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.