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diff --git a/40655-8.txt b/40655-8.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 55972bf..0000000 --- a/40655-8.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,8807 +0,0 @@ -Project Gutenberg's The Key to the Brontë Works, by John Malham-Dembleby - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Key to the Brontë Works - The Key to Charlotte Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights,' 'Jane - Eyre,' and her other works. - -Author: John Malham-Dembleby - -Release Date: September 3, 2012 [EBook #40655] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEY TO THE BRONTË WORKS *** - - - - -Produced by StevenGibbs and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - - - - 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 - - - - -SUBSCRIBERS TO THE FIRST EDITION. - -_The address is as a rule that from which the book was subscribed. A -star is placed when the special leather-bound edition has been ordered._ - - - *His Grace the Lord Archbishop of York, Rt. Hon. and Most Rev. - Cosmo Gordon Lang, D.D., Primate of England and Metropolitan, - Bishopthorpe, York. - - *Rt. Hon. 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Truslove & Hanson, Ltd. 153 Oxford Street, W. - Manchester: Messrs. J. E. Cornish, Ltd. - Oxford: Mr. B. H. Blackwell. - - -PRINTED BY THE WALTER SCOTT PUBLISHING CO., LTD., FELLING-ON-TYNE. - - - - -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. - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Key to the Brontë Works, by -John Malham-Dembleby - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE KEY TO THE BRONTË WORKS *** - -***** This file should be named 40655-8.txt or 40655-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/6/5/40655/ - -Produced by StevenGibbs and the Online Distributed -Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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