the first time in your
life?"
"ALL IN--ALL IN--FOR SCHOOL!" shouted the teachers and examples
that moment.
The following is an extract dealing with the fever scenes of _Jane
Eyre_:--
Fever and consumption had fixed their abode under the large roof
of Kendall Institution, death was stealing along with its soft,
wolf-like tread, to feed upon these poor children. The first
symptoms I remember that startled me were certain cold shiverings
and sudden fits of perspiration without warmth, which seized upon
the younger children. Then sickness and nausea, followed
immediately by vomiting. [M. Sue had been a surgeon.] ... Oh, how
cruel, how bitter it was to us when we saw the first little coffin
borne out of the school!... And now we began to hear, for the
first time, the dismal word _typhus_ uttered here and there in
whispers through the school.... When we went to the church on
Sundays, and saw the many little mounds of fresh black earth lying
over our innocent playmates of yesterday, our heads sank upon our
bosoms and we wept most sorrowfully.
Faithful to its model, "Lagrange's Manuscript" brings Isabella the
Creole as the rival of Catherine Bell, and thus of the Creole's husband
Catherine writes:--
Unwittingly, and quite unknown to myself, I became the object of
his admiration--nay, of his marked preference; but I rejected
indignantly the homage of an affection which he had sworn to
another, and which it was his sacred duty to preserve
undefiled.... In the hope of overcoming my persistency in refusing
his so often proffered and as often rejected love, he urged on by
every imaginable means the final decision, which in the eyes of
man were to permit a second marriage, guilty in the sight of God.
With the natural instinct of divination peculiar to female
jealousy, his wife had guessed who was the deity at whose altar
the captain was burning his incense.... Nor did she consider
whether I encouraged or rebuked him. She suspected, she spied, she
believed, and unscrupulously involved me in the hateful vengeance
she swore to take both on her husband and myself.
For a portrait of Mdlle. Lagrange who, as the author of this version of
_Jane Eyre_, is of course meant for Charlotte Brontë, we turn to the
_feuilleton_ itself:--
Meanwhile we have lost sight of our blue-stocking friend, Mdlle.
Lagrange ['Madame herself deemed me a regular _bas bleu_,' says
Lucy Snowe of Madame Beck (Madame Héger) in _Villette_] ... her
character ... remains to be described. Now, to form any opinion of
it by Madame de Morville's [Madame Héger's] appreciation of that
girl's disposition, would be completely erroneous. Lagrange was
not devoid of intellectual faculties; she possessed an imaginative
mind, rather too fond of romance, and too little of practical
truths; but, above all, cunning and ambition formed the main basis
of her character: she had risen from nothing, and _would_ become
something. Imbued as she was with the ideas prevalent among the
lower rank [Had Charlotte Brontë related her father's history to
the Hégers? She had 'views' on money. M. Sue, however, never seems
to have forgotten the rank of his own god-parents], she deemed it
her right and duty to concentrate all the power of her faculties
towards the end she sighed for--wealth and a name. Thus it was she
displayed all the resources of her subtle nature to make every
circumstance serve to the gratifying of her ambition. What, then,
was to be her means of success? Marriage?--yes, that perpetual
dream of maidens, and a dream which too often ends in an
everlasting nightmare. But the task was not easy, for, it has been
said, beauty had been forgotten by Dame Nature among the few gifts
she had granted her.[61] What the appearance failed in, the mind
should, at any cost, supply [!]. This had become her ruling
desire. Thence the manuscript ['Catherine Bell, The Orphan'] we
have already read had been the first ponderous lucubration of her
fortune-seeking imagination: she had been praised for this first
attempt by her friends, and also by one two distinguished
critics.[62] This was already a point gained, and an encouragement
to her literary propensities.
Thus far the Mdlle. Lagrange phase of Currer Bell according to Eugène
Sue, and before the publication of _The Professor_, _Villette_, and Mrs.
Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_. The next chapter shall deal with
Eugène Sue's relation of her as "Miss Mary," the leading character of
this extraordinary _feuilleton_, whereby it will be proved finally that
in her works Charlotte Brontë has written from her own life-story.
CHAPTER XIII.
EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE.
II.
ACCUSATIONS AND PROTESTATIONS!
I have said Eugène Sue, in _Miss Mary ou l'Institutrice_, gave two
phases of Charlotte Brontë. With the one as Mdlle. Lagrange I dealt in
the preceding chapter, and now I write concerning that wherein Miss
Brontë is openly represented as the Irish governess at the de Morville
establishment.[63] Easy it is to recognize this character is a phase of
Charlotte Brontë, but as her pupil Alphonsine puts it plainly in
describing her, she is "Mdlle. Lagrange, avec la beauté de
plus"--Charlotte Brontë, with beauty and virtues exaggerated. The
following incident I find only in the _feuilleton_ (not the extant
volume), the which circumstances support as history concerning the days
of Miss Brontë's dejection at the Brussels _pensionnat_. It should be
read in the light of the lines in Chapter XIX. of _The Professor_, where
she, as Frances Evans Henri, tells Crimsworth, obviously M. Héger, that
he remarked her _devoirs_ dwelt a great deal on fortitude in bearing
grief. In the evening Alphonsine, M. de Morville's daughter, who says
many things we know must have issued from M. Héger's lips--(this is in
palpable imitation of Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the
sexes of characters portrayed from life. For further use of this method
see also the close of Chapter XII. and elsewhere in _The Professor_, and
my writing on _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_)--pays a visit to the
chamber of the Irish governess:--
"Were you not reading?... I see a book on your work-table. May I
look?... _The Imitation of Christ!_" exclaimed Alphonsine, after
having read the title-page. "Oh! this is a beautiful book, is it
not?"
"Truly beautiful!" answered Mary; "the cover is old, the pages
worn out in many places. You must not wonder at it: from the age I
began to read, I don't think I ever passed three nights without
reading at least one chapter of this admirable work."
_The Imitation of Christ_ in English was a book Charlotte Brontë was
setting much store upon when she was but nine years of age.[64] Her copy
was then an old one. Evidently she took the book with her to Brussels
and read it at the _pensionnat_. It would seem M. Héger, whom she
instructed in English, requested to hear the work in this English
translation:--
"Pray what chapter were you reading?" continues Alphonsine. "I
should so much like to hear you read it to me: I have occasionally
read a page of _The Imitation_, but always in French; now, if you
would be so good as to read slowly and pronounce very distinctly,
I think I could understand this pious work in your language."
She read:--
"THE NECESSITY OF HUMBLE SUBMISSION.
"Let your conscience be pure, and surely God will know how to
defend you.... Learn to suffer in silence, without repining, and
you will ... receive assistance from Him."
"What a truthful, becalming lesson!" observed Alphonsine; "you
will read to me every evening some passage of your _Imitation_,
will you not? English sounds so sweetly to my ear when spoken by
you. We will begin to-morrow evening, n'est ce pas?"
Surely this is M. Héger and his sympathetic, depressed English teacher.
There is in the opening chapter of _Miss Mary_ a long conversation
regarding the departed governess Lagrange, and Madame de Morville
(Madame Héger) avows she had been jealous of her, and that her harshness
towards the governess had resulted in her abruptly leaving on a false
plea of ill-health. Thus she says to M. de Morville:--
"I am speaking seriously to you of my foolish but most acute
sufferings ... tandis que tu restais seul ici avec tes livres. You
never suspected them;... I endeavoured to suppress them, to
suffer no part of what I felt to transpire; for I must confess
poor Lagrange was quite the lamb du bon Dieu, yet in spite of
myself I sometimes broke out into fits of petulance and absurd
irony, which wounded her. I saw it did by the sudden dejection of
that excellent young person. But even this was not all."
"Louise! is it you who speaks thus? You whose kind, benevolent
heart I have so often admired."
"Would you that I should avow something worse to you? What made me
tolerate that poor Lagrange is that she was as ugly as the seven
cardinal sins.... In fine, I cannot conceal from myself that the
result of all this was that Mdlle. Lagrange gave up her situation
on the plea of ill-health. ["Ah! she was not dismissed," said
Mdlle. Reuter (Madame Héger) in _The Professor_, Chapter XVIII.,
when the Professor asked whether Mdlle. Frances Henri[65] (Miss
Brontë) had left voluntarily. "... No need to have recourse to
such extreme measures, I assure you."] Enfin, it faut bien me
l'avouer, le résultat de tout ceci a été que Mademoiselle Lagrange
a demandé à quitter la maison, sous prétexte de santé; véritable
prétexte. For the rest I will do myself this justice, I would have
suffered even to the end rather than have sent back that excellent
girl."
The Hégers were surprised at Miss Brontë's sudden resolution to leave
them, but she is said to have had her father's failing eyesight as a
reason. "I suffered much before I left Brussels," wrote Charlotte, and
this was in mind, not body.
"I have long concealed the greater part of these resentful
sentiments from you," continues Madame de Morville,
"notwithstanding the implicit trust reposed in you. I wish I alone
had suffered by them. But no, poor Lagrange doubtless could not
endure the thousand vexations and spites ('taquineries
sournoises') to which she was subjected, and was thereby driven
from our house."
All this should be read as in connection with the departure of Miss
Mary, the other phase of Miss Brontë, towards the end of the book. "I
think, however long I live I shall not forget what the parting with M.
Héger cost me," said Charlotte Brontë.[66]
Here is M. Sue's version:--
M. de Morville started, then regarding the governess with stupor,
for he could not believe what he heard, he cried:--
"Quoi! Miss Mary, vous dites?"
"I say, monsieur, that I return to England, where I am recalled by
my family."
The real reason why Miss Brontë left is given in the Lagrange passages
to which I have alluded.
"Partir! but that is impossible! A departure so brusque, si peu
attendu!"
"Pray do not perceive, monsieur," says the Irish governess, "in
this unlooked for departure any want of regard for you; ... il a
fallu des raisons graves, very grave, to compel me to such a
resolution."
"Partir!" wailed M. de Morville. "What! that this should be the
last time that I should see you, that I should speak to you! But
this is not possible! They do not kill a man thus by a single
blow! For you well know that you kill me! You well know that I
love you! Oh! do not say you were unaware of my unhappy love," he
continues, "you know well enough what an irresistible charm has
drawn me towards you, what happiness I have had to tell you my
life, my secret thoughts, my wrongs even! A timid reserve followed
the first entrancement, but it was the struggle of respect, of
honour against a fatal passion. Ah! the traces of that struggle,
should they not have been too evident to your eyes! What! have
not you divined the cause of that sombre discouragement which made
me seek solitude where I isolated myself from all interests, from
all affection? And those nights without sleep passed in consuming
my tears, exaggerating more the consequences of that fatal
passion!... What! you have divined nothing, read nothing of mes
traits, in my eyes red with tears and sleeplessness? Mon Dieu! mon
Dieu! to have suffered so much ... suffered so much, and not to
have even the consolation of saying: She knows that I have
suffered."
The reader of _Miss Mary_ will perceive throughout this scene in the
extant and apparently re-written French volume that M. de Morville's
unhappy love was that of an honourable and a loyal-hearted man, while
the governess was also without reproach. (These extracts do not occur in
the _feuilleton_ as published in English.) As he asks:--
"Is it my fault if in the monotony of my existence est tout à coup
apparue a person whose talents, education, and character have been
appreciated by all and by me.... Have I attempted to pervert your
mind, to seduce your heart? No, no! I have suffered, suffered in
silence [see my reference to the _Imitation of Christ_], suffered
alone, suffered always. And my crime, what is it?... It is to make
to you the avowal of suffering on the day when you go to leave me
for ever a prey to incurable despair!"
Thus have we real insight into the state of affairs at Brussels when
Miss Brontë left. We see the divining, jealous Madame de
Morville--Madame Héger, of course--subjecting her to the "taquineries
sournoises"; we hear Madame saying of her: "Ce que me faisait tolérer
cette pauvre Mdlle. Lagrange, c'est qu'elle était laide comme les sept
péchés mortels," and sneering at the excuse she made to leave the
establishment, calling it a "véritable prétexte" when the real reason
was Madame's jealousy and its causes. Oh, the bitterness of it! And now
in this light read the carefully worded representation of Mrs Gaskell
that:--
Towards the end of 1843 various reasons conspired ... to make her
[Charlotte Brontë] feel that her presence was absolutely and
imperatively required at home, while she was ... no longer
regarded with the former kindliness of feeling by Madame Héger. In
consequence of this state of things working down with a sharp edge
into a sensitive mind, she suddenly announced to that lady her
immediate intention of returning to England.
Something of the foregoing I gave in my article "The Lifting of the
Brontë Veil" in _The Fortnightly Review_, and I have to thank the press
generally for their kind acknowledgment of my important discovery. _The
Spectator_, in consonance with others, says:--"Mr. Malham-Dembleby has
found a _feuilleton_ by Eugène Sue which is curious, as it certainly
indicates a knowledge of Charlotte Brontë and of Monsieur and Madame
Héger at Brussels."
In the extant French copy Eugène Sue has given a dramatic version of the
parting scene between "Miss Mary" and "Madame de Morville"--Charlotte
Brontë and Madame Héger. The latter had surprised her husband and the
Irish governess, _tête-à-tête_ in the lonely pavilion, late in the
evening. Monsieur protests:--
"Madame," he cries, "... I will not permit you, in my presence, to
dare to calumniate and outrage Mademoiselle Lawson."
Miss Mary asks him not to defend her, as she does not wish to be a
cause of irritating discussion between them.
"That is charming!" cried Madame de Morville, with a burst of
sardonic laughter--"Grâce au bon accord du ménage, mademoiselle
would desire to continue in perfect tranquillity the undignified
rôle she has played at my house!"
Her husband protests that she outrages one of the purest characters in
the world, but the governess interrupts by addressing the wife:--
"Madam, suspicions so odious, so senseless, are unable to wound an
honourable soul.... I reply nothing to these words, which you will
soon regret. The two years that I have been here [Charlotte Brontë
was two years with the Hégers] I have learned to know you, madam;
and if sometimes I have without complaint [see the Lagrange
passages] suffered from the vivacité de vos premiers mouvements, I
have also often been able to appreciate your goodness of heart."
"Enough, mademoiselle, enough! Believe you that you can dupe me by
your hypocrisies and base flatteries? Do you think you can impose
my silence by that pretended resignation?"
So the scene continues until Madame de Morville accuses the other of
wishing to take the affections of her husband. To this, the governess
retorts:--
"You accuse me, madam, of wishing to win the affections of M. de
Morville, and of desiring to dominate at your house? Here is my
reply."
And her reply is that she is returning to England.
"You go away!" cried Madame de Morville.... "No, no, that is a lie
or a trick!"... Madame ... fut complètement déroutée par
l'annonce du départ de Miss Mary.
The latter says she profoundly regrets if she had caused "malheurs," for
she had been the involuntary cause.
"Involuntary or not," cried Madame de Morville, "you are un
_porte-malheur_, and thus have been two years, since your arrival
here. I have said it to M. de Morville, who, par prévision without
doubt, took at once your part against me.... And on whom, then,
will that responsibility fall!... We were all happy and peaceful
before your advent here, and to-day, when you go you leave us dans
le chagrin."
To which Miss Mary retorts:--
"Ah! madame, le jour le plus malheureux de ma vie serait celui où
je quitterais votre famille avec la douloureuse conviction que mon
nom y serait maudit."
There were, we see, conflicting views in Brussels social and literary
circles, in the eighteen-forties, as to the degree of intimacy to which
Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger attained. It is when we perceive the
ambiguity of the relations existing between Miss Brontë and the
professor that we recognize the fidelity of Eugène Sue's portrayal of
Currer Bell's Brussels life. Even Charlotte Brontë herself, in
_Villette_, published after M. Sue's story, relates that M. Paul Emanuel
(M. Héger) said to her:--"I call myself your brother. I hardly know what
I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know I think of you--I feel I
wish you well--but I must check myself; you are to be feared. My best
friends point out danger and whisper caution." In Mdlle. Lagrange and
Catherine Bell, Charlotte Brontë figures as represented by those who
said ill of her; as Miss Mary Lawson, the Irish governess, she has
"beauty, youth, and grace," which charms, Jane tells us, she possessed
in Rochester's eyes. Of her, in the phase of Catherine Bell, we have
many insinuations of a detractive character, the keynote to which is
found in the fortune-telling incident, wherein Catherine is foretold she
will be "married and not married"; while in Miss Mary Lawson we have a
portrayal of _un bon ange_[67] of whom Madame de Morville is jealous,
not without reason, though, to use Miss Mary's own words, she had been
"la cause involontaire."
We must, therefore, set it to the credit of Eugène Sue that he placed
two versions in the balance; and his evidence for ever sweeps away the
illogical and unfair contention of some writers on the Brontës, that
Charlotte Brontë may have cared for M. Héger, but that he, in his turn,
had been only "intellectually" interested in her. M. Sue shows the
attitude of M. Héger was ever unequivocal as regards Charlotte Brontë;
whether in her phase as "Lagrange," as "Catherine Bell," or as "Miss
Mary Lawson"--she was loved by him. We now see Morton of _Jane Eyre_ was
Haworth to Charlotte Brontë, and Thornfield, the home of Mr. Rochester,
the Pensionnat Héger. And the flight from temptation at Thornfield and
seeking refuge with the Rivers family were really representative of her
leaving Brussels and returning home to her father and sisters. Obviously
M. Sue wrote his _feuilleton_ to aid, maliciously or not, in breaking
the dangerous friendship between M. Héger and Miss Brontë. Charlotte
Brontë's works are testimony it was not only Madame Héger's harsh
jealousy that led her to leave Brussels. In Chapter XX. of _The
Professor_, published years after M. Sue's work, but written before it,
she gives us the reason for this determination. By her Method I.,
Interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed from life, Professor
Crimsworth, who is alternately Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger, in this
instance is Charlotte Brontë, while Mdlle. Reuter is M. Héger.
Crimsworth [Miss Brontë] says:--
I could not conceal ... that it would not do for me to remain....
Her [his] present demeanour towards me was deficient neither in
dignity nor propriety; but I knew her [his] former feeling was
unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but
Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation
would shiver their restraints. I was no pope, ... in short, if I
stayed, the probability was that, in three months' time, a
practical modern French novel would be in full process of
concoction.... From all this resulted the conclusion that I must
leave, ... and that instantly.... The Spirit of Evil ... sought to
lead me astray.[68] Rough and steep was the path indicated by
divine suggestion; mossy and declining the green way along which
Temptation strewed flowers.
And thus at last do we understand why Charlotte Brontë asks herself as
Jane Eyre when at home with the Rivers family--with her father, her
sisters, and Tabby at Haworth:--
Which is better? To have surrendered to temptation; listened to
passion; made no painful effort--no struggle; but to have sunk
down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it
... to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress
... I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty,
youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall I seem to
possess these charms.... Whether is it better, I ask, to be a
slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive
bliss one hour--suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse
and shame the next--or to be a village schoolmistress [The Brontë
school project was under contemplation in 1844], free and honest,
in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? Yes, I
feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and
crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed
me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance.
And her fervent gratitude is as sincere when in the same connection she
says in _Villette_ of her confessor--her Fénelon[69]:--"He was kind when
I needed kindness; he did me good. May Heaven bless him!" But we now see
Charlotte Brontë did not suffer alone. Eugène Sue has given us an
insight into the bitterness of M. de Morville's (M. Héger's) life, which
resulted from their unhappy love, and doubtless those words of
Heathcliffe to Catherine in _Wuthering Heights_ were uttered or written
by M. Héger in reproach to Charlotte Brontë:--
"_Why_ did you despise me? _Why_ did you betray your own heart,
Cathy?... You loved me--then what _right_ had you to leave me?...
Because misery and degradation and death, and nothing that God or
Satan could inflict would have parted us, _you_, of your own will
did it. I have not broken your heart--_you_ have broken it; and in
breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I
am strong."
Charlotte Brontë tells us in _Jane Eyre_ she loved to imagine she and
Mr. Rochester had met under happier conditions; and if the meeting of
the runaway lovers Charlotte Brontë repeats so faithfully in _Wuthering
Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ did not refer to a private meeting subsequent
to the beginning of 1844, between her and M. Héger, or to their meeting
again when she returned to Brussels the second time, then have we
evidence of the fact that she at one time perhaps believed _Wuthering
Heights_ would be never published. Assuredly nothing was sweeter to
Currer Bell's fancy than a dream of the happiness that might have been
hers, and well may she have written in the last sentences of
_Villette_:--
Leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the
delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture
of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the
fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding
life.
Charlotte Brontë and M. Constantin Gilles Romain Héger loved each other
as those who are worshippers of two high ideals, when one of these
ideals is love, the other honour. And this was tragedy. To the agonizing
nature of unrequitable affection endured for honour's sake do we owe
Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_.
CHAPTER XIV.
THE RECOIL.
I.
The elements that conduce to reaction and recoil are sometimes fatal to
the best proposed and ablest evolved schemes of man. Priests and
counsellors may gravely devise; knight and maid may devoutly swear; the
pious neophyte and the exalted religionist may make solemn pledge, but
reaction often brings catastrophe. Thus the Christian Church is
rightfully a watchful Body, a militant Force, preaches the weakness of
man and cries "Ora continenter!" And herein lies the value of a
ponderous state procedure. Irritating in its slow gravity and
indifferent to the passionate appeals of emotionalism, such procedure
yet withstands the backward wave which comes as answer to courageous but
costly proposals.
The unsupported and undisciplined individual, like communities, cannot
always safely stand alone, and finally resolves into an automaton at the
service of unlicensed and unconsidered impulse when the day of reaction
comes. The anthropologist and the pathologist relate how exacting
straitness suddenly has broken down with a lamentable demonstration of
most morbid prurience; and relentless history has chronicled grievous
moral declensions in the lives of men and women whose careers in the
greater part were records of generous and unselfish devotion to a noble
cause or an honourable work. Until the day of reaction is safely fought
through the battle is not won.
Perhaps it was to prevent all possibility of a final and definite
reconciliation between M. Héger and Miss Brontë that M. Sue, aided by
his friends, ridiculed their attachment in his _feuilleton, Miss Mary_.
Not that Eugène Sue would do this necessarily for Virtue's sake, but the
position of moral reprehender gave him title to the rôle he had assumed.
M. Héger was sorely punished to lose Miss Brontë, as M. Sue has shown,
and as we have seen Charlotte Brontë herself tells us in a letter; and
the intensity of his affection for her is only further accentuated by
the light M. Sue throws upon the subject in a conversation which occurs
between Alphonsine and the jealous mother, concerning Mdlle. Lagrange in
the opening chapters of his _feuilleton_. As I have stated, evidence
compels us to perceive M. Sue often presented by imitation of Charlotte
Brontë's Method I., Interchange of the sexes for obfuscation's sake, M.
Héger in Alphonsine: Madame de Morville (Madame Héger) has just said
Mdlle. Lagrange (Miss Brontë) affected a little to speak of her humble
origin.
"Elle affecter," replies Alphonsine, "... c'est une erreur. Quand,
par hasard, elle parlait de sa famille, c'est que la conversation
venait là-dessus. D'ailleurs, écoute donc, Mademoiselle Lagrange
eût été fière qu'elle en avait le droit."
"Proud! what of? not of her face, poor girl."
"No, that is true."
Madame de Morville admits that Mdlle. Lagrange was endowed with
patience, learning, and fortitude; and says, "Tu le sais, nous avions
pour elle les plus grands égards."
"Without doubt ... and myself, I loved her like a sister."
To which Madame de Morville retorts:
"A ce point que, pendant les premiers jours qui ont suivi son
départ je t'ai vue souvent pleurer, et que depuis je te trouve
triste."
"Que veux-tu ... se quitter après plus de trois ans d'intimité,
cela vous laisse du chagrin."
"This sensibility does credit to your heart, but after all it
seems to me that you and I shall be able by our mutual tenderness
to console each other for the loss d'une étrangère."
"Une étrangère!" says Alphonsine, naïvely; "dis donc une amie, une
soeur.... Ainsi, toi ... tu es pour moi, n'est-ce pas, aussi
affectueuse que possible; pourtant tu m'imposes toujours; il y a
mille riens, mille folies, mille bêtises si tu veux, que je
n'oserais jamais te dire, et qui nous amusaient et nous faisaient
rire aux larmes avec cette pauvre Mademoiselle Lagrange; et puis
ces causeries sans fin pendant les récréations, nos jeux mêmes,
car elle était très enfant quand elle s'y mettait[70]; all this
made our temps de l'étude pass like a dream, and that of
recreation like a flash."
"Without doubt," replied Madame de Morville, with a forced smile;
... "and I, ... je ne jouissais de la société de ces demoiselles
que lors de notre promenade d'avant dîner, ou le soir jusqu'à
l'heure du thé."
The irreparableness of the loss at first to M. Héger is herein clearly
shown. But whether he would confess himself to Miss Brontë afterwards is
not certain. The tone of Charlotte Brontë's successive writings suggests
he did not, as do many points of evidence and the reference in
_Villette_, Chapter XIX., to that "He was a religious little man, in his
way: the self-denying and self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion
commanded the homage of his soul."
Likely enough it is that M. Héger hailed, as do truly noble men, the day
of trial, and elevated by the very agony of great sacrifice the
personality which worshipped a conception of duty consonant with Divine
law. It seems, though, that then the battle was won; his day of reaction
was fought through. At the time of what M. Sue makes M. de Morville call
"ce premier entraînement" was the greatest danger, and abundant
testimony goes to prove he would have gone the length of indiscretion
but that Charlotte Brontë, herself innately honourable and influenced by
her Christian upbringing, checked the mad rush of impetuous passion.
Then the Church of M. Héger intervened. As Charlotte Brontë tells us in
_Villette_, Chapter XXXVI.: "We were under the surveillance of a
sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously her son through that mystic
lattice at which I had knelt once, and to which M. Emanuel drew nigh
month by month--the sliding panel of the confessional." She was much
gratified by M. Héger's fervent admiration, though she had perforce to
remember their circumstances. As M. Sue said of Lagrange so it had been
with Miss Brontë:--
The girl had never before known love, save by reading and hearing
of its magical influence. All the natural tenderness which lay in
her heart she had year after year suppressed.
The references in her poems to a recognition of growing coldness in a
lover--see "Frances," "Preference," etc., if we may read them in the
biographical sense Mr. Mackay suggests, show there had been a day when
she perceived external influences were dictating to M. Héger a line of
moral procedure. Obviously, while she herself had held temptation at
bay she was strong; but once she discovered an ally was lessening the
necessity of her defence her woman's nature awoke. She doubted the
sincerity of the past protestations of passion; she saw in every eye a
sinister spy; she found in the Roman Church nothing but a partisan of
Madame Héger (see Madame Beck and the Roman Church in _Villette_), and
M. Héger became to her a very impersonation of insincerity and
treachery. Of the secret tempest which had begun to rage within herself
she would disclose nothing to M. Héger; and she would know that once the
storm slept the end might be the worst. But Charlotte Brontë was not yet
in the season of the recoil, though alone, wretched, and rapidly losing
faith in God and man. As for M. Héger, he was supported by the knowledge
that the ideal of the good and pious is glorified by sacrifice. That
"Hell holds no fury like a woman scorned" is a platitude, for a woman
scorned in the meaning of the writer is a woman with a shattered life.
In her fullest and native sense she ceases to exist thereafter. However,
as in many cases Nature provides a remedy for her maimed, woman has
given her dissimulation. But to quote Charlotte Brontë's poem,
"Frances":--
"Who can for ever crush the heart,
Restrain its throbbing, curb its life?
Dissemble truth with ceaseless art,
With outward calm mask inward strife?"
It is a dangerous day when woman is her very self and thwarted. Then,
and only then, can she utter the distressing blasphemies Charlotte
Brontë places in the mouth of the speaker in her verses, "Apostasy":--
"Talk not of thy Last Sacrament,
Tell not thy beads for me;
Both rite and prayer are vainly spent,
As dews upon the sea.
Speak not one word of Heaven above
Rave not of Hell's alarms;
Give me but back my Walter's love,
Restore me to his arms!
"Then will the bliss of Heaven be won;
Then will Hell shrink away;
As I have seen night's terrors shun
The conquering steps of day.
'Tis my religion thus to love,
My creed thus fixed to be;
Not Death shall shake, nor Priestcraft break
My rock-like constancy!"
And places in the mouth of Catherine of _Wuthering Heights_, Chapter
IX., in the same connection:--
"If I were in heaven ... I should be extremely miserable.... I
dreamt once ... I was there, ... heaven did not seem to be my
home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and
the angels were so angry that they flung me out ... on the top of
Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.[71] ... I cannot
express it; but surely you ... have a notion that there is ... an
existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if
I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world
have been Heathcliffe's miseries ... my great thought in living is
himself. If all else perished, and _he_ remained, I should still
continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated,
the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a
part of it. [See my remarks on Charlotte Brontë's belief in the
elective affinities, page 96-7.] My love for Heathcliffe resembles
the eternal rocks beneath.... I _am_ Heathcliffe,--he's always,
always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am a
pleasure to myself--but as my own being--so don't talk of our
separation again."
It is of the barriers which divided the woman of the verses "Apostasy"
from her lover that the priest has reminded her. Thus she says:--
"... Did I need that thou shouldst tell
What mighty barriers rise
To part me from that dungeon-cell
Where my loved Walter lies?"
The whole history of Charlotte Brontë's Brussels life before us, the
fact that an insurmountable barrier--his marriage--separated her from M.
Héger, and the fact that she herself consulted[72] a Roman Catholic
priest whom I designate as her "Fénélon," advising, like the Mentor of
Télémaque,[73] the tempted one to "flee temptation," identify these
"barriers" as a covert reference to the circumstances unhappily existing
which made intimacy between Miss Brontë and M. Héger dangerous. To quote
my words in _The Fortnightly Review_:--"We see why Miss Brontë, herself
a Protestant, went to the confessional at Brussels.... We know this was
no freak, as also that it was impossible for Charlotte to mention the
subject to her sister without attributing it to a freak. More, we
perceive now the nature of her confession, and, the "Flee temptation!"
note of Fénélon's _Les Aventures de Télémaque_ fresh in our minds, we
see why she wrote of her father-confessor in _Villette_, Chapter XV.:--
There was something of Fénelon about that benign old priest; and
whatever ... I may think of his Church and creed, ... of himself I
must ever retain a grateful recollection. He was kind when I
needed kindness; he did me good. May heaven bless him!
I mention that by her composite method of presenting characters, which
Charlotte Brontë admitted to have employed, Dr. John Bretton, while
often in the beginning representing Mr. Smith the publisher, becomes
finally a representation of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls who married Miss
Brontë.[74] So in _Jane Eyre_, St. John Rivers while in the main
representing the Rev. Patrick Brontë, becomes associated temporarily
with that priest I have called Charlotte Brontë's Brussels Fénélon. She
tells us in _Villette_ that she broke off the seduction of visiting this
priest and says:--"The probabilities are that had I visited ... at
the ... day appointed, I might just now ... have been counting my beads
in the cell of a ... convent...." Miss Brontë admits he had had great
influence with her, and this fact and the testimony of her poem
"Apostasy" just quoted show this priest and his admonitions were in her
mind when she wrote the final scene between herself and St. John Rivers
in _Jane Eyre_ (Chapter XXXV.). Therein, as in that poem and in
_Wuthering Heights_, "Religion" and "Angels"[75] are set as being less
to her than the vicinage of her lover. Indeed the India and the
missionary life of _Jane Eyre_, and the marriage with St. John (see
Chapter XXXIV.), may be said to have been in Miss Brontë's mind that
life of religious consecration which in _Villette_ she owns to have been
the likely result of her further listening to the advice of the priest,
to whom she had given "the ... outline of my experience," as she terms
it.
Therefore it is interesting to observe that, as the woman in "Apostasy"
suddenly hears the voice of her lover calling and says:--
"He calls--I come--my pulse scarce beats,
My heart fails in my breast.
Again that voice--how far away,
How dreary sounds that tone!
And I, methinks, am gone astray
In trackless wastes and lone.
"I fain would rest a little while:
Where can I find a stay,
Till dawn upon the hills shall smile,
And show some trodden way?[76]
I come! I come! in haste she said,
'Twas Walter's voice I heard!"
Then up she sprang--but fell back, dead,
His name her latest word.
so in the scene in _Jane Eyre_: St. John ejaculates--
'My prayers are heard!' He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as
if he claimed me; he surrounded me with his arm, _almost_ as if he
loved me ["That priest had arms which could influence me; he was
naturally kind, with a sentimental French kindness, to whose
softness I knew myself not wholly impervious. Without respecting
some sorts of affection, there was hardly any sort having a fibre
of root in reality, which I could rely on my force wholly to
withstand."--Charlotte Brontë speaking of her Brussels Fénélon in
_Villette_, Chapter XV.], I say _almost_--I knew the
difference--for I had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him,
I now ... thought only of duty;... I sincerely, ... fervently
longed to do what was right.... 'Show me, show me the path!' I
entreated of Heaven.... My heart beat fast and thick.... I heard a
voice somewhere cry 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' nothing more.... I had
heard it--where or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was
... a known, loved, well-remembered voice--that of Edward Fairfax
Rochester.... 'I am coming!' I cried.... 'Wait for me! Oh, I will
come!' I broke from St. John, who would have detained me. It was
_my_ time to assume ascendency. _My_ powers were in play, and in
force. I told him to forbear question or remark.... I mounted to
my chamber ... fell on my knees, and prayed in my way--a different
way to St. John's, but effective in its own fashion.... I rose
from the thanksgiving--took a resolve--and lay down ... eager but
for the daylight.
Mrs. Gaskell related that Charlotte Brontë in private conversation in
reference to this preternatural crying of a voice, replied with much
gravity and without further enlightenment that such an incident really
did occur in her experience. Whether it occurred in connection with her
Brussels Fénélon and immediately preceded a reconciliation between
herself and M. Héger I know not. As, however, Charlotte Brontë's
expression of gratitude to this priest and the whole fervent story of
thankfulness for the deliverance from dangerous temptation were written
subsequently to her return from Brussels, it is clear there was never a
reconciliation which cost either her or M. Héger honour. I do not urge
this as an advocate; I state it upon the strength of unmistakable
evidence.
Miss Brontë believed it better to leave Brussels and avoid the
possibilities of the peculiar situation--a situation always fraught with
temptation. Hence her sudden resolve to return to England.
Arrived at Haworth the full recoil came. She had won through a great
ordeal, and she knew that surrounded by his wife and family,[77]
comforted by piety and the knowledge of his happy issue from involution
in disastrous complications, M. Héger would resume tranquilly his
accustomed course of life. To Charlotte Brontë, who by the showing of
all evidence was initially responsible for a morally gratifying outcome
of their dangerous attachment, this was a galling picture. Knowing
nothing of the ecstatic delights of the pietist in the sacrificial sense
of M. Héger, who was a devoted member of the Society of St. Vincent de
Paul, and, as he is made to describe himself in _Villette_, "a sort of
lay Jesuit," she became just a woman living in the world of her primal
nature and conceiving but that she had lost. Miss Rigby--afterwards Lady
Eastlake--who wrote the remarkable article on _Jane Eyre_ in _The
Quarterly Review_ of 1849, perceived with a flash of real insight and
the instinct of womanhood that Currer Bell's pen had presented ungarbed,
vital relations of some man and woman identical in both _Wuthering
Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_. The circumstances were full difficult for the
reviewer; she was irritated and encompassed. _Wuthering Heights_, which
so soon had followed the appearance of _Jane Eyre_, she suddenly
recognized as the very storm-centre of this literary tornado of
passionate declamation; and she chastised that work in the name of _Jane
Eyre_, for she could not know all the cruel truth, and she feared to
popularize _Wuthering Heights_. Although Miss Rigby wrote:--"It is true
Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength," she added, "but it is
the strength of a mere heathenish mind which is a law unto itself." And
later, turning upon _Wuthering Heights_ she says with a final vehemency,
and most sensationally:--
There can be no interest attached to the writer of _Wuthering
Heights_--a novel succeeding _Jane Eyre_ ... and purporting [!] to
be written by Ellis Bell--unless it were for the sake of a more
individual reprobation. For though there is a decided family
likeness between the two [!], yet the aspect of the Jane and
Rochester animals in their native state as Catherine and
Heathcliffe [!], is abominably pagan.
Miss Rigby thus excused herself a further consideration of _Wuthering
Heights_. In the days of the gratification of discovering the one she
loved in return loved her,[78] this recognition stood between Charlotte
Brontë and "every thought of religion, as an eclipse between man and the
broad sun," so in another sense truly did the contemplation of M.
Héger's self-pacification intervene in the time of reaction. The
doubtings and agonizing emotions of her equivocal season in Brussels
were now precipitated. Her poems "Gilbert," "Frances," and "Preference"
are testimony to her vengeful and retaliative instinct; as are her
portrayals of M. Héger as M. Pelet of _The Professor_ and as Heathcliffe
of _Wuthering Heights_. But as I show in the next chapter, Charlotte
Brontë afterwards regretted her human weakness and her vituperations of
the day of the recoil. She began to set forth the story of her ordeal
more sanely and proportionately in _Jane Eyre_. As one who soberly
rewrites of fact, she recited therein much that she already had given
detachedly; and consistently she presented by aid of the frame-work of
"plot" from Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_ which already had given her
elemental suggestions for her _Wuthering Heights_, the history of her
life in _Jane Eyre_--a work that stands as testimony to Charlotte
Brontë's love of truth as to her heroic battling in the days of fiercest
temptation.
A constant yearning to fine a presentation from untruthfulness is the
God-given attribute of the artist, and this was responsible for much
that is called harsh in Charlotte Brontë's character as a writer: she
would not even spare her own physical and nervous imperfections in her
self-portrayals. Emily Brontë would have presented Branwell Brontë as
viewed through _couleur de rose_, yet Charlotte Brontë immortalized him
as Hindley Earnshaw and John Reed--as she saw him: weak, tyrannical, a
moral wreck. So she presented M. Héger. She knew his faults--and they
were many; but she loved him though she hated them. Her sense of truth
and justice, albeit she had lost the rancour of the time of the
reaction, determined her in _Jane Eyre_, it is obvious, to show the
occultation of her life's happiness by the incidents of her Brussels
life. She would show there had been a day when the barriers between
them would have been rashly ignored by him. Thus Rochester is made to
sing in _Jane Eyre_, Chap. XXIV.:--
"I dreamed it would be nameless bliss,
As I loved, loved to be;
And to this object did I press
As blind as eagerly.
But wide as pathless[79] was the space
That lay, our lives, between,
And dangerous as the foamy race
Of ocean-surges green.
And haunted as a robber-path
Through wilderness or wood;
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
Between our spirits stood.[80]
I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned;
I omens did defy:
Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,[81]
I passed impetuous by.
On sped my rainbow, fast as light;
I flew as in a dream;
For glorious rose upon my sight
That child of Shower and Gleam.
Still bright on clouds of suffering dim
Shines that soft, solemn joy;
Nor care I now, how dense and grim
Disasters gather nigh;
I care not in this moment sweet,
Though all I have rushed o'er
Should come on pinion, strong and fleet,
Proclaiming vengeance sore."
It is clear the impediment of M. Héger's marriage is suggested in these
verses. But undeniable evidence as to Charlotte Brontë's having escaped
by flight what she considered a most dangerous temptation, is the fact
that we find she was influenced to pen these lines, wherein M. Héger
(Rochester) is likened to a wild pursuer of a "shower and gleam" nymph
who sped before him "fast as light" and "glorious rose upon his sight,"
by Montagu's reference, in _Gleanings in Craven_, to the story of a
Craven nymph a satyr pursued yet lost by her being changed into a
spring. Says Frederic Montagu:--
"In the _Polyolbion_, published in 1612, is the following
passage:--
In all my spacious tract let them (so wise) survey
Thy Ribble's rising banks, their worst and let them say;
At Giggleswick, where I a fountain can you show,
That eight times in a day is said to ebb and flow!
Who sometime was a Nymph, and in the mountains high
Of Craven, whose blue heads, for caps put on the sky,
Among the Oreads there, and Sylvans, made abode
(It was ere human foot upon these hills had trod),
Of all the mountain kind, and since she was most fair;
It was a Satyr's chance to see her silver hair
Flow loosely at her back, as up a cliff she clame,
Her beauties noting well, her features and her frame,
And after her he goes; which when she did espy,
Before him like the wind, the nimble Nymph did fly:
They hurry down the rocks, o'er hill and dale they drive,
To take her he doth strain, t' outstrip him she doth strive,
Like one his kind that knew, and greatly feared....
And to the Topic Gods by praying to escape,
They turned her to a Spring, which as she then did pant,
When, wearied with her course, her breath grew wond'rous scant,
Even as the fearful Nymph, then thick and short did blow,
Now made by them a Spring, so doth she ebb and flow."
This is not all. We know now the truth regarding Charlotte Brontë's
Brussels life, and seeing she discovered a pertinence in the state of
the Craven Nymph to her own--for it is undeniable Rochester's song was
modelled upon the lines Montagu quotes--it is likely that what I term
the "river" suggestion and the Craven Elf suggestion which resulted in
Charlotte Brontë's portraying herself in the rôle of the stream-named
Craven elf, Janet Aire or Eyre, had to do with Montagu's mention of this
nymph of Craven who escaped a dangerous persecution by becoming a
spring. It seems, indeed, that if she did not at first utilize the
parallel of this narrative in verse with her own experience, she yet in
_Wuthering Heights_ was influenced by it, in the days which I call the
period of the recoil, to represent her hero Heathcliffe as a
ruin-creating, semi-human being. Whether the lines--
"It was a Satyr's chance to see her silver hair
Flow loosely at her back as up a cliff she clame,"
had in the connection to do with the "cliffe" in "that ghoul
Heathcliffe's" name a reference to Charlotte Brontë's Preface to
_Wuthering Heights_, and her words on the creation of Heathcliffe, in my
next chapter, may declare.
It is now impossible not to understand the origin of the Satyr and Nymph
passage and its implication in the chapter of _Jane Eyre_ containing
Rochester's song, when he says to Jane in the very same chapter:--
"You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence,
Venice, and Vienna: all the ground I've wandered over shall be
retrodden by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot
shall step also."
CHAPTER XV.
THE RECOIL.
II.
A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have
been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused; ... the same ridge,
black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have
represented as meetly my subsequent condition when ... reflection
had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my
hated and hating position. Something of vengeance I had tasted....
As aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy; its
after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I
had been poisoned.... I would fain exercise some better faculty
than that of fierce speaking--fain find nourishment for some less
fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation.
These words, written by Charlotte Brontë in _Jane Eyre_, Chapter IV., in
relation to herself and "Mrs. Reed," give us an insight into her
extraordinary alternations of mood. To inquire deeply into her
determining initially to disavow the authorship of _Wuthering Heights_
requires a somewhat ruthless baring of the "fiendish" vindictiveness
against M. Héger between the dates of 1844-46, that was a characteristic
of the portrayals of him I have mentioned; but it also reveals her
active turn to a spirit of repentance for past vindictive feeling, the
which she acknowledges to have known.
It seems that it was in a spirit of reproach Charlotte Brontë wrote the
vengeful scene between Heathcliffe and Catherine in _Wuthering Heights_,
harsh in threat almost as her poem "Gilbert," wherein the man, satisfied
with the affections of his wife and children, has banished the
remembrance of her of whom he boasted--"She loved me more than life,"
and who is made to say, before her spirit in the form of a white-clad
spectre comes to him:--
"As I am busied now,
I could not turn from such pursuit
To weep a broken vow."
Thus in _Wuthering Heights_, Chapter XV., when Catherine is embraced by
Heathcliffe, she says bitterly:--
"I wish I could hold you till we were both dead! I shouldn't care
what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why
shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy
when I am in the earth? Will you say ... 'That's the grave of
Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose
her; but it is past. I've loved many others since: my children are
dearer to me than she was; and at death, I shall not rejoice that
I am going to her; I shall be sorry that I must lose them!' Will
you say so, Heathcliffe?" Well might Catherine deem that heaven
would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she
cast away her mortal character also. [See my footnote in the
foregoing chapter, on Catherine's dream that the angels flung her
out of heaven.] Her present countenance had a wild
vindictiveness....
"Are you possessed with a devil," he pursued savagely, "to talk in
that manner to me when you are dying?"
And later, as though in answer to the apparent threat of the poem
"Gilbert," wherein, as I have said, the spectre of the woman who has
died broken-hearted through the neglect of her married lover haunts him
and drives him mad, Heathcliffe, in the words of that poem, "Wild as one
whom demons seize," cries:--
"Catherine Earnshaw ... you said I killed you--haunt me then! The
murdered _do_ haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts
_have_ wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive
me mad!"
Charlotte Brontë's poems, "Frances,"[82] "Gilbert," and "Preference"
(wherein we have literature in allegory preferred to a lover), show
there had been to her a season of darkest misery when, to quote
_Villette_ concerning herself as Lucy Snowe, "all her life's hope was
torn by the roots out of her riven outraged heart." Whether this was the
time when, in the words of herself as Jane Eyre, "faith was blighted,
confidence destroyed": a time to her when Mr. Rochester (M. Héger) was
not to her "what she had thought him," the reader shall decide. But in
_Villette_ and _Jane Eyre_ she "would not ascribe vice to him; ... would
not say he had betrayed" her. She forgave him all: yet not in words, not
outwardly; only at [her] heart's core. See the phase of M. Pelet in the
_The Professor_.
Evidence shows it was in her dark season when Charlotte Brontë wrote
_Wuthering Heights_, and that she portrayed M. Héger therein with all
the vindictiveness of a woman with "a riven outraged heart," the wounds
in which yet rankled sorely. Thus may we understand her saying in her
famous preface to _Wuthering Heights_:--
Heathcliffe betrays one solitary human feeling, and that is _not_
his love for Catherine, which is a sentiment fierce and inhuman: a
passion such as might boil and glow in the bad essence of some
evil genius [see my reference to "Robin-a-Ree"; and to the Craven
Satyr, page 142]; a fire that might form the tormented centre--the
ever-suffering soul of a magnate of the infernal world: and by its
quenchless and ceaseless ravage effect the execution of the decree
which dooms him to carry Hell with him ... we should say he was a
man's shape animated by demon life.... Whether it is right or
advisable to create a being like Heathcliffe I do not know; I
scarcely think it is.
Even in _Villette_ there were recurrences of the spasmodic spirit of
vindictiveness responsible for Charlotte Brontë's harsh portrayal of M.
Héger as Heathcliffe, though "at her heart's core she then forgave him."
In _Villette_, Chapter XX., she refers to M. Paul (M. Héger)
antithetically, and all the more significantly, in a comparison of him
with Dr. John Bretton, of whom she says:--
Who could help liking him? _He_ betrayed no weakness which
harassed all your feelings with considerations as to how its
faltering must be propped; from _him_ broke no irritability which
startled calm and quenched mirth; _his_ lips let fall no caustic
that burned to the bone; _his_ eye shot no morose shafts that went
cold, and rusty, and venomed through your heart.
_Wuthering Heights_, however, containing too humiliating a story of
Charlotte Brontë's heart-thrall, her misery and her wild vindictiveness,
and also for the reasons stated in the beginning of this chapter--her
saving remorse--she seems early to have determined to repudiate her
authorship of it; indeed, so largely is she now found to have used the
work in _Jane Eyre_, we might say she once had contemplated destroying
the manuscript. The subsequent arrangement made in the name of Ellis
Bell that the work by the same author should go to Mr. Newby, the
publisher of _Wuthering Heights_, gave finality to this tragedy of
authorship which, but for the discoveries in this, _The Key to the
Brontë Works_, would have remained for ever unrevealed, and a reproach
to literature--a thing of untruth thickly hidden.
Had Charlotte Brontë destroyed _Wuthering Heights_ before its
publication she would have saved this sensational disclosure. But she
hesitated to destroy the manuscript at once, and as an alternative to
identifying herself with its authorship, she sent forth her work under a
_nom de guerre_, part of which had been employed by her sister Emily. We
well know the difficulties that resulted; the judgment of scholars and
thinkers was impugned and their sane pronouncements were pilloried. To
cover Charlotte Brontë's regretful error were to connive against law and
literature. _Wuthering Heights_ being published, the work was the
world's property; it stood for public purposes, to submit to all
criticism and research, and it came neither in Charlotte Brontë's
province nor in that of any person to prevent its being subjected to the
final inquiry with which the cold light of truth exposes all things.
Doubtless Charlotte Brontë perceived this, and regretting the facileness
of her pen and the vituperativeness of her mood of that past and hateful
night, she set herself, in her subsequent works, to make clear she had
overdrawn the bitterness of the relations which one time had existed
between herself and M. Héger. Perhaps she could not expect her
retractions would be understood of all men, but it pleased her inmost
soul, and having a final sense of justice, and a softening of her heart
for her vehement passionateness, she continued in all her works
subsequent to her _Wuthering Heights_ to reconstruct this her early
version. Thus Charlotte Brontë as Caroline Helstone of _Shirley_ is
Catherine Earnshaw of _Wuthering Heights_, with the distinction I
mention. Moore is admitted, as I have said, to have been drawn from M.
Héger[83]:--
_Wuthering Heights._ _Shirley._
Chapter XII. Chapter XXIV.
Catherine's illness, and her Caroline's illness, and her
doubting the absent lover, doubting the absent lover,
Heath(cliffe). Mrs. Dean in Moor(e). Mrs Pryor in
attendance. attendance.
-------- --------
"And I dying!" exclaimed "Am I ill?" asked Caroline of
Catherine to Mrs. Dean. "I on Mrs. Pryor, and looked at
the brink of the grave! My God! herself in the glass; ... she
does he know how I'm altered?" felt ... her brain in strange
continued she, staring at her activity.... Now followed a hot,
reflection in a mirror.... How parched, restless night ... one
dreary to meet death surrounded terrible dream seized her like a
by their cold faces.... Edgar [? tiger ... a fever of mental
Mr. Brontë] standing solemnly by excitement, and a languor of
to see it over; then offering long conflict and habitual
prayers of thanks to God for sadness had fanned the flame ...
restoring peace to his house, and left a well-lit fire behind
and going back to his _books_. it....
Tossing about, she increased her
feverish bewilderment of "Oh!" exclaimed Caroline, "God
madness, ... then, raising grant me a little comfort before
herself, desired that ... [Mrs. I die!... But he [Moor(e)] will
Dean] would open the window. come when I am senseless, cold,
and stiff. What can my departed
And farther on, in delirium, as soul feel then? Can it see or
though her lover were present:-- know what happens to the clay?
Can spirits through any medium
"Heath(cliffe) ... they may bury communicate with living flesh?
me twelve feet deep, and throw Can the dead at all re-visit
the church down over me, and I those they leave? Can they come
won't rest till you are with in the elements? Will wind,
me!" ["Heath(cliffe), I only water, fire, lend me a path to
wish us never to be parted, and Moor(e)? Is it for nothing the
should a word of mine distress wind ... passes the casement
you hereafter, think I feel the sobbing?... Does nothing haunt
same distress underground," says it?"
Catherine, in a further chapter]
"I never will." She paused and When Catherine dies Heathcliffe
resumed ... [Heath(cliffe's)] says:--"Catherine ... you said I
considering--"He'd rather I'd killed you--haunt me then!" And
come to him! Find a way haunt him she does. In the words
then![84] not through that of Caroline Helstone of
kirkyard. You are slow! Be _Shirley_ she "revisits him she
content, you always followed has left." She "goes in the
me!" elements," "the wind lends her a
path[84] to her lover," and it
Mrs. Dean perceived it vain "to is not "for nothing the wind
argue against her insanity." passes the casement of
_Wuthering Heights_
sobbing"--she "haunts it" as the
wailing phantom that cries as a
child [Method II., altering the
age of character portrayed],
"Let me in--let me in!" outside
"the lattice." And Heathcliffe,
wrenching open "the lattice,"
sobs, "Come in!... Cathy, do
come.... Catherine at last!" The
spectre gives no sign of being;
but the snow and wind whirled
... through ... blowing out the
light.
Chapter XIII.
Mrs. Dean continues:-- Convalescent, Caroline
whispers:--
In those two months [Catherine]
encountered and conquered the "... I am better now.... I feel
worst shock of what was where I am: this is Mrs. Pryor
denominated as brain fever. The near me.... I was dreaming....
first time she left the chamber Does the churchyard look
... on her pillow [was] a peaceful?... Can you see many
handful of golden crocuses; her long weeds and nettles among the
eye, long stranger to any gleam graves, or do they look turfy or
of pleasure, caught them in flowery?"
waking.
"I see closed daisy-heads,
"These are the earliest flowers gleaming like pearls on some
at the Heights!... Is there not mounds," replied Mrs. Pryor.[85]
a south wind, and is not the
snow gone?"
It is in _Shirley_ that Charlotte Brontë gives, inadvertently
or purposely, the origin of the title of _Wuthering Heights_,
and we see therewith why she came afterwards to choose for her
autobiographical-self in _Villette_, the name of Lucy Snowe. We perceive
she had been singularly impressed by an old Scottish ballad, entitled,
"Puir Mary Lee," and it is important and interesting to note that Dr.
Joseph Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_ refers readers to this very
same poem in connection with the origin of the northern word
"wuthering," in the form of the verb "whudder," or "wuther." And so, in
a letter to Mr. W. S. Williams, of November 6th, 1852, Miss Brontë wrote
of Lucy Snowe[86]:--
As to the name of the heroine, I can hardly express what subtlety
of thought made me decide upon giving her a cold name; but at
first I called her 'Lucy Snowe' (spelt with an 'e'), which 'Snowe'
I afterwards changed to 'Frost.' Subsequently I rather regretted
the change, and wished it 'Snowe' again. If not too late, I should
like the alteration to be made now throughout the MS. A _cold_
name she must have; partly, perhaps on the _lucus a non lucendo_
principle--partly on that of the 'fitness of things,' for she has
about her an external coldness.
Thus we understand Charlotte Brontë was anxious that her
autobiographical-self in _Villette_ should be called Snowe. While, in
mentioning the matter to her publishers, she endeavoured to show a
superficial and commonplace reason for her singular choice, the truth
underlies her words wherein she says she "can hardly express what
subtlety of thought" made her decide upon "a cold name."
The subtlety of thought that dictated the choice of the "cold name"
Snowe had, we shall see, a connection with the old Scottish ballad,
"Puir Mary Lee," which evidence shows was responsible at the dark season
to which I have referred for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the title of
_Wuthering Heights_--for her identifying her own bitterness with that of
"Puir Mary Lee."
It is in _Shirley_, Chapter VII., that Charlotte Brontë writes:--
Nature ... is an excellent friend, sealing the lips, interdicting
utterance, commanding a placid dissimulation; a dissimulation
often wearing an easy and gay mien at first, settling down to
sorrow and paleness in time, then passing away, and leaving a
convenient stoicism, not the less fortifying because half-bitter.
[As Lucy Snowe, Charlotte Brontë writes in _Villette_ in perfect
sympathy with this: "If I feel, may I never express? I groaned
under her (Reason's) bitter sternness ... she could not rest
unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and
broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece
of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all
life to despond. Reason might be right."] Who has read the ballad
of 'Puir Mary Lee'?--that old Scotch ballad, written I know not in
what generation nor by what hand. Mary had been ill-used--probably
in being made to believe that truth which is falsehood; she is not
complaining, but she is sitting alone in the snow-storm, and you
hear her thoughts ... those of a deeply feeling, strongly
resentful peasant girl. Anguish has driven her from the ingle-nook
of home, to the white-shrouded and icy hills: crouched under the
'cauld drift,' she recalls every image of horror, ... she hates
these, but 'waur' she hates 'Robin-a-Ree!'
"Oh! ance I lived happily by yon bonny burn--
The warld was in love wi' me;
But now I maun sit 'neath the cauld drift and mourn,
And curse black Robin-a-Ree!
"Then whudder awa' thou bitter biting blast,
And sough through the scrunty tree,
And smoor me up in the snaw fu' fast
And ne'er let the sun me see!
"Oh, never melt awa' thou wreath o' snaw,
That's sae kind in graving me;
But hide me frae the scorn and guffaw
O' villains like Robin-a-Ree!"
Thus internal evidence proves that the name of _Wuthering Heights_ for
the abode of the "deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl,"
Catherine Earnshaw, was primarily chosen by Charlotte Brontë because of
its special appeal to her own mood at a given period, in relation to the
ballad of "Puir Mary Lee," and proves that the choice of the name of
Snowe for her "cold and altered" autobiographical self in _Villette_ was
dictated by its connection therewith.
In this light glance at Charlotte Brontë's poem "Mementos," and at the
following verses from her "Frances":--
"And when thy opening eyes shall see
Mementos, on the chamber wall,
Of one who has forgotten thee,
Shed not the tear of acrid gall.
* * * * *
"Vain as the passing gale, my crying;
Though lightning-struck,[87] I must live on;
I know, at heart, there is no dying
Of love and ruined hope alone.
* * * * *
"The very wildness of my sorrow
Tells me I yet have innate force;
My track of life has been too narrow,
Effort shall trace a broader course."
There is an apparent relationship of this last verse with the remarks in
Chapter XXV. of _The Professor_, on Hunsden's "Lucia," of whom he
says:--"I should ... have liked to marry her, and that I _have_ not done
so is a proof that I _could_ not." Lucia's (Miss Brontë's) "faculty" was
literature: the physiognomy was obviously an obfuscation. It is
significant that Charlotte Brontë again took "Lucia," for the Christian
name of Lucia or Lucy Snowe. See my references to Hunsden as a phase of
M. Héger.
Perceiving, therefore, that Charlotte Brontë had likened herself to the
heroine of "Puir Mary Lee," in so far as to be influenced by it to give
the title of _Wuthering Heights_ to one of her works, and to take the
name of Snowe later for her autobiographical self, we understand why she
wrote in _Jane Eyre_, Chapter XXVI.:--
Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman, ... was a
cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were
desolate. A Christmas frost [see my reference to the name of Lucy
Frost] had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled
over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing
roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud [see "the
snow-storm, the white-shrouded and frosty hills," the "cauld
drift," the "whuddering blast," etc., of "Puir Mary Lee" in
_Shirley_], lanes which last night blushed full of flowers to-day
were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods, ... now spread
waste, wild, and white as pine forests in wintry Norway. My hopes
were all dead--struck with a subtle doom.... I looked at my love:
that feeling which was my master's--which he had created; it
shivered in my heart like a suffering child in a cold cradle;
sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr.
Rochester's arms--it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh,
never more could it turn to him; for faith was
blighted--confidence destroyed! Mr. Rochester was not to me what
he had been.... I would not say he had betrayed me: but the
attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea [see
"Robin-a-Ree"], and from his presence I must go; _that_ I
perceived well.... That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth,
'the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire; I felt no
standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me.'
The inclusion in _Shirley_ of the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee" and the
remarks anent it were apparently digressive, but they are followed by
the "subtle" disclaimer:--
But what has been said in the last page or two is not germane to
Caroline Helstone's feelings, or to the state of things between
her and Robert Moore. Robert had done her no wrong; he had told
her no lie; it was she that was to blame, if any one was; what
bitterness her mind distilled should and would be poured on her
own head.
Indeed, there is evidence of a reconciliation between M. Héger and
Charlotte Brontë, this being most marked in _Jane Eyre_ and _Shirley_.
In connection with the reasons responsible for Charlotte Brontë's choice
of the title of _Wuthering Heights_, it is interesting to note some
"subtlety of thought" dictated Charlotte's telling us in _Shirley_,
Chapter XXXIII., of Caroline and her lover that:--
The air was now dark with snow; an Iceland blast was driving it
wildly. This pair neither heard the long "wuthering" rush, nor saw
the white burden it drifted; each seemed conscious but of one
thing--the presence of the other.
After the close of 1850, Charlotte Brontë resolved into the mood which
was an earlier characteristic; and the choice of the name of Snowe for
herself and the extraordinary tenacity with which she held to the name,
having it re-inscribed in _Villette_ by the printers though she had
herself changed it, show she had returned somewhat to that state in
regard to her affection for M. Héger responsible for the passionateness
of her _Wuthering Heights_. And as following the completion of
_Villette_ she decided to marry a man she did not really love, I would
say her mood was honestly in sympathy with that in which she wrote
_Wuthering Heights_ through bitter, adverse circumstances and the
warping of destiny, and did not result from Sydney Dobell's advice to
her when, having read _Shirley_ and _Jane Eyre_, and despite her
disclaimer in a preface, thinking she was the author of _Wuthering
Heights_, he advised her to resume the frame of mind in which she had
penned her _Wuthering Heights_.[88]
Dobell's supposition that she wrote the book had no connection
whatsoever with my discovering Charlotte Brontë was the author of
_Wuthering Heights_; neither had the fact that Miss Rigby--Lady
Eastlake--in _The Quarterly Review_, spoke of _Wuthering Heights_ as
"purporting to be written by Ellis Bell" but having "a decided family
likeness to _Jane Eyre_," and with still more point, identified
"Catherine and Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_ as Jane and Rochester
of _Jane Eyre_ in their native state." For I early found I must credit
only the internal evidence of the Brontë works as my interpretative
guide. Having written "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" nothing could prevent my
discovery of that novel's kinship with _Wuthering Heights_; and so far
back as August 29, 1902, I penned in a private letter enclosed with the
proof sheets of my article to Mr. Harold Hodge, the editor of _The
Saturday Review_, a confession that I was finding a strong kinship
between the two novels. I owe to my persistent consciousness of this
close kinship the fact that I finally discovered the amazing secrets of
_Wuthering Heights_, and was enabled to state publicly in my
_Fortnightly Review_ article of March 1907, Charlotte Brontë and none
other wrote _Wuthering Heights_. It was then I turned with interest to
the remarks of Sydney Dobell, the author of _Balder_, and "a notable
figure in the history of English thought" as he has been named, whose
review of Charlotte Brontë's works had resulted in her being acclaimed a
leading author and a genius. It was in _The Palladium_ of September 1850
Sydney Dobell said:--
That any hand but that which shaped _Jane Eyre_ and _Shirley_ cut
out the rougher earlier statues [in _Wuthering Heights_] we should
require more than the evidence of our senses to believe; ... the
author of _Jane Eyre_ need fear nothing in acknowledging these ...
immature creations.[89]... When Currer Bell writes her next novel,
let her remember ... the frame of mind in which she sat down to
write her first [_Wuthering Heights_]. She will never sin so much
against consistent drawing as to draw another Heathcliffe.... In
_Jane Eyre_ we find ... only further evidence of the same
producing qualities to which _Wuthering Heights_ bears testimony.
Charlotte Brontë warmly thanked him and protested. With eager honesty he
again and again begged her to visit him and discuss the authorship of
_Wuthering Heights_. Could Sidney Dobell but have been told the secret
tragedy of Currer Bell's life and the bitterness of her cup, how he
would have shrunk from inflicting her with an intrusive personal
inquiry. And in all innocence he had asked her to revive the frame of
mind in which, to use the words in _Jane Eyre_, her heart had been
"weeping blood"!
_Wuthering Heights_ was wrought near the furnace of Charlotte Brontë's
fiery ordeal, and gives at its intensest that which glows through her
other works, finally to flash up and smoulder out in _Villette_. By
reason of its clear portrayal of woman when she is very woman _Wuthering
Heights_ towers above all common literary artistry, one of the finest
novels in the world, an abiding monument to the vital genius of
Charlotte Brontë. After her return from Brussels her life was a long
human conflict, with vain regrets, vindictive recriminations, and luring
memories opposing heroic commandings in the name of right and virtue.
All honour to her that she fought to win!
Had Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger been characterless individuals of the
common type who, knowing nothing of self-sacrifice and nobleness of
life, yield to the call of immediate and unlicensed impulse, we could
never have had these most vital representations, these most poignant
revelations of the Martyrdom of Virtue--the works of our immortal Currer
Bell. Her vehicle of confession--her dialect, was what men have termed
fiction. But her heart was satisfied that truth has its ultimate appeal;
and in the way of those sententious writers of old who garbed in an
attractive vesture veritable and momentous records which would be
preserved because they entertained, she gave the history of her life in
a series of dramas we call the Brontë novels. For sixty years these have
been read only as the creations of a brain that spun interesting
fiction! Now, by aid of _The Key to the Brontë Works_, it is revealed
they are more than this, and we discover the real greatness of Currer
Bell and the high rank of her genius. Like that which creates the
noblest and most enduring of the world's literature, the genius of
Charlotte Brontë truthfully preserves the past, while it will intimately
appeal to and have a salient lesson and an inspiring message for any one
so ever who shall read, be it here and now, or in the time to come.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE BRONTË POEMS.
Charlotte Brontë loved her sisters Emily and Anne, but in her
introduction to the poetical selections from their literary remains she
says little concerning their verse, preferring to give of each sister a
kind of short biographical memoir. In dealing with Emily she dwelt
poetically upon the features of the Yorkshire moors, and thus extended
to Emily's verses that atmosphere and charm which she (Charlotte) had
fixed in _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_; and in writing upon Anne
she complained her verse gave evidence of a too melancholy religious
feeling. The eldest surviving child in the Brontë family, after the
deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, it was Charlotte Brontë who would first
set the ideal of literary composition before the Brontë children. To her
initial impulse, therefore, owe we the literary compositions that came
from the pens of Emily, Anne, and Branwell. Evidence of this truth is
the fact that Emily, Anne, and Branwell, in their writing, never got
"right away," as the hunting phrase has it.
There are many definitions of genius: may I define it as a message?
Charlotte Brontë had a message. Emily had none. _Wuthering Heights_ and
all the other works of Charlotte Brontë, prose and verse, had a vital
message. Ellis Bell had no message. In a sort of idle, ruminative
contemplation Emily Brontë constructed verse unburdened with
purpose--verse that became involved at the moment it should have soared.
I believe we have the secret of what I may call Emily's "involved
moments" in Charlotte Brontë's description of her as Shirley Keeldar in
_Shirley_, Chapter XXII., wherein we are told Emily saw visions, as it
were, "faster than Thought can effect his combinations." We feel
something of the clouded chaos of her moment of writing in her more
impassioned or laboured verses; their illogic and incoherence fix it
distressfully. Charlotte, to resume her reference to Emily in _Shirley_
above quoted, further tells us that "so long as she is calm, indolence,
indulgence, humour, and tenderness possess" her eye; "incense her, ...
it instantly quickens to flame." And with her verse, so long as it was
unburdened, indolent, it ran smoothly and pleasantly along with the
simplicity of the _insouciant_; but confronted with magnitude the
imagination flamed, reason and logic were involved, and there was an end
of art. In her excited combativeness she hit out rashly. Thus in her
last verses, considered her masterpiece, she says the "thousand creeds"
which move men's hearts were "vain" to "waken doubt" in her creed, blind
to the fact that truth and worship finally converge to one point,
howsoever diverse their starting-places. The very unbeliever is a
witness to man's innate seeking for truth and right: he is a
non-believer in this or that because he conceives truth to be remote
from it. He seeks truth albeit he is a wide wanderer.
In "The Old Stoic" we have a "stoic" in Emily's rôle of bold challenger
of chimera. "Courage to endure" and "a chainless soul" are what this old
stoic would ask for! The poet was ignorant of or indifferent to the fact
that a true stoic, according to the rule of Epictetus, seeks to be not
other than he is, and is content wheresoever he be, whatsoever his lot.
The words of this poem are those of a bold neophyte, and they are
interesting chiefly because we see advanced in them the hypothesis of
punishment common to Emily's chimera-creating imagination. To repeat: so
long as her mood was calm her verse ran pleasantly and smoothly along.
But the saying tells us, "The good seaman is known in bad weather"; and
so with the poet. Life is not a placid lake: the lethal lightnings play,
and faith and happiness are threatened continually and on the whole
horizon.
Charlotte Brontë, with memory of her own life-storm which has left us
her _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and her other great prose works,
wrote her introduction to Emily's poems in the spirit of one who looked
upon her pieces as the reflections of an uneventful life in the inner
sense of vital soul-conflict.
Anne Brontë's gentle poems, like Emily's, will appeal particularly to
such readers as have sympathetic temperaments; they will not call to the
human heart like the clarion notes of Charlotte Brontë's poem "Passion,"
but mayhap their low whisperings may waken sadly pleasant memories.
With Currer Bell's poems I deal in various chapters, wherein we perceive
their relationship to _Wuthering Heights_ and her other books which
resulted from the harsh rigours of her tempest-bestormed night.
And shall we not say a word for Branwell Brontë? He too wrote verse.[90]
He was not a genius in the sense of my definition, but his verse is such
as might appear in a member of a family a generation or a degree of kin
removed from the genius of the house. Him we must remember
compassionately as one physically weak, an unhappy victim of
circumstances against which he had not the moral force to fight. Nor
shall we forget that the Rev. Patrick Brontë, the father, wrote and
published verse. His productions were printed in pamphlet form, and have
been collected and republished.[91] As literature they are unimportant,
but to the curious they may have a sort of interest.
APPENDIX.
MINOR IDENTIFICATIONS OF PERSONS AND PLACES IN THE BRONTË WORKS.
"WUTHERING HEIGHTS."
There is not satisfactory evidence to enable the identification of the
originals of Wuthering Heights the abode, and Thrushcross Grange.
Similar homesteads are found anywhere near the Yorkshire moors.
Architectural peculiarities and appointments are ever accretive
properties with the novelist of imagination and latitude. This
observation should be kept in mind also in regard to Charlotte Brontë's
other works. See my remarks on page 57.
"JANE EYRE."
The interior of Thornfield Hall, as I mention on page 35, has been
identified with that of "Norton Conyers," near Ripon; externally it has
been associated with "The Rydings," near Birstall. Ferndean Manor has
been identified with Wycollar Hall, near Colne. A Brontë biographer says
this place was set on fire by a mad woman,[92] but the story finds no
mention in _The Annals of Colne_, 1878, or in _Lancashire Legends_,
1873, though "Wyecoller Hall" is dealt with at length in each work.
"SHIRLEY."
Gomersall and Birstall, near Batley, Yorkshire, contribute to the
background of this story. "Field Head" has been identified with
Oakwell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion. Evidence shows that intimately the
Rectory in _Shirley_ was in the main Haworth Parsonage to Charlotte
Brontë. In _The Dictionary of National Biography_ Leslie Stephen
says:--"Brontë, ... a strong Churchman and a man of imperious and
passionate character, ... is partly represented by Mr. Helstone in
_Shirley_, though a [Rev.] Mr. Roberson ... supplied ... characteristic
traits." And Mr. Francis Leyland, who drew much of his information from
Nancy Garrs, a Brontë servant, says that the fourth chapter of
_Shirley_, wherein Charlotte speaks of the grossly untrue reports of
Mr. Helstone's dry-eyed mourning, etc., for his wife, is a defence
really of Mr. Brontë. Helstone was a composite character, as also was
Mrs. Pryor, to whom, without doubt, Miss Wooler contributed, though
Charlotte Brontë once had a grave difference with her. Miss Nussey, who
pathetically and wrongly believed herself Caroline Helstone, proclaimed
Miss Wooler, her schoolmistress, as the prototype of Mrs. Pryor.
Evidence declares, however, that in many regards this character was also
drawn from Tabitha Aykroyd. And we see that Charlotte Brontë, years
before, in her _Wuthering Heights_, had given an ecclesiastical
name--that of Dean--to her portrayal of the one woman who alone ever
took up the part of mother for her--Tabitha Aykroyd. Nevertheless Mrs.
Pryor was in the main a composite character, largely at the service of
"story" requirements. Sometimes she is Tabitha, sometimes Miss Wooler;
elsewhile she is neither. Mr. Macarthey is said to represent the Rev.
Arthur Bell Nicholls, who became Charlotte Brontë's husband.
The references in _Shirley_, Chapters XII. and XXVII., to Robin Hood's
connection with Nunnwood and to the ruins of a nunnery, identify Nunnely
in the circumstances, with Hartshead, near Brighouse and Dewsbury;
Nunnely Church with Hartshead Church (Mr. Brontë was once vicar here),
and the Priory with Kirklees Hall or Priory--Kirklees Park, as we may
see by turning to Dr. Whitaker's _Loidis and Elmete_, pages 306-9
(1816), wherein we find mention of Robin Hood and an old Cistercian
nunnery in connection with Kirklees, appropriately now the residence of
Sir George J. Armytage, Bart., one of the founders of the Harleian
Society. Whinbury has been identified with Dewsbury; but I do not know
that it has been remarked the name Dewsbury may have suggested to
Charlotte Brontë the dewberry, bramble, or blackberry, thus leading her
to adopt "whinberry" and, finally, Whinbury. The attack on Hollow's Mill
is said to have been founded on an attempt in 1812, when an assault was
made on the factory of Mr. Cartwright near Dewsbury.
"THE PROFESSOR" AND "VILLETTE."
_The Professor_, Charlotte Brontë offered to Messrs. Aylott & Jones in
April 1846, was not published till after her death. It is related to
_Villette_ in something of the way, though not so verbally and
intimately, that _Wuthering Heights_ is to _Jane Eyre_. The early
chapters deal vaguely with a West Riding of Yorkshire town, but the
scene quickly changes to Brussels. The Héger _pension_ is recognized as
the original of the schools in both novels, but in _Villette_ the place
Villette occasionally becomes London as Charlotte Brontë knew it on her
visits. Mr. George Smith, the Brontë publisher, and his mother, are
portrayed as the Brettons. Mr. Smith showed Charlotte Brontë the sights
of London: the theatres, picture galleries, churches, etc.; and we have
reflected in _Villette_ incidents associated with her seeing these
places.[93] The reader will find a phase of Currer Bell in Paulina--Miss
de Bassompierre, and a sympathetic phase of Mr. Brontë in her father,
for after the deaths of Emily, Anne, and Branwell, Charlotte and her
father were brought closer to each other. And like Mr. "Home" de
Bassompierre, he had "no more daughters and no son."[94] Towards the
close of _Villette_ we may find a phase of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls,
Charlotte Brontë's husband, in Dr. John Bretton, my previous remarks
upon whom observe. It was shortly after the completion of _Villette_ Mr.
Nicholls proposed successfully, but it would seem by the concluding
chapters Miss Brontë expected this. The picture of the disappointment of
the old father that his popular daughter would marry a plain character
in life suggests to us the disappointment of the Rev. Patrick Brontë in
regard to his daughter's marrying a curate. See Chapter XXXVII. Paulina,
of course, is the feminine of Paul; and the original of M. Paul of this
work we now well know. See footnote on page 120.
The chronological sequences in Charlotte Brontë's novels are seldom
carefully ordered: this should be remembered in reference to her record
of events in her own life.
"AGNES GREY" AND "THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL."
_Agnes Grey_ contains simple and natural portrayals of governess life in
the eighteen-forties; and the following _Wildfell Hall_, we may
conjecture, is built from evolved incidents founded on hearsay and
experience. Whether Miss Brontë had assisted Anne or not, it is certain
_Wildfell Hall_ has something in common with Currer Bell's novels. The
books connected with the name of Acton Bell, however, are not important
as literature in the higher sense of the word; and though a member of
Messrs. Smith & Elder remarked to Miss Brontë upon a similarity in the
leading male characters of _Wildfell Hall_ to Rochester, interest in it
is merely dependent upon its association with the greater Brontë works,
and the book does not call for sedulous inquiry.
THE HÉGER PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.
The Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, London, purchased in July
1906, a hitherto unheard of portrait of Charlotte Brontë, painted in
water-colours in 1850, and stated to be by M. Héger. A reproduction of
the portrait was given in _The Cornhill Magazine_ for October 1906, Mr.
Reginald J. Smith, K.C., of Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., the Brontë
publishers, having to do with its discovery.
In the early autumn of 1906, Mr. Lionel Cust, M.V.O., Surveyor of the
King's Pictures and Works of Art, then Director of the National Portrait
Gallery, was busily corresponding with me in regard to this portrait of
Charlotte Brontë, the authenticity of which became sensationally
attacked. At once I pointed out the importance and significance of the
portrait's being signed "Paul Héger," instead of "Constantin Héger"; and
other matters. In March 1907, I appended a footnote[95] to my article,
"The Lifting of the Brontë Veil," in _The Fortnightly Review_, and on
May 16th, 1907, the literary editor of _The Tribune_, Mr. E. G. Hawke,
having placed space at my disposal, I wrote as follows:--
CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
THE HÉGER PORTRAIT.
To the Editor of _The Tribune_.
SIR,--As the water-colour drawing by M. Héger is now a valuable
property of the nation, and gives a more intimately faithful and
characteristic likeness of Charlotte Brontë than the Richmond
portrait of "Currer Bell," now also hung in the National Portrait
Gallery, kindly permit me publicly to present some of the many
interesting facts connected with it. The portrait is signed "Paul
Héger, 1850" (the accent is correct), and it represents Miss Brontë
with curls, and reading _Shirley_, on one leaf of which is a heart
transfixed with an arrow. The dress that she wears is light green,
and on the back of the drawing is inscribed:
The Wearin' of the Green; First since Emily's death; that being
the first occasion on which Miss Brontë wore colours after
the death of her sister.
And below:
This drawing is by P. Hegér (accent thus), done from life in 1850.
The pose was suggested first by a sketch done by her brother
Branwell many years previous.
The Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery acquired the portrait
from a lady whose family obtained it nigh on forty years ago from
Mr. Thomas Baylis, a personal friend of Lord Lytton. Mr. Baylis
stated that he himself had acquired the portrait from the Héger
family at Brussels. The children of the Mme. Héger who refused to
see Mrs. Gaskell because of her dislike to Miss Brontë, aver that
M. Héger never drew or painted. The statement, however, is directly
opposed by indisputable evidence:
(1.) The portrait is authentic, and was drawn from life in 1850, and
the inscriptions that it bears it is proved could have been
inspired by none other than Charlotte Brontë herself or
M. Héger.
(2.) The statement of Mr. Thomas Baylis, a well-connected gentleman.
(3.) Eugène Sue, in his 1851 volume of _Miss Mary ou
l'Institutrice_, gives, with a clouding of mystery,
a lover--Gérard de Morville--drawing a portrait of Miss
Mary "d'après nature;" and M. Sue's _feuilleton_, as
I showed in _The Fortnightly Review_ for March, identifies
Miss Mary and the de Morvilles as phases of Charlotte
Brontë and the Hégers.[96]
(4.) Miss Brontë, in _Shirley_, herself presents M. Héger--Louis
Gérard Moore--as an artist, and refers to past drawing
episodes.[97]
The authenticity of the inscriptions is not involved in the
question as to whether Charlotte Brontë would use careless
spelling, for, if she had written them, couching them in the third
person, it is clear that she had not desired to be known as the
writer. Upon the other hand, it is discovered to be utterly
impossible for any one but Charlotte Brontë or M. Héger to have
inspired the inscriptions, whosoever wrote them.
SIGNIFICANT PIECES OF EVIDENCE.
I find that M. Héger was Paul to none but Charlotte Brontë in 1850,
and that before the publication, two years ago, of _Charlotte
Brontë and Her Sisters_, by Mr. Clement Shorter, who, for reasons
which he should explain, calls M. Constantin Gilles Romain Héger
"M. Paul Héger," [Throughout that writer's correspondence in _The
Times_, etc., and in _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_: beneath
the portrait of M. Héger, facing page 198, and bearing the
inscription:--M. Paul Héger: The Hero of _Villette_ and _The
Professor_; and on page 161 of that work] no reference in print had
been made to M. Héger but as Constantin. The Hégers state that M.
Héger was not called Paul, and that Dr. Paul Héger, his son, was
the first member of the family named Paul.
A native of Haworth[98] who lived from 1830 till after the death
of Charlotte Brontë in 1855, "within twenty yards of the Haworth
Parsonage," her home, has pronounced the Héger portrait of Miss
Brontë to be a correct likeness and "just like her." He says that
it reminds him of her as he knew her and as she was in her younger
days, and he pointed out to me particularly that he had seen her
with her hair as in the Héger likeness, "scores of times before she
went away"--this giving the clue to the reference in the
inscription to a pose in a portrait by Branwell "many years
previous" to 1850; and I have seen a reproduction of a sketch by
Branwell wherein the Brontë sisters have curls. Moreover, I find
that Miss Brontë really liked curls and disliked the other styles,
though she conformed to the fashion.
I also find that the paper on which the Héger portrait of Miss
Brontë was drawn was that used in 1850 by the house where she was a
guest in London in the early June of 1850, at the very time to
within a day when, as there is indisputable evidence--despite
assertions that she "never under any circumstances during the later
period of her life wore a green dress"--Charlotte Brontë was
wearing a light green dress. That was "the first occasion on which
Miss Brontë wore colours," as the inscription tells us, and fact
substantiates, after she had concluded the remarkably long mourning
period for her sisters, which began with "the death of Emily" and
did not end till twelve months after the death of Anne, who died on
May 28th, 1849.
(Signed) J. MALHAM-DEMBLEBY.
Scarr Hill, Eccleshill, Bradford, May 16th, 1907.
The publication of this letter ended the controversy.[99] Since it was
published Mrs. Gaskell's daughters, who well knew Miss Brontë, have
declared themselves fully satisfied as to the authenticity of the Héger
portrait of Charlotte Brontë and the faithfulness of the likeness. The
testimony of Lady Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, also supports this
portrait. See my further references to my correspondence with her
ladyship herewith. As regards the green dress, apart from the
indisputable external evidence I referred to in the printed letter, I
believe Charlotte Brontë speaks of it in _Villette_, though therein it
is for obfuscation's sake (necessary indeed, since _Villette_ was
published only a short time after her London visit) made "pink" and
"flounceless." In Chapter XXVIII. we find M. Paul saying--and it is
interesting thus to have connected with the green dress a character
whose prototype was M. Héger--that:
"Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, _pea-green_ or sky-blue, [the
dress] was all one."[100]
As I stated to Lady Ritchie in 1907, I believe that in Chapter XX. of
_Villette_ we undoubtedly have a real glimpse of incidents connected
with the wearing of the green dress; and it should be remembered that
Mrs. Bretton and Dr. John Graham Bretton in this chapter represent Mrs.
Smith, and her son Mr. George Smith, the publisher, whose guest
Charlotte Brontë was in 1850, when she first wore the green dress:--
One morning, Mrs. Bretton ... desired me to ... show her my
dresses; which I did, without a word.
"That will do," said she.... "You must have a new one."
... She returned presently with a dressmaker. She had me measured.
"I mean," said she, "to follow my own taste, and to have my own
way in this little matter."
Two days after came home--a pink [green] dress! "That is not for
me," I said hurriedly, feeling that I would ... as soon clothe
myself in the costume of a Chinese lady of rank.
... "You will wear it this ... evening."
I thought I should not; I thought no human force should avail to
put me into it.... I knew it not. It knew not me. I had not proved
it.
But wear it she did; and when Graham [Mr. George Smith] stood in the
doorway looking at her, she tells us her uneasy aspiration was:--
"I _do_ hope he will not think I have been decking myself out to
draw attention."
Clearly Charlotte Brontë wished posterity to learn how it came about she
was garbed in "light fabric and bright tint," because the green dress
was a page in her life's history. In a green dress she sat down to dine,
as Mr. Thackeray's daughter, Lady Ritchie has written me she well
remembers, when Charlotte Brontë dined at Thackeray's house on June 12,
1850--not the event of the distinguished party, when Carlyle, Miss
Perry, Mrs. Procter, and others were present, though Lady Ritchie had
once confounded the two in writing upon the subject[101]. Mr.
Thackeray's daughter was a young girl at the time to which she referred,
but she has made clear to me she saw Miss Brontë three times; that the
chief occasion was when Charlotte Brontë wore the light green dress.
This, to quote her ladyship's words to me, was "not Mrs. Brookfield's
party, when neither my sister and I nor our governess dined--though we
came down in the evening. The second occasion was just casually at my
father's lecture-room, when she did not speak to me, and the third,
finally, at the Brookfield evening party, which seems to have been such
a solemn affair[102]."
These facts fix the wearing of the light green dress by Miss Brontë as
June 12, 1850. Lady Ritchie tells me that "It was at an early family
dinner by daylight with Charlotte Brontë, my father, Mr. George Smith,
my sister and our governess, that I remember sitting next Miss Brontë at
dinner and gazing at her _sleeve_ and mittens. Her dress was of some
texture like one I had had myself, which I suppose impressed it upon me,
and it had a little moss or coral pattern in green on a white ground. I
only remember the sleeve, the straight look, and the smooth Victorian
bandeaux of hair. I am sure she was _differently_ dressed at the
Brookfield evening party."
On June 12, 1850, Charlotte Brontë wrote to her friend, Miss Nussey,
from the Smiths' in London, saying:--
Thackeray made a call.... If all be well, I am to dine at his
house this evening.[103]
And this was when Miss Brontë sat in a light green dress at the
Thackeray dinner-table.
The Richmond portrait of Charlotte Brontë being now also in the National
Portrait Gallery, I may remark that Mrs. Gaskell herself says of this
portrait:--"Those best acquainted with the original were least satisfied
with the resemblance.... Mr. Brontë thought ... it looked good and
lifelike." Charlotte Brontë herself said her father thought the portrait
looked older than she. In view of the new interest now attaching to
Tabitha Aykroyd and Charlotte, it is instructive to find the latter
telling us Tabitha "maintains that it is not like," and also, that
Tabitha thought it "too old looking." Then she apologized for the old
servant in a sentence that pathetically recalls Mrs. Dean and Bessie of
"Catherine's" and "Jane's" childhood--"Doubtless she confuses her
recollections of me as I was in childhood, with present
impressions."[104] We discover, therefore, that in the main there was
really dissatisfaction at the "old looking" presentation, and we see
Charlotte Brontë from the beginning must have wished she had had her
hair arrangement in that portrait as was common to her at home and in
her younger days. Hence do we get a further insight into the origin of
the different pose in the more characteristic and intimately faithful
Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë.
INDEX.
INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL KEY INDEX.
I stated in a letter to _The Academy_, August 1st, 1908, that "were it
possible by application of a cipher code to discover the words 'Emily
Brontë' in every sentence of _Wuthering Heights_, I could not even then
say any one wrote the book but Charlotte Brontë." If people write before
they think, then importance can be attached to clerical testimony and
external associations to the disadvantage of internal and literal
evidence. But inspiration, thought, and fact denote in questions of
authorship, and therefore that is author of a work whose thoughts and
words are expressed and inmost life revealed therein. _Wuthering
Heights_, we now see, is Charlotte Brontë, and it matters not what
amanuensis dealt with the relation--what sequence of complications
resulted from her first day of handing over the work to her sister, and
of conspiring to conceal her authorship.
Had not my own two sisters died, I might have been tempted to make them
novelists: out of my bottom drawer I could have provided them with a
novel each and one for a "follow-on," and yet have left myself some
maturer works in hand. But _my_ sisters would have had to copy out the
manuscripts for the printers from my first drafts, and in every way
possible to merit and to establish association with the books as
authors. And how indignant we would have been--nay, alarmed, had there
been a "Newby arrangement," at some daring critic, like Lady Eastlake
and Sydney Dobell, imputing they were the work of one mind! Would we not
have appealed to clerical testimony? With a more practised hand
Charlotte Brontë in her days of fame corrected and edited _Wuthering
Heights_. Emily was dead. Well might Charlotte say the labour left her
"prostrate and entombed." What memories had it recalled!--what a
history! It is obvious to all who consider carefully the letter
Charlotte Brontë penned Wordsworth, to which I refer in the footnote on
page 17 of _The Key to the Brontë Works_, that she wrote her books
rapidly; and a review of the fact that the Brontë school project was
renounced in favour of literary projects suggests Currer Bell in 1845-46
revealed to her sisters the advantages of having a bottom drawer. Let
any reader use what I have termed the Key Index to the works of
Charlotte Brontë, and it will be perceived quite easily that _Wuthering
Heights_ is irrefutably at one with Currer Bell and all her other
books--that the works of Charlotte Brontë are all related to each other,
to Charlotte Brontë, and to the facts and people of her life as seen and
known by herself. The reader of a given Brontë work will glance down the
list in the Key Index under the heading of the particular book in hand
to find these very important and intensely interesting connections, now
first shown to exist:--
THE KEY INDEX
TO THE LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS.
Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii.-xi.[105], 16-19, 32-3,
37-53, 55-7, 69, 78-9, 83, 85-103, 106, 108-112, 114-8, 120-1,
126-9, 130-155, 156-8, 160-1, 168
In relation to Branwell Brontë, x., 18, 37-40, 52-3, 78-9, 93-5, 139
---- Tabby Aykroyd, x., 38, 40-1, 43-53, 77, 94-5, 147-8, 160, 168
---- M. Héger, viii., xi., 16, 17, 34, 56, 87, 89, 91-3, 96-103, 106,
111, 120-1, 128-9, 134-154, 157
---- Madame Héger, 106-7, 117
---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9
---- Rev. Patrick Brontë, 49, 147;
the younger Cathy's father, 161
---- Maria Brontë, 37
---- Emily Brontë, viii., 17, 18, 40, 138, 146, 153, 156, 169
---- M. Sue, ix., 103-4, 106-112, 114, 121, 128, 132-142
---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 56, 97, 128, 132-7, 139, 140-5,
150-1, 157-8
---- Montagu, x., 17, 20-35, 55, 57-68, 71, 141-5
---- _Jane Eyre_, vii., viii., x., 18, 20, 22-56, 58-68, 71-2, 79, 83,
85-103, 106, 108-112, 114-119, 121, 128-9, 134-146, 151-4, 157,
168
---- _Shirley_, ix., 18-9, 41, 43, 55-6, 83, 85-9, 136, 146-153, 160-1
---- _The Professor_, ix., x., 53-6, 78-9, 84-9, 121, 127-9, 138-9,
145, 151
---- _Villette_, ix., 92, 96-7, 103, 111, 121, 128-9, 136-8, 143-5,
148-154, 161
---- Charlotte Brontë's Method I., viii.-x., 23-4, 25-31, 38, 40, 47,
97-103
---- ---- Method II., viii., 25-31, 38-9, 48-51, 53, 55
JANE EYRE.
Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., viii., x.,[105] 15, 18,
21-2, 30, 37-56, 69-119, 121-154, 157, 168
In relation to Branwell Brontë, x., xi., 18, 37-40, 52-3, 78-9, 93-5,
106, 139
---- Tabby Aykroyd, x., 40, 43-53, 77-8, 94-5, 105, 128, 168
---- M. Héger, x., 14, 82-9, 92-3, 96-107, 111, 120, 126-9, 136-146,
148-154
---- Madame Héger, 106-7, 112, 117
---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9
---- Rev. Patrick Brontë, xi., 70-2, 74-7, 81-2, 128, 136
---- Maria Brontë, xi., 24, 70-1, 80-1, 106, 108-110
---- Anne Brontë, xi., 70-4, 77-8, 81-2;
Elizabeth Brontë, xi., 72, 81, 106-7
---- Emily Brontë, xi., 70-4, 78, 81
---- Aunt Branwell, xi., 70-3, 77-81
---- Cousin Eliza Branwell, xi., 69, 70-2, 79-81
---- M. Sue, ix., x., 82-3, 103-121, 126-9, 135
---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 97, 128, 135-8, 140-5, 150-1, 157-8
---- Montagu, x., 20-36, 60-8, 71-2, 140-5
---- _Wuthering Heights_, same as opposite
---- _Shirley_, 81, 83-9, 136, 147-153
---- _The Professor_, 79, 83-9, 111, 127-9, 139-142, 145, 151
---- _Villette_, 42, 86, 89, 92, 103, 118-9, 126, 128-9, 132-154
---- Charlotte Brontë's Method I., x., 23-4, 25-31, 97-103, 105
---- ---- Method II., 25-31, 45, 48-51, 72, 74
SHIRLEY.
Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., ix., 41, 43, 69, 75,
81, 83-4, 87-9, 120, 136, 146-153, 156-7, 159, 160, 163
In relation to Tabby Aykroyd, 43, 160
---- M. Héger, ix., 69, 81, 83-4, 120, 136, 146-153, 163
---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9;
Martha and Mary, 83-4
---- Rev. Patrick Brontë, 41, 75, 159-161;
Mrs. Brontë, 41, 159-161;
Emily Brontë, 69, 81, 156-7
---- Rev. A. B. Nicholls, 160;
M. Sue, 163;
Miss Wooler, 160
---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 136
---- _Wuthering Heights._ See Key Index for that work
---- _Jane Eyre._ " " "
---- _The Professor_, 83-9, 150-3
---- _Villette_, 41, 86, 89, 136-142, 146-154, 160-1
THE PROFESSOR.
Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., ix., 16, 18, 53-5, 63,
71, 79, 83-9, 111, 120-9, 138-9, 145, 150-2, 160
In relation to M. Héger, ix., 16, 63, 83-9, 111, 120-9, 138-9, 145,
150-2, 160, 164
---- Madame Héger, 16, 111, 122-8, 131-3
---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9
---- M. Sue, ix., 63, 84, 104, 107, 111, 120-9
---- Branwell Brontë, 79
---- Montagu, 63, 71
---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 63, 71, 128, 139, 151, 158
---- _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and _Shirley_. See Key Index
for those works
---- _Villette_, ix., 86, 107, 111, 126-9, 139, 144-5, 149-151, 160
---- Charlotte Brontë's Method I., ix., 121, 127-8, 131
VILLETTE.
Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., ix., 41, 47, 86, 89,
92, 97, 103, 107, 111, 118, 126, 128-9, 132-7, 140, 144-5,
148-154, 160-1, 166-7
In relation to M. Héger, ix., 70, 86, 89, 92, 97, 103, 111, 118, 126,
128-9, 132-40, 145, 150-4, 166
---- Madame Héger, 106, 118, 133
---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 89
---- M. Sue, ix., 103-4, 111, 118, 120-9, 130-5
---- Lady Ritchie, xi., 165-8
---- Mr. George Smith, 69, 160-1, 166-8; Mrs. Smith, 161, 166-8
---- Thackeray, 70, 165-8
---- Rev. Patrick Brontë, 77, 136, 161
---- Rev. A. B. Nicholls, 69, 86, 161
---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 128, 132-7, 140-5, 149-152
---- _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, _Shirley_, and _The Professor_.
See Key Index for those works
END OF THE KEY INDEX TO CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S WORKS.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS.
Brontë, Charlotte, her life:--37-53, 93-103, 138-9, 153, 169;
_Frances_ and Catherine, 133-4;
throughout the work of, 18, 40;
drawn by her from Montagu, 22-36, 57-68, 141-2;
_Tale of a Foundling_, 33;
_Alembert_, 65;
as the younger Catherine, viii., 46, 161;
as the two Cathys, 16, 17, 34, 106-118, 161;
Authoritative evidence of her Methods I. and II.:--viii., 25-6,
98-103, and of Key Index to the Brontë Works, 169, 170;
gives it Emily, 17, 18, 169;
offers it publishers, 17;
story of a sad Night, 17;
why she disavowed authorship of, 143-6;
unable to admit authorship of, 18, 146, 153, 169;
preface to, 142, 145;
rainy day in her childhood, 37-42;
fit of frenzy, 48-51;
spectral writing, 42;
phantom hag, 42;
her childhood reading, 41;
Rev. Jabez Bunting, 41;
her cold, wailing child apparition, 28-30, 52-6;
cloven tree, 96-7;
and Heathcliffe's hypochondria, 16, 55-6, 87-8, 144;
Isabella's rival, 106, 117-8;
as Catherine of Malham, 23, 57-68;
her mood in writing, 150-3;
fears publisher, 18-9, 153, 169
Brontë, Emily,
unimportance of her corrected copy of, and implication, 17, 169,
170;
purporting to be by, 18, 138, 153, 169;
_Wuthering Heights_, no internal evidence of, viii., 169, 170
Brontë, Branwell, and authorship of, 40;
as Hindley, 18, 37-40, 52-3, 69;
carving knife incident, 39
Brontë, Rev. Patrick, as Mr. Linton, 49, 147, 161
Aykroyd, Tabitha, as Mrs. Dean, 43-51, 59, 69, 72, 78, 81, 160, 168;
her old songs, 46-7;
her fairy tales, 44-5;
as Joseph, 38, 40, 47-8
Héger, M., in, 16, 17, 34. Also, see Key Index for foregoing names
Earnshaw, Catherine, and Heathcliffe, as Jane and Rochester, 93-103,
139
Heathcliffe, as Rochester, 89-92, 138-9, 153;
as "that ghoul," 140-6;
and Taylor, 83-9;
return of the runaway, 93, 97-103;
expression of eyes, 90-1;
the foundling, 22;
origin of name, 22, 142
Hareton, origin of name, 22-3, 60, 64, 66;
and M. Héger, viii.-x., 120-1
Joseph, original of, 23;
as Poole of _Jane Eyre_ and Montagu's uncouth servant, 23-8, 30-1
Lockwood as Montagu, 23-32, 57-60, 66;
his boy guide, 60, 66
Newby, Mr. Thomas, publisher of, 19, 146, 153, 169
Malham as Gimmerton, and Gimmerden;
Malhamdale as the valley of Gimmerton, 22-3, 57-68, 71;
Glens, 58, 66, 68;
Peniston Crags, 22-3, 59, 60, 65-6;
Fairy Cave, 22-3, 59-66;
Chapel, 22, 66-8, and Briar Chapel of _Shirley_, 41;
Kirk in the lonely valley, 22, 64, 66-8;
Fair, 22, 66-7;
mists, 68;
stream, 22, 68;
sough, 66-68;
Heights, 22, 66-7;
Catherine, of, 23, 71
Montagu and, 20;
Airton, 22-3;
Airton, Robert, 60, 64, 71;
Mrs., 60;
lonely house of mystery and uncouth servant, 17, 23-32;
cuckoo story or foundling "plot," 22-3, 33-4, 87;
a night's repose and the candle-bearing bedside apparition, 21-32,
30-2
Brunty foundling controversy, 13;
the key chapter, 40;
origin of title, 56-7, 148-152;
Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the abodes--originals not
known, 159;
Lady Eastlake and Dobell, 138-9, 153-4
Published later than _Jane Eyre_, 118, 138, 169
JANE EYRE.
Brontë, Charlotte,
her life, 37-53, 69-103, 106-119, 123-155, 168, 169-170;
her second work based on Montagu, 23-36, 60-6, 68-72, 140-2;
Rivers family, 23, 69-82;
Burns, Helen, 23-4, 69-71, 80,
and Charles I., 64,
as Agnes Jones (death of), 106-110,
and M. Sue, 108-110.
"Rivers," origin of suggestion, 23, 71-2, 141-2,
Diana and Mary, 70-8, 81-2,
St. John as Mr. Brontë, 70-8, 81-2,
as Charlotte's Brussels priest, 77, 132, 136-7,
not Rev. Mr. Nussey, 77;
Hannah, and Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd), 40, 43-53, 69-73, 78, 81,
fairy tales and old songs, 44-7;
Reed, name (and Keeldar), 23, 81;
aunt, 38, 70-1;
John (and Hindley), 37-40, 52-3, 71, 79, 113;
Eliza and Georgiana, 69, 79-82;
Severn Julia, 23, 81, 107;
Lowood school, 18, 21-2;
fever, etc., at, 106-110, 117;
Miss Temple of, 81, 110-1;
Brocklehurst, 21, 81, 115;
Morton (Haworth), Moor House, 70-82, 105;
Charlotte as Jane Eyre and Catherine Earnshaw (also see Key Index),
37-42, 93-103, 150-2;
rainy day in her childhood, 37-42;
fit of frenzy, 48-51;
spectral writing, 42;
phantom hag, 42;
cold, wailing child apparition, 28-30, 52-6, 151;
cloven tree, 96-7;
the Sidgwicks, 78;
Gateshead Hall, 37-9, 45;
her Thornfield, 72, 127-8;
as Jane Eyre and Lucia Snowe, 148-152;
as Jane Eyre, and Crimsworth of _The Professor_, ix.-x., 127-8;
as Janet Aire or Jane Eyre of Malham, 22-3, 60-6, 70-2, 142;
"Jane," a secondary adaptation, 71;
Fairy Janet, Queen of the Malhamdale Elves, 23, 60-4;
no views on lunacy, 34-6;
Rochester's song, 140-2;
the miraculous voice, 136-7;
nymph and satyr, 141-2;
missionary life and priest, 136-7;
the runaway, 93, 97-103, 129;
hen-killing figure in _Wuthering Heights_ and, ix.-x;
"Rydings," "Norton Conyers," and "Thornfield," 35, 159;
Wycollar Hall, 159
---- Rochester (see Key Index for M. Héger and the Taylors), x., 14,
145, and _Wildfell Hall_, 161;
_Jane Eyre_ the surpassing of all Brontë biographies, 82;
"Key to _Jane Eyre_" The, xi., 20, 68, 153
Malham or Gimmerton, background of _Jane Eyre_, 22-3, 58-68;
source of river Aire or Ayre, 23, 60-71;
Jane of, 22-3, 60-6, 70-2;
see Fairy Janet Aire or Eyre of Malham
Montagu, and opening of _Jane Eyre_, 21-2;
lonely house of mystery, and uncouth servant (Grace Poole and
Joseph), 17, 23-32
--Jane Eyre's and Lockwood's two dreams in, 28-30
--a night's repose and candle-bearing apparition in, 21, 23-32;
origin of plot of insane lady, and of the white veil
scene (Shelley), 24, 34-6;
insane lady a secondary suggestion; suggests names, Aire or Eyre,
Burns, Rivers, Reed, Keeldar, Broughton, Eshton, Georgiana,
Helen, Ingram, Lowood, Lynn, Mason, Millcote, Poole, recalling
perhaps a Rev. Mr. Pool, and Currer Bell, 21, 23-4
SHIRLEY.
Brontë, Charlotte,
as Shirley Keeldar, 81, 120;
as Caroline Helstone (and Catherine Earnshaw), 41, 146-8, 152;
her home the Rectory, 159;
childhood reading, 41-2;
Keeldar, name, 23;
Shirley as Emily Brontë, 69, 156-7.
Helstone, Mr., 86;
original of, 75, 159-161;
name, 41;
and Rev. H. Roberson, 86, 159-160.
Héger, M., and the Moores, 89, 146-8;
Louis, 163;
Robert, 152.
Cartwright, Mr., 89, 160.
Mr. Macarthey, 160.
Mrs. Pryor, 147-8;
a composite character, 160;
and Mrs. Dean and Tabby, 43;
Miss Wooler, 160.
Yorke (Taylor), Hiram, 83-4;
Matthew, 83;
Rose, 83-4;
Jessie, death of, 84
Birstall, Batley, 159;
"Briarmains," 83;
"Field Head," 159;
The Red House, Gomersall, 83, 159;
Oakwell House, 159.
Hartshead, Brighouse, 160;
Nunnwood, Nunnerly and church, Robin Hood, Kirklees Park,
Priory, 160;
Hollows Mill, 160;
Whinbury (Dewsbury), 160.
Published in 1849
THE PROFESSOR.
Brontë, Charlotte, as Henri Frances Evans, 71, 122;
as Crimsworth, ix., 127-8;
Fairy Janet, 63, 71;
wailing child apparition, 53-5;
Lucia, 86, 151
Héger, M., as Crimsworth, 63, 127, 138;
Hunsden, 83-9, 151;
origin of name, 84;
Pelet, 16, 84, 139, 145
Héger, Madame, as Mdlle. Reuter, 111, 122
Offered to publishers, 17;
published, 160
VILLETTE.
Brontë, Charlotte, as Lucy Snowe, 86, 131, 144, 120, 148-152;
origin of name, 22, 56, 149, 151;
childhood reading, 41;
and Father Confessor, 77, 132, 136-7;
as Paulina, 47, 120,
and Cathy Linton, 161;
Paulina and Mr. Home--Charlotte and Rev. Patrick Brontë, 161;
final words in, 129
Bretton, Dr. John, Paulina's lover, 69, 161;
as Mr. George Smith and Rev. A. B. Nicholls, 69, 86, 145, 160-1.
Mrs. Bretton, 166
Héger, M., as Paul Emanuel, 42, 96-7, 126, 131, 145;
his harshness, 85-6;
and Thackeray, 70
Héger, Madame, as Madame Beck, 118, 133
Ritchie, Lady, and green dress, xi., 165-8
Villette as London and Brussels, 160-1
Published, 19;
inception, 166
_Agnes Grey_ and _Wildfell Hall_, 17, 161.
GENERAL INDEX.
Aire, or Ayre, Malham, source of the, 23, 60-1, 71
Armytage, Bart., Sir Geo. J., 160
Aykroyd, Tabby. See Brontë servants
Branwell, Maria, of Penzance, marries Patrick Brontë, 75;
death of, 14, 159-161
---- Aunt (Elizabeth), and the Hégers, 113-4;
Branwell Brontë her favourite, 37, 78-9;
in mourning for, 72-3
---- Cousin Eliza, 68, 80
Brontë, Annie or Anne (Acton Bell),
as understudy to Charlotte, 17, 169;
_Gondal Chronicles_, 17;
_Agnes Grey_ and _Wildfell Hall_, 17, 161;
appearance and life, 70-4, 77-8, 81-2;
Poems, 156-8;
death of, 161-5
---- Charlotte, birthplace, 14;
birthday, 14, 106;
appearance, 118, 131, 165, 168.
Childhood:
a rainy day, 18, 37-42, 78;
curtain incident, 38;
Branwell as "tyrant" makes her head ache, 18, 37-42;
"volume-hurling," 38-9, 78;
Methodist literature, 40-2;
writings and Mrs. Gaskell, 14;
Tabby, 38, 40-1, 43-51, 168
--her homily, 40
--old songs and fairy tales (Charlotte's love of Scottish
ballads), 47, 149, 150;
the locked chamber, 48-51;
passionateness, 45-6, 48-51, 116.
Elfish imagination, 23;
schools, 14, 16, 18, 21-2, 81, 104, 106-117
--Clergy Daughters' School, 18, 21-2, 81, 106-117,
Roe Head, 14, 16, 83,
Héger _pension_, 16, 18, 72, 104;
drawings, 82;
her life from childhood to womanhood, 93-103;
no psychical reciprocity with friends, 14;
Wordsworth and her facility in writing novels, 17, 169;
at Brussels (the Hégers),
teacher and pupil, viii.-x., 63, 82, 120-2, 131, 138,
dejection at, 120-1, 124;
M. Héger, viii.-xi., 14-17, 93, 96-107, 111-2, 120-154, 162-8,
and her literary secrets, 104, 162;
Madame Héger, 16, 104-7, 111-2, 117-9, 122-7, 133,
forbids corresponding, 16;
Charlotte as Mdlle., 105,
as M. Sue's Mdlle. Lagrange and Miss Mary, ix., 82, 103-132, 163;
_Imitation of Christ_, ix., 121-2;
her priest, 77, 132-8;
departure from Brussels, 16, 127;
flight from temptation, 105, 141-2, 122-9, 151-2;
the fiery ordeal, 154;
parting with the Hégers, 122-132;
origin of her works, vii., 15, 20-36, 138;
Montagu, see Key Index for _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_;
_Alembert_, 64-5;
Currer Bell, 17, 21-2;
perpetuates drama of her life, vii., 15, 16, 154;
Branwell, 18,
and his aunt, 79;
at Haworth Parsonage, 69-82;
school project given up, 16, 169.
Poems publishing, 17:
"Apostasy" and "Regret," 96-7, 133-7;
"Frances," 132, 134, 144, 150-1;
"Gilbert," 139, 143-4;
"The Letter," 105;
"Mementos," 150;
"Apostasy," 133-7;
"Preference," 132;
"Passion," 157.
Her hypochondria, 16, 87-8;
"Puir Mary Lee," 45, 149, 150;
the storm, 16, 17, 130-154, 157-8;
vindictiveness against M. Héger, 16, 17, 143-6, 152;
Ghoul and Satyr notion, 140-6;
Héger and her heroes (see also the Taylors, 83-9), 83-92;
heaven undesired by lover, 97, 133-4, 139;
elective affinities, cloven tree, and "twin-soul," 96-7, 147-8;
supernatural "way" to "twin-soul" lover (and the haunted wind),
55-6, 136-7, 140, 147-8;
eerie signal against lattice, 28-30, 53-6, 147-8;
dual portraiture, 69, 70, 77, 83-9, 120, 159, 160, 161;
ice-cold wailing child apparition, 28-30, 52-6, 151;
her two dreams preface to "bedside apparition," 28-30;
name selection method, 22, 68;
chronological sequences in her works, 161;
character of her correspondence, 14, 15;
Héger portrait of, in National Portrait Gallery, xi., 162-8;
Richmond Portrait in N.P.G., 168;
_Wuthering Heights_ complications (conspires to accredit and sustain
Emily as author), 17, 146, 169;
her fear of Mr. Newby, 19, 153, 169;
limitations of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life_, 15
--disappointment of, 104;
last survivor of the young Brontës, 19, 161;
Introduction to her sisters' poems, 156-7;
Miss Austen, 15;
Rev. A. B. Nicholls, marriage with, 19, 96-7, 161
--Catherine Winkworth on, 96;
_Wildfell Hall_, 17, 161;
at Thackeray's and the Smiths', xi., 166-8;
dedicates _Jane Eyre_ to Thackeray, xi.;
Greenwood Dyson and, 164.
Last days:
father and daughter, 161;
her resting-place, 19;
her Message and high rank of her genius, 16, 155.
Also see the Key Index to her works
---- Elizabeth, 18, 71-2, 106-7
---- Emily (Ellis Bell), as understudy to Charlotte, 17, 169;
conspires with her to sustain rôle of author of _Wuthering Heights_,
17, 138, 146, 169;
no internal evidence of her in _Wuthering Heights_, viii.;
her life contrasted with Charlotte's, 17, 18, 156-7;
relations with Branwell, 18, 39, 40, 139;
appearance and life, 17, 72-4, 78, 81-2, 156-7;
Poems, "Old Stoic," "Last Lines," 157;
her literary limitations, 17, 156-7;
death of, 161-5.
See Key Index of _Shirley_
---- Maria (Helen Burns), 18, 41, 71.
See Key Index; also M. Sue
---- Patrick Branwell, appearance, 79;
artist, 18, 165-6;
his verse, 158;
enjoys the hearth, 37-8;
a sign of trouble for, 52-3;
evil days, 39, 78-9, 158;
and Aunt Branwell, 78-9;
and M. Sue, 106, 110.
As Hindley and John Reed, x., 18, 37-8, 52-3, 69, 78-9, 139.
See also Key Index for _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and
_The Professor_
---- Rev. Patrick, parents, Hugh Brunty and Alice M'Clory, 13;
at Ballynaskeagh and Drumballyroney, 13;
at Cambridge, 13, 74-5;
Wethersfield, 75, and Mary Burder;
Dewsbury, 75;
Vicar of Hartshead, 160;
marries Maria Branwell, 18, 75, 159-161;
Vicar of Thornton, 14;
of Haworth, 13;
appearance and life, 13, 70-7, 82, 147, 159-161, 167-8;
verse, 13, 158;
and Mrs. Gaskell's Life, 15.
Also see Key Index
---- Poems, 156-8;
Aylott and Jones, 17, 105, 160
---- servants:
Aykroyd Tabitha, x.;
as Nelly Dean and Bessie, 43-53, 168;
does not understand Charlotte Brontë, 43, 45-6;
and old songs, 45-7;
also, 72, 77-8, 147-8, 160, 168;
her homily, 40;
her gift of narrative and fairy tales, 44-5;
death of, 19, 96-7.
Also see Key Index for _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and
_Shirley_.
Brown, Martha, 47, 96, 161;
Brown, Tabitha (Mrs. Ratcliffe), and Charlotte Brontë's married
life, 96;
Garrs, Nancy, and sister, 47, 159
Brookfield, Mrs., 167-8
Carlisle, William, 167
Carus-Wilson, Rev. Mr., 115
Casterton Hall, 23;
Clergy Daughters' School, 18, 81, 106, 108-111, 114-117
Cornwall, Barry, 34
Courtney, William Leonard, xi., 104
Cust, Lionel, 162
Devonshire, Duke of, 20
Dewsbury, 14, 83, 160;
Hartshead, 81, 160
Dobell, Sydney, 153-4, 169
Dyson, Greenwood, and Charlotte Brontë, 164
Elf, of Craven, The, 60, 141-2
Evans, Miss (Miss Temple), 110, 114
Fairy Cave, The, and Fairy Janet: see Malham
Gaskell, Mrs., and M. Héger, 15, 96, 104;
Madame Héger, 163;
West Indian girl mystery, 108
---- Misses, 165
Hathersage, 70-1, 77
Haworth, 68, 70, 138, 164;
Church, 13, 19, 164;
Parsonage, 69, 72-82, 159, 161, 164
Héger, M., as Charlotte Brontë's pupil, viii.-x., 120, 122;
original of her chief heroes, 14, 16-17, 83-6, 89-93, 96-7, etc.;
not secretive, 111, 162;
and Roman Catholic Church, 16, 132, 138;
a great and religious personality, 121, 124, 126-9, 132-3, 137-8,
154, 166;
Charlotte Brontë's harsh portrayals of, 143-6;
facial metamorphoses, 85;
the bitterness of his life, 128-9, 130-2;
"Paul," 162-6;
as M. de Morville, 82, 104-6, 120-9, 132, 163.
See Key Index for M. Héger
---- Madame, 16;
her jealousy, 104, 112, 117-8, 122-3, 121-2;
appearance of, 106;
as Madame de Morville, 106-133.
See Key Index for Madame Héger
Hawke, E. G., 163
Hodge, Harold, xi., 153
Holloway, Laura C., 77
Holmes, Professor Charles J., 165
Holroyd, Kt., Sir Charles, vii.
Kendal, 106;
Kendall Institution, 114-7
Kirkby Malham Church, 64, 66-8
Lagrange's Manuscript "Catherine Bell," 104-119
Lambert family, 64
Lucan's "Pharsalia," 14
Lytton, Lord, 163
M'Clory, Alice, 13
Malham, original of Gimmerton of _Wuthering Heights_:
home of Catherine Earnshaw, and of Janet Aire of _Jane Eyre_, 22-3,
57-68, 71;
source of the Aire or Ayre, 71.
See Key Index of _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ for Malham in
Montagu
Malham, or Malam, origin of family, 67
Malham and _Kalderworth_, 67
Malhamdale, enchanted land, 60, 71
Montagu or Mountagu, Admiral, and Charles II., 20, 64;
De Ruyter, 20
Montagu, Basil, 20-1
Montagu, Frederic, his _Gleanings in Craven_ provides the Malham
background, and the plots of _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane
Eyre_, and Charlotte Brontë's _nom de guerre_, Currer Bell,
20-36, 57-68, 141-2, 145. See Montagu in the Key Index for
those works
Montagu, John, fourth Earl of Sandwich, 20
Morville de, M., Alphonsine, and Gérard, see M. Héger;
Madame, see Madame Héger
National Portrait Gallery,
and Héger Portrait of Charlotte Brontë, xi., 162-8;
Thomas Baylis, 163;
and Richmond portrait, 168
Newby, Thomas, 19, 153, 169
Nicholls, Rev. A. B., see Charlotte Brontë;
also Key Index for _Villette_
Nussey, Ellen or Nelly, 14, 45, 71, 77, 160, 168;
Rev. Henry, 77
Procter, Mrs., and Miss Perry, 167
Rigby, Miss (Lady Eastlake), 138-9, 153, 169
Ripon, K.G., Marquis of, xii.
Ritchie, Lady, xi., 165-8
Shorter, Clement K., viii., 22, 77, 83, 147, 162, 164
Smith, George, xi., 86, 160-1, 166-8;
Mrs. Smith, 166-7.
See Key Index for _Villette_;
Reginald John, K.C., 162;
Smith Elder & Co., 161-2, 168
Sue, Eugène, ix., 16, 103-129.
See Key Index to the Brontë works.
Taylor family of Hunsworth, 83-9 (see Key Index);
Mary and Martha, 83-4
Thackeray, W. M., xi., 34, 167-8.
See Key Index, _Villette_
Welch, Catherine Galbraith, xi.
West Indian Girl, mystery of, 106-8, 112
Winkworth, Catherine, 96
Wise, Thomas J., 64
Wooler, Margaret, 18, 160
Yates, W. W., 75
WORKS.
_Key to the Brontë Works_, John Malham-Dembleby:--
Its place and importance, vii.-xii., 15, 17-19, 25, 58, 64, 80-2,
104, 108, 146, 154.
Importance of its Key Index, 169-171
_Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Mrs. Gaskell, 15, 22, 43-4, 52, 72, 83,
118, 123, 149, 161, 168;
cause of its sombreness, 82;
disappointment, and limitations, of, 15, 104;
and Branwell Brontë, 121.
Haworth Edition, 14, 17, 85, 121
_Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Augustine Birrell, 75
_Brontës: Life and Letters_, Clement K. Shorter, 14, 73, 80, 87
_Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle_, Clement K. Shorter, 17, 135
_Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, Clement K. Shorter, viii., 22, 77,
147, 159, 164
_Brontë Country_, Dr. Erskine Stuart, 35
_Life of Emily Brontë_, Miss Mary Robinson, 39;
character of work, 57
_Brontë Family_, Francis Leyland, 39-40, 158
_Brontës, Fact and Fiction_, Rev. Angus Mackay, 13, 41, 132, 144
_Brontë Homeland_, J. Ramsden, 13
_Brontës in Ireland_, Dr. William Wright, 13
_Charlotte Brontë: Monograph_, Sir T. Wemyss Reid, 14
_Father of the Brontës_, W. W. Yates, 75
_Rev. Patrick Brontë's Collected Works_, Horsfall Turner, 13, 158
_Thornton and the Brontës_, William Scruton, 161
_Chapters from Some Memories_, Lady Ritchie, 167
_Craven Highlands_, Harry Speight, 60
_Dictionary of National Biography_, Leslie Stephen, 21, 159
_English Dialect Dictionary_, Dr. Joseph Wright, 68, 149
_Gleanings in Craven_, Frederic Montagu, 20-36, 57-68; 141-2, 145;
Leeds and Skipton, 20;
dedicated to Duke of Devonshire, printed by A. Pickard, published by
Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 20. Also see under _Wuthering Heights_
and _Jane Eyre_, for Malham and Montagu, and Key Index to those
works
_Kalderworth, or Lawyer Vavasor's Secret_, John Malham-Dembleby,
Malham background of, 67;
when written, and origin of title, 67;
published by Joseph Cooke, Sir Edward Russell, Kt., and A. G.
Jeans, 67
_Memorials of Two Sisters: Susanna and Catherine Winkworth_, 96
_Miss Mary ou L'Institutrice_, Eugène Sue, 82, 84, 105-6, 120, 126-7,
130, 163. See Key Index for M. Sue
_Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle_, 167
_Sydney Dobell's Life and Letters_, 153-4
_Woman's Work in English Fiction_, Clara H. Whitmore, A.M., viii.
MAGAZINES, ETC.
_Academy_, 169
_Cornhill Magazine_, 162
_Dundee Advertiser_, xi.
_Fortnightly Review_, xi., 39, 70, 104, 125, 162-3
_Liverpool Post_, 67
_London and Paris Courier_, G. W. MacArthur Reynolds and M. Sue, 105
_London Journal_; _Weekly Times_, 105
_New York Times Saturday Review_, xi.
_Outlook_, xi.
_Palladium_, 153-4, 169
_Quarterly Review_, 138-9, 153, 169
_Saturday Review_, xi., xii., 20, 68, 153
_Sheffield Independent_, 67
_Spectator_, xi., 125
_Times_, 162, 164
_Tribune_, 162-5
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FOOTNOTES:
[1] Clement Shorter in _Charlotte Brontë and her Sisters_, p. 236; 1905.
[2] Clara H. Whitmore, A.M., in _Woman's Work in English Fiction_; 1910.
[3] _The Saturday Review_, September 6, 1902. A correspondence followed.
[4] _The Fortnightly Review_, March 1907.
[5] _The Brontës in Ireland_, by Dr. William Wright, 1893, and _The
Brontë Homeland_, by J. Ramsden, 1897, though they conflict, deal
interestingly with Patrick Brunty's, or Brontë's, relations.
"Patrick ... after being a linen weaver secured the post of teacher in
the Glascar School, Ballynaskeagh, then that of teacher at
Drumballyroney." Eventually he got a scholarship and entered St. John's
College, Cambridge, where he graduated and took Holy Orders. His father
was a Hugh Brunty, who married a Roman Catholic, Alice McClory, or
M'Clory. She is said to have become a Protestant, as was her husband. Of
this marriage there were ten children, the eldest being Charlotte
Brontë's father, who early took to "larnin'," to quote the Irish
hearsay. _The Brontës in Ireland_ has been challenged as presenting many
statements impossible of verification. The assertion that an Irish
Brunty foundling story suggested the foundling of _Wuthering Heights_
raised a harsh and voluminous controversy. The Rev. Angus Mackay, in his
little brochure _The Brontës--Fact and Fiction_, 1897, controverted Dr.
Wright, as did others elsewhere. The matter is summed up succinctly by
Mr. Horsfall Turner, the Yorkshire genealogist, in _The Rev. Patrick
Brontë's Collected Works_, 1898, where, speaking of the Irish Brontës
and the foundling story, he says:--"The only one who could transmit this
story was Hugh Brunty, and not one of his descendants ever heard of it
before Dr. Wright's book was issued, not even the vaguest tradition."
[6] The "wild, weird writings" of her childhood, which awed homely Mrs.
Gaskell, were merely badly, or I may say, childishly, assimilated
fragments from English adaptations found in Dryden, Rowe, etc., of Lucan
(Pharsalia, lib. 1, 73), and of other ancient writers.
[7] Her correspondence is given in Sir Wemyss Reid's _Monograph on
Charlotte Brontë_, in Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Haworth
Edition, and in Mr. Clement Shorter's _The Brontës: Life and Letters_,
1908.
[8] _Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle_, by Clement Shorter.
[9] Charlotte Brontë, upon the other hand, was a most fluent writer of
prose. She sent Wordsworth a story in 1840, and spoke of her facility in
writing novels. (Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, pages
189-190, Haworth Edition.) It is said Emily corrected misprints, etc.,
in her printed volume of _Wuthering Heights_; but whether or not she did
this at Charlotte Brontë's instigation is of little interest and no
importance in view of the literal evidence in _The Key to the Brontë
Works_. It may be Emily turned Charlotte's amanuensis; and it would not
be difficult to show Anne Brontë also had been Charlotte's understudy.
See my remarks on _Wildfell Hall_ in Appendix.
[10] See my remarks, page 39.
[11] When King Charles II. was crowned, Montagu carried the sceptre. A
historian states that the Admiral--who, I may say, had been a great
friend of Richard Cromwell--perished in the sea-fight with De Ruyter,
because he would not leave his ship by a piece of obstinate courage,
provoked by a reflection that he took care more of himself than of the
king's honour.
[12] For Basil Montagu see _Dictionary of National Biography_.
[13] On the other side of the same page Montagu concluded the narration
of his "A Night's Repose," with which I deal later.
[14] Clement Shorter's _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, p. 164.
[15] See my observations on the name of Lucy Snowe.
[16] The name of "Helen Burns," that saintly sister of Charlotte Brontë,
may have been suggested by the St. Helen's Well which Montagu states was
near Miss Currer's home, Eshton Hall.
[17] _The Brontë Country_, by Dr. Erskine Stuart.
[18] A recognizable idiosyncrasy of Charlotte Brontë's genius is the
vivid minuteness with which she paints and records apparently
unimportant details and happenings connected with her early childhood.
(See footnote on page 41.)
[19] See footnote page 47.
[20] _Emily Brontë_, Miss Mary Robinson; 1883.
[21] Angus Mackay, in _The Brontës: Fact and Fiction_ (1897), identifies
Miss Brontë with Caroline Helstone. Charlotte Brontë's mother was a
native of Penzance, near Helston.
[22] Catherine's diary was written on the margin of a printed sermon by
the Rev. Jabes Branderham. Lockwood's "dream" in the connection was
evidently a travesty on a sermon of the famous Rev. Jabes Bunting, a
Wesleyan Methodist, and the zealousness of his hearers, concerning which
preacher stories were possibly gathered by Charlotte Brontë from old
Tabitha, who doubtless did occasional service as the old
dialect-speaking Joseph. The Rev. Jabes Bunting was on the Halifax
Circuit in the eighteen-twenties, and his sermons were printed in
pamphlet form. Note the extract I have given from _Villette_ on Lucy
Snowe's having read as a child certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts.
[23] "Lee" may have been suggested by the name of the heroine of "Puir
Mary Lee," a Scottish ballad, which I find influenced Charlotte Brontë
greatly when she began to write _Wuthering Heights_.
[24] Called Nelly or Ellen Dean, perhaps because of Charlotte Brontë's
affection for her friend Nelly or Ellen Nussey.
[25] Of course Tabitha Aykroyd was twenty years younger when Charlotte
was a child. Thus the early references to the more active Ellen Dean and
Bessie in the main imply Tabby in the eighteen-twenties; those to her as
the sedate and glum Mrs. Dean and Hannah, as Tabby in the
eighteen-forties. We see Tabby quite in the caricature of Joseph in
Charlotte's half-humorous references to her in the diary-like
descriptions of the Brontë kitchen fireside life of her childhood in
1829, etc.--of which the rainy day incident in the childhood of little
Catherine and Jane is so reminiscent--quoted by Mrs. Gaskell in the
Brontë _Life_:--
"June the 21st, 1829.
"One night, about the time when the cold sleet of November [is]
succeeded by the snowstorms and the high, piercing night winds
of winter, we were all sitting round the warm, blazing kitchen
fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby concerning
the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she came off
victorious, no candle having been produced. A long pause
succeeded, which was at last broken by Branwell saying, in a lazy
manner, 'I don't know what to do.' This was echoed by Emily and
Anne.
"Tabby: 'Wha ya may go t' bed.'
"Charlotte: 'Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?'"
As time progressed Charlotte Brontë viewed more sentimentally the
associations of her early childhood. Whenever Tabby was "Joseph" of
_Wuthering Heights_ Charlotte humorously caricatured her.
[26] See footnote on page 37.
[27] A remarkably recognizable idiosyncrasy of this child-phantom of
Charlotte Brontë's brain is the part the little hands of the child play.
In Charlotte Brontë's child-phantom of _Wuthering Heights_, Chapter
III., the hand of the child takes a principal part, as in her above two
versions.
[28] See note on "the hand" of Charlotte Brontë's child-phantom, page
53.
[29] See the chapters on "The Recoil" for the origin of the title of
_Wuthering Heights_, and of the name Lucy Snowe; also my remarks on
Charlotte Brontë's poem "Apostasy."
[30] "The breeze was sweet with scent of heath and rush, ... the hills
shut us quite in; for the glen towards its head wound to their very
core."--_Jane Eyre_, Chapter XXXIV.
[31] I have known for many years the wife and children of this Robert
Airton. His father was, I believe, parish clerk for Coniston. Mrs.
Airton once told me that when she first met her husband he was playing a
violin in the entrance of a cave, under a crag in Malhamdale.
[32] It will be observed that in Chapter XXIII. of _The Professor_
Charlotte Brontë practically calls Frances the heroine, "Jane." Of
course she is the elf Janet (see Chapter XXV. of _The Professor_), and
this sprite was also Jane Eyre--Charlotte Brontë herself. Read the
verses in Chapter XXIII. in the light of my writing on "Eugène Sue and
Charlotte Brontë's Brussels Life" and "The Recoil."
[33] Mr. Thomas J. Wise has published and edited a valuable edition of
this story, 1896.
[34] "I like Charles the First," says Helen Burns in _Jane Eyre_,
Chapter VI.; "I respect him--I pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his
enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right to shed. How
dared they kill him!" Montagu of course would know that his own ancestor
brought over Charles the Second on the Restoration. Hence his warmth. We
now understand the origin of the detached fragment in _Jane Eyre_.
[35] It is a remarkable coincidence that Malham was the background of my
first novel, a work of the substantial number of 160,000 words, which I
wrote in my teens. It was published serially in _The Sheffield
Independent_ by Mr. Joseph Cooke, beginning in May 1896 and running till
September, under the title of _Kalderworth_, a name I had compounded
from the Yorkshire river Calder. Afterwards the serial rights were also
purchased by Sir Edward Russell and Mr. A. G. Jeans, of _The Liverpool
Post_, wherein the story ran serially as _Lawyer Vavasor's Secret_. I
did not choose Malham by reason of its being, as it is, the place from
which our family of Malham, or Malam, sprung: I had cycled over to the
remote village with my father. I was unaware that October 15 was an
especial day at Malham, nevertheless I began my story--_Kalderworth_:--
"On the evening of the 15th of October, in the latter end of the
Eighteen Hundred and Eighties, as the sun sank greyly behind the
distant skyline of those wild hills that stretch from Malham and
away into the North of Yorkshire, a solitary horseman pushed his
way over a hard moorland road to a little deserted hamlet, where
only one soul lived, and that a hag whose fame had spread as a
dabbler in the black art and the mischievous doctrines."
I did not know of Montagu's book at the time; and of all the Brontë
novels I had only read _Jane Eyre_. I remember once reflecting--while
_Kalderworth_ was being published--that Charlotte Brontë must have
called her character Jane Eyre after the river Aire, just as I had
called my loosely composite village up in Malhamdale Kalderworth, from
the river Calder; and I thought Currer Bell, in her choice of the name
"Jane Eyre," had been actuated poetically by the fact of the adjacency
of the Yorkshire river Aire, or Ayre, and had changed the "A" in Aire,
just as I the "C" in Calder. Nor was it till years later that I knew
Charlotte Brontë had written in _Shirley_, Chapter XIX., of "Calder or
Aire thundering in flood."
[36] That Gimmerton in _Wuthering Heights_ means "the village of sheep"
was admitted years ago. The etymology is very obvious. We now have the
circumstances in which Charlotte Brontë chose the name.
[37] See my footnote, page 58.
[38] Thus she put her cousin Eliza Branwell under the same roof as
herself and Branwell Brontë in _Jane Eyre_.
[39] The Poems prepared for publication in the autumn of 1845 bear
evidence of the influence of Montagu's work. It was at this time
Montagu's work provided Charlotte Brontë's _nom de guerre_ of Currer
Bell. See my foot-note on Frances of _The Professor_ as the Fairy Jane,
page 63.
[40] A copy of this will is printed in _The Brontës: Life and Letters_.
[41] Mr. Augustine Birrell in his _Life of Charlotte Brontë_ (1887),
gives a very interesting insight into a love episode of Mr. Brontë,
during his first curacy, at Wethersfield, near Braintree, Essex. Mr.
Brontë found a home with a Miss Mildred Davy, with whose niece, a
"comely damsel of eighteen--a Miss Mary Mildred Davy Burder--with brown
curls and blue eyes" he fell in love. A plotting guardian uncle,
however, removed Miss Burder and wrongly intercepted all Mr. Brontë's
letters. Subsequently Mr. Brontë married Miss Maria Branwell, of
Penzance, visiting in Yorkshire, whom he married at St. Oswald's Church,
Guiseley, near Leeds. After the death of his wife, Mr. Brontë offered to
marry Miss Burder, but was refused. She became the wife of the Rev.
Peter Sibree, of Wethersfield. Mr. W. W. Yates' book, _The Father of the
Brontës_, 1897, shows us Mr. Brontë as a curate at Dewsbury. Mr. Yates,
who is the originator of the Brontë Society and Museum, rightly
associated Mr. Brontë with Mr. Helstone of _Shirley_, supporting his
contention by evidence.
[42] For story and other purposes Miss Brontë makes St. John Rivers ask
Jane's hand in marriage; and of course as the original of Moor House has
been supposed to be at Hathersage in Derbyshire, and it was there the
Rev. Henry Nussey lived--Miss Nussey's brother--who had offered to marry
Charlotte Brontë, Mrs. Gaskell's Brontë's _Life_ and a following
(including even a recent catalogue of the Brontë Museum, wherein
reference is made to Mr. Nussey's portrait!) have given it forth that
Mr. Nussey was the original of St. John Rivers--notwithstanding that Mr.
Nussey was a married man when Charlotte was visiting at Hathersage. That
Mr. Nussey and St. John Rivers are wholly dissimilar is contended at
length in _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, pp. 166-170.
[43] _The Brontës: Life and Letters._
[44] In the love relations of Shirley Keeldar, however, we must expect
to find phases of circumstances associated with Charlotte Brontë
herself. Thus Shirley Keeldar is at times Currer Bell.
[45] Mr. Rochester's remarks in _Jane Eyre_, Chapter XII., on Jane's
drawings would seem to show that though M. Héger, the original of this
character, was interested in Charlotte Brontë's gift as an artist (and
we know she sent M. Héger a drawing of hers as late as August 1845), he
spoke of them in disparagement--a fact that alone argues he was her
superior in art, and understood drawing. Indeed, after seeing the
various water-colour and other drawings of Charlotte Brontë, some thirty
of which, including "a pencil drawing of Louis Philippe of France, drawn
by C. Brontë during her stay in Brussels," are numbered with the Brontë
relics, I may say we can take it as really the expression of M. Héger
concerning her sketches when Mr. Rochester observes of Jane's efforts in
drawing:--"You have secured the shadow of your thought, but no more
probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give
it being," for this is the truth concerning Charlotte Brontë's efforts
of the kind. Nevertheless, I find evidence of a Brussels tradition in
the eighteen-fifties that she was clever as a painter, M. Sue giving
ability to his Miss Mary in this direction. It is more emphasized in his
_feuilleton_ than volume portrayal of this "Institutrice," both of which
works we shall see presented phases of Miss Brontë as she was known.
Hence we read, "Eh bien! monsieur, trouvez-vous _qu'elle sait un peu
dessiner_, MA _Miss Mary_?" The italics, etc., are M. Sue's.
[46] _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, page 181.
[47] The James Taylor in the firm of her publishers, who corresponded
with Miss Brontë, was not related to this Hunsworth family.
[48] See Matthew Yorke, Hiram Yorke's son, a character who has several
traits in common with Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_.--_Shirley_,
Chap. IX.
[49] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Haworth edition, p. 230.
[50] Note that in both _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ it is assumed
this character made silent reference to "the Deuce"; though he never
uttered the name, his words seemed to "express" the sentiment.
[51] _The Brontës: Life and Letters_, p. 340, vol. i.
[52] The Moores of _Shirley_ were mainly drawn from M. Héger, and though
a Mr. Cartwright, supposed to have had foreign blood in his veins, is
conjectured to have contributed to their creation because his mill was
attacked with rioters, I find that the Yorkshire, or rather, "Taylor"
element, as conceived by Charlotte Brontë, also entered into their
composition.
[53] It is sad indeed to find Charlotte Brontë confessed, shortly before
her marriage to the Rev Mr. Nicholls, that there was no such sympathy
between herself and her prospective husband. See letters of Miss
Catherine Winkworth in _Memorials of Two Sisters: Susanna and Catherine
Winkworth_ (1908). Miss Winkworth and Miss Brontë discussed the matter
personally. Miss Catherine Winkworth wrote of Mr. Nicholls and Charlotte
Brontë:--"I am sure she will be really good to him. But I guess the true
love was Paul Emanuel [of _Villette_] after all ... but I don't know,
and don't think that Lily [Mrs. Gaskell] knows." I should say that Mrs.
Ratcliffe of Haworth--Tabitha Brown: her sister, Martha Brown, was one
of the Brontë servants--at whose house Tabitha Aykroyd breathed her
last, stated to me on February 21st, 1907, that as to Charlotte Brontë's
"wedded life, they lived happily together." Often do we discover
references to the elective affinities in regard to M. Héger and
Charlotte Brontë in Currer Bell's works. Thus we did not need that
Rochester should say in the last chapter but one of _Jane Eyre_:--"I am
not better than the old lightning-struck chestnut," for we had
understood by the touching apostrophe in _Jane Eyre_, Chapter XXV., that
he and Jane were implied. The words were:--"The cloven halves were not
broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them
unsundered below; ... they might be said to form one tree--a ruin, but
an entire ruin. 'You did right to hold fast to each other,' I said, as
if the monster splinters were living things; ... 'the time of pleasure
and love is over with you; but ... each of you has a comrade to
sympathize with.'" And Rochester tells Jane:--"You are my sympathy--my
better self; ... a fervent ... passion ... wraps; my existence about
you--and kindling in ... powerful flame, fuses you and me in one." M.
Héger as M. Paul in _Villette_ strikes the same note we hear in
_Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_:--"We are alike--there is affinity
between us.... Tremble! for where that is the case with mortals, the
threads of their destinies are difficult to entangle."
[54] See Charlotte Brontë's poems "Regret" and "Apostasy."
[55] I discovered these most remarkable parallelisms by my knowledge and
application of Charlotte Brontë's Method I., a fact that finally
declares her the author of both _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_.
[56] Mr. G. W. MacArthur Reynolds, the editor of _The London Journal_
issued from _The Weekly Times_ Office, which ran M. Sue's _feuilleton_,
was well-known in French literary circles in the eighteen-forties. He
founded in Paris _The London and Paris Courier_, and was likely enough a
friend of M. Sue. It may be, indeed, there was some sort of
understanding between him and Eugène Sue to set before the world an
interpretation of _Jane Eyre_, with the extraordinary information come
privily to M. Sue. Some time after its publication, Mr. Reynolds stated
that "the main incidents in 'Mary Lawson' were founded on actual
realities." This we shall find. It is a remarkable fact in the
circumstances that _The London Journal_ for August 1, 1846--a year
before _Jane Eyre_ was published, printed on one page the opening
instalment of M. Sue's _Martin the Foundling_, and Charlotte Brontë's
poem "The Letter," with a footnote--"From a volume entitled _Poems by
Cuvier (sic), Ellis and Acton Bell_; London, Aylott & Jones." The reader
may perhaps recognize the original of Mr. Rochester in the person to
whom the letter is being written.
[57] See my footnote, page 120.
[58] It may be relative to this fact that "Lagrange's Manuscript" is not
printed in the extant French edition of _Miss Mary_.
[59] Great stress is laid in this _feuilleton_ by M. Sue upon the fact
that the trouble of this teacher is her dissolute brother. See my
footnote on p. 24.
[60] See my footnote, p. 37.
[61] Mrs. Gaskell dwelt much on Charlotte Brontë's plainness in her
_Life_, published seven years after the above.
[62] _Wuthering Heights_ with _Agnes Grey_ had been accepted by Mr.
Newby, its publisher, before Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. saw the
manuscript of _Jane Eyre_, but _Jane Eyre_ was published first.
[63] This artifice of presenting more than one phase of a character in
the same work is equivalent to that practised by the portrait-painter
who uses mirror effects to reveal some feature of his subject not in the
ordinary line of vision. It was as difficult for M. Sue to present a
complete portrait of the successful, fêted Miss Brontë in poor Lagrange
as it was for Charlotte Brontë to present a complete portrait of herself
in the unhappy Lucy Snowe of _Villette_. So M. Sue also used the phase
of Miss Mary, and Charlotte Brontë that of Paulina--just as she gave us
M. Héger as Crimsworth and occasionally as M. Pelet of _The Professor_,
and just as she gave us herself in _Shirley_ as Caroline Helstone and
again (in regard only to her relations with M. Héger) as Shirley
Keeldar. Methods which were responsible for her first portraying herself
as the elder Catherine of _Wuthering Heights_ and then as the younger
Catherine, in which work M. Héger was portrayed by her often as
Heathcliffe and finally as Hareton Earnshaw. With Charlotte Brontë,
however, her secondary adaptations as portrayals, perhaps on account of
their improvization, frequently give evidence of being unprepared. Thus
the childhood of Paulina of _Villette_ is scarcely Charlotte Brontë's;
and Hareton Earnshaw of _Wuthering Heights_, save for the lover and
pupil phase, was never M. Héger.
[64] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Haworth Edition, p. 55.
See my reference to Catherine teaching Hareton of _Wuthering Heights_,
in the Preface.
[65] Instead of "Swiss" pastor's daughter, read Irish.
[66] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_.
[67] As Rochester calls Jane his beneficent spirit, it is interesting to
read that M. de Morville says to his wife:--"Je crois aux bons génies,
aux bons anges."
"Aux bons anges?"
"Miss Mary, par exemple."
"Eh bien, Louise?"
"N'est-ce pas un bon génie, un bon ange, une bonne magicienne, enfin? Ne
m'a-t-elle pas jeté un _sort_?"
[68] See my reference to Charlotte's Preface to _Wuthering Heights_ in
the second chapter of "The Recoil."
[69] See my references to Charlotte Brontë's poem "Apostasy"; and to St.
John Rivers as a phase of Charlotte's Brussels _Fénelon_.
[70] See M. Paul and Lucy Snowe (M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë) in the
close of Chapter XXI. of _Villette_.
[71] Mrs. Humphry Ward in her "Introductions" to the Haworth Edition of
the Brontë novels instanced this passage as showing Emily Brontë's
extravagant love for the moors, inferring she preferred the heath to
heaven. But Mrs. Ward in these same "Introductions" even argued that
_Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ were dissimilar in characterization
and style. Catherine's reference herewith in _Wuthering Heights_, to a
"subliminal" existence in a lover and to the notion that the absence or
loss of such a love (and hence, limiting of the bounds of existence,)
would make the universe a blank, having no sympathy or relation--a
stranger, is at one with Charlotte Brontë's further words in her poem,
"Frances":--
"Unloved--I love; unwept--I weep;
. . . . . . . . . . . .
Vain is this anguish--fixed and deep;
. . . . . . . . . . . .
"For me the universe is dumb,
Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind;
Life I must bound, existence sum
In the strait limits of one mind;
"That mind my own. Oh! narrow cell;
Dark--imageless--a living tomb!"
[72] _Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle._
[73] Mentor's advice to Telemachus when tempted and miserable on the
island of Calypso is that given by the spirit of Jane Eyre's
mother--"Flee temptation!" "Virtue," argues Mentor, "now calls you back
to your country ... and forbids you to give up your heart to an unworthy
passion.... Fly, fly, ... for love is conquered only by flight ... in
retreat without deliberation, and ... looking back." "Neither Calypso
nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor" (_Shirley_, Chapter XXVII.).
Evidently M. Sue knew Charlotte Brontë had read this book at Brussels,
for he makes play upon it in "Lagrange's Manuscript," wherein
"Télémaque" is substituted for "Rasselas" in the equivalent scene in
_Jane Eyre_.
[74] See chapter on the Yorkshire element in Charlotte Brontë's heroes.
[75] "Religion called----Angels beckoned!----"
[76] See my reference to Catherine of _Wuthering Heights_ and Caroline
of _Shirley_, and their crying aloud when ill and delirious for "a way"
to the absent lover, pp. 147-8.
[77] See the reproach of the dying Catherine to Heathcliffe I quote in
the next chapter. See also Crimsworth's words in the beginning of
Chapter XIX. of _The Professor_.
[78] See close of Chapter XXIV. of _Jane Eyre_.
[79] See my footnote on "the trodden way" on p. 136.
[80] See my reference to "the barriers" in "Apostasy."
[81] "I called myself your brother," says M. Paul to Lucy Snowe, the
originals of whom were M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë. "... I know I
think of you--I feel I wish you well--but I must check myself; you are
to be feared. My best friends point out danger and whisper
caution."--_Villette_, Chap. xxxvi.
[82] Mr. Angus Mackay, in _The Brontës: Fact and Fiction_, identifies
Charlotte Brontë as the original of "Frances" of Charlotte's poem.
[83] _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, pp. 181-3.
[84] See pages 136 and 140.
[85] See my remarks on Mrs. Pryor in Appendix on _Shirley_.
[86] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_.
[87] See footnote on page 97.
[88] _Sydney Dobell: Life and Letters_; 1878.
[89] Of course Mr. Dobell did not know that by the terms of arrangement
with Mr. Newby, the publisher of _Wuthering Heights_, it was virtually
impossible for Charlotte Brontë, after the success of _Jane Eyre_, to
admit her authorship of _Wuthering Heights_ publicly. See my remarks
hereon in Chapter I.
[90] For this see Leyland's _The Brontë Family_.
[91] See footnote, page 13.
[92] _Charlotte Brontë and her Sisters_, page 162.
[93] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_.
[94] The fact that towards the end great affection sprang up between the
Rev. Patrick Brontë and his only surviving daughter cannot be too
strongly emphasized. A most touching narration of him and the dying
Currer Bell, related by Martha Brown, the Brontë servant, and herself
the eye-witness, is given by Mr. William Scruton, in _Thornton and The
Brontës_, page 133 (1898):--"When Charlotte heard her father coming
upstairs to her, she would strain every nerve to give him a pleasing
reception. On his entering the room she would greet him with, 'See,
papa, I am looking a little better.'" Mr. Home was "papa" to Paulina.
Compare the lightsome Paulina with the younger Catherine of _Wuthering
Heights_; and Mrs. Home's death, _Villette_, chap, xxiv., with Mrs.
Helstone's _Shirley_, chap. iv.
[95] The letters in _The Times_ in the close of 1906, and in the early
part of 1907, attacking the authenticity of the Héger portrait, were
written by Mr. Shorter. My footnote in _The Fortnightly_ ran:--"In
attacking the water-colour portrait of Charlotte Brontë purchased by the
Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, the discovery of which,
signed 'Paul Héger, 1850,' was inimical to Mr. Clement Shorter's
contention that Charlotte Brontë had but distantly interested M. Héger,
Mr. Shorter said, 'M. Héger certainly did not know even in 1850 that
Miss Brontë, his old pupil, and Currer Bell were identical,' and with
another asserted M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë never met after 1844. We
shall see here, however, that M. Héger knew all Miss Brontë's literary
secrets in 1850, and that they must have met after 1844, for M. Héger
could have acquired these secrets only in most intimate conversation
with Currer Bell herself: to none other would she have revealed them."
[96] In this connection it is of interest to read the remarks of one of
the jealous de Morville women on this portrait of the Irish
governess:--"Patience! ... qui vivra verra. Je garde ce portrait de
mademoiselle miss Mary, ça me fera souvent penser à elle--ça m'empêchera
de l'oublier. Je vais la clouer à quatre épingles sur le papier de ma
chambre".... She threatens to stick pins in it.... "Oui, oui, la belle
Anglais!" she afterwards exclaims; "ce n'est pas seulement ton portrait
que je perce à coups d'épingle, c'est toi-même!" Which would suggest
that a portrait of Charlotte Brontë could have remained at the Héger
establishment but at risk of being destroyed. I may observe these
mysterious references occur only in the 1851 volume; not in the 1850
_feuilleton_.
[97] See my footnote on p. 82.
[98] Mr. Greenwood Dyson, born in 1830 in the Fold opposite the White
Lion Hotel, in the house now a blacksmith's shop. "I was married in
1850," he stated to me, "and was living about twenty yards from Haworth
Church when Charlotte Brontë gave a black silk dress to my wife." The
Rev. Patrick Brontë signed a testimonial saying he well knew Mr. Dyson
as being reliable and trustworthy, as also did the Rev. A. B. Nicholls,
Miss Brontë's husband. I have examined the document. An interesting
glimpse of Charlotte Brontë I have not seen in any work is one of Mr.
Dyson's reminiscences. He tells me that "there was a draw-well situated
in the kitchen of the Rectory from which we boys used to draw water for
domestic purposes." He added that often he drew water for Charlotte
Brontë or others of the Brontë household before drawing for himself. "In
one of the upper windows," he once wrote me, "a board had been placed
instead of one of the panes of glass, in the centre of which was bored a
hole in which Miss Brontë inserted a telescope to take observations."
Perceiving in conversation with him the genuine pleasure the sight of
the Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë gave Mr. Dyson, I later forwarded
him a large photograph, taken direct from the original Héger drawing of
Charlotte Brontë in the National Portrait Gallery. I print his reply to
me written on March 2, 1907:--
"DEAR SIR,--I received the likeness of Charlotte Brontë (which you
were kind enough to send me) this morning, for which I should like
to express my appreciation. It really is a very nice portrait. I
think it is very much like her. With sincerest thanks, I remain,
very truly yours,
J. MALHAM-DEMBLEBY, Esq. (Signed) G. DYSON."
[99] Through the courtesy of Professor Charles J. Holmes, the present
Director of the National Portrait Gallery, I am able to print herewith
the N.P.G. references to this portrait.
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY TABLET ON PICTURE:--
CHARLOTTE BRONTË
(Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls).
1816-1855.
Novelist. Author of _Jane Eyre_ and other works.
Painted in 1850 by "Paul Héger."
Purchased, July 1906.
(1444)
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY CATALOGUE:--
Painted in water-colours in 1850, and stated to be by "Paul"
(or Constantin) Héger, after an earlier portrait by her brother
Branwell Brontë.
NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE:--
Water-colour drawing stated to be by "Paul" (or Constantin)
Héger, after Branwell Brontë.
(1444)
I may add that the inverted commas used in regard to M. Héger's name are
employed because "Paul" was not his common name. He was an active member
of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul, and Charlotte Brontë portrayed him
as M. Paul in her novel, _Villette_, commenced not later than the close
of 1850 or the beginning of 1851.
[100] Italics mine.
[101] In _Chapters from Some Memories_, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie.
[102] By "Mrs. Brookfield's party" Lady Ritchie means the later
distinguished party. In _Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle_, page 305, vol
ii. (1905), a first dinner given by Mr. Thackeray for Charlotte Brontë
in November 1849, is spoken of by Mrs. Brookfield as not having been a
success; and the second great party at which some clever women were
present, to meet Miss Brontë in 1851, is mentioned with the fact of the
non-success of the 1849 party, on pages 355-6. All this now leaves clear
the occasion of the 1850 private family dinner at Mr. Thackeray's house,
when Charlotte Brontë sat next Lady Ritchie in a light green dress.
[103] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_.
[104] _Ibid._
[105] The Roman numerals refer to the Preface.
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