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._