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_:--