CHAPTER XIV.

CONCLUSION 228

Charlotte's Character--Sufferings and Work.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

REV. PATRICK BRONTË _Frontispiece_

PAGE

THE NEW BRONTË TABLET x

HAWORTH VILLAGE _Facing_ 18

THE HOUSE THAT CHARLOTTE VISITED 44

THE ROE HEAD SCHOOL _Facing_ 46

HAWORTH PARSONAGE AND GRAVEYARD " 82

THE "FIELD HEAD" OF SHIRLEY " 101

THE "BRIARFIELD" CHURCH OF SHIRLEY " 106

FAC-SIMILE LETTER OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË " 134

HAWORTH CHURCH " 172

INTERIOR OF HAWORTH CHURCH " 191

ORGAN LOFT OVER THE BRONTË TABLET AND PEW 200

To the Memory of the Author of "Jane Eyre."

Beside her sisters lay her down to rest,

By the lone church that stands amid the moors;

And let her grave be wet with moorland showers;

Let moorland larks sing o'er her mouldering breast!

Hers was the keen true spirit, that confest

That she was nurtured in no garden bowers,

Nor taught to deck her brow with cultured flowers,

Nor by the soft and summer wind carest.

Her words came o'er us, as in harvest-tide

Come the swift rain-clouds o'er her native skies,

Scattering the thin sheaves by the heather's side;

So fared it with our tame hypocrisies:

But lo! the clouds are past, and far and wide

The purple ridges glow beneath our eyes.

W. H. CHARLTON.

_Hesleyside, 1855._

CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

I.

INTRODUCTORY.

It is just twenty years since one of the most fascinating and artistic

biographies in the English language was given to the world. Mrs.

Gaskell's "Life of Charlotte Brontë" no sooner appeared than it took

firm possession of the public mind; and it has ever since retained its

hold upon all who take an interest in the career of one who has been

called, in language which is far less extravagant in reality than in

appearance, "the foremost woman of her age." Written with admirable

skill, in a style at once powerful and picturesque, and with a

sympathy such as only one artist could feel for another, it richly

merited the popularity which it gained and has kept. Mrs. Gaskell,

however, laboured under one serious disadvantage, which no longer

exists in anything like the same degree in which it did twenty years

ago. Writing but a few months after Charlotte Brontë had been laid in

her grave, and whilst the father to whom she was indebted for so much

that was characteristic in her life and genius was still living, Mrs.

Gaskell had necessarily to deal with many circumstances which affected

living persons too closely to be handled in detail. Even as it was she

involved herself in serious embarrassment by some of her allusions to

incidents connected more or less nearly with the life of Charlotte

Brontë; corrections and retractations were forced upon her, the later

editions of the book differed considerably from the first, and at last

she was compelled to announce that any further correspondence

concerning it must be conducted through her solicitors. Thus she was

crippled in her attempt to paint a full-length picture of a remarkable

life, and her story was what Mr. Thackeray called it, "necessarily

incomplete, though most touching and admirable."

There was, moreover, another matter in which Mrs. Gaskell was at

fault. She seems to have set out with the determination that her work

should be pitched in a particular key. She had formed her own

conception of Charlotte Brontë's character, and with the passion of

the true artist and the ability of the practised writer she made

everything bend to that conception. The result was that whilst she

produced a singularly striking and effective portrait of her heroine,

it was not one which was absolutely satisfactory to those who were the

oldest and closest friends of Charlotte Brontë. If the truth must be

told, the life of the author of "Jane Eyre" was by no means so joyless

as the world now believes it to have been. That during the later years

in which this wonderful woman produced the works by which she has made

her name famous, her career was clouded by sorrow and oppressed by

anguish both mental and physical, is perfectly true. That she was made

what she was in the furnace of affliction cannot be doubted; but it is

not true that she was throughout her whole life the victim of that

extreme depression of spirits which afflicted her at rare intervals,

and which Mrs. Gaskell has presented to us with so much vividness and

emphasis. On the contrary, her letters show that at any rate up to the

time of her leaving for Brussels, she was a happy and high-spirited

girl, and that even to the very last she had the faculty of overcoming

her sorrows by means of that steadfast courage which was her most

precious possession, and to which she was so much indebted for her

successive victories over trials and disappointments of no ordinary

character. Those who imagine that Charlotte Brontë's spirit was in any

degree a morbid or melancholy one do her a singular injustice.

Intensely reserved in her converse with all save the members of her

own household, and the solitary friend to whom she clung with such

passionate affection throughout her life, she revealed to these

The other side, the novel

Silent silver lights and darks undreamed of,

which were and have remained hidden from the world, but which must be

seen by those who would know what Charlotte Brontë really was as a

woman. Alas! those who knew her and her sisters well during their

brief lives are few in number now. The Brontës who plucked the flower

of fame out of the thorny waste in which their lots were cast survive

in their books and in Mrs. Gaskell's biography. But the Brontës, the

women who lived and suffered thirty years ago, and whose characters

were instinct with so rare and lofty a nobility, so keen a

sensitiveness, so pure a nobility, are known no longer.

Yet one mode of making acquaintance with them is still open to some

among us. From her school-days down to the hour in which she was

stretched prostrate in her last sickness, Charlotte Brontë kept up the

closest and most confidential intercourse with her one life-long

friend. To that friend she addressed letters which may be counted by

hundreds, scarcely one of which fails to contain some characteristic

touch worthy of the author of "Villette." No one can read this

remarkable correspondence without learning the secret of the writer's

character; none, as I believe, can read it without feeling that the

woman who "stole like a shadow" into the field of English literature

in 1847, and in less than eight years after stole as noiselessly away,

was truer and nobler even than her works, truer and nobler even than

that masterly picture of her life for which we are indebted to Mrs.

Gaskell.

These letters lie before me as I write. Here are the faded sheets of

1832, written in the school-girl's hand, filled with the school-girl's

extravagant terms of endearment, yet enriched here and there by

sentences which are worthy to live--some of which have already,

indeed, taken their place in the literature of England; and here is

the faint pencil note written to "my own dear Nell" out of the

writer's "dreary sick-bed," which was so soon to be the bed of death!

Between the first letter and that last sad note what outpourings of

the mind of Charlotte Brontë are embodied in this precious pile of

cherished manuscript! Over five-and-twenty years of a blameless life

this artless record stretches. So far as Charlotte Brontë's history as

a woman, and the history of her family are concerned, it is complete

for the whole of that period, the only breaks in the story being those

which occurred when she and her friend were together. Of her early

literary ventures we find little here, for even to her friend she did

not dare in the first instance to betray the novel joys which filled

her soul when she at last discovered her true vocation, and spoke to a

listening world; but of her later life as an author, of her labours

from the day when she owned "Jane Eyre" as the child of her brain,

there are constant and abundant traces. Here, too, we read all her

secret sorrows, her hopes, her fears, her communings with her own

heart. Many things there are in this record too sacred to be given to

the world. Even now it is with a tender and a reverent hand that one

must touch these "noble letters of the dead;" but those who are

allowed to see them, to read them and ponder over them, must feel as I

do, that the soul of Charlotte Brontë stands revealed in these

unpublished pages, and that only here can we see what manner of woman

this really was who in the solitude and obscurity of the Yorkshire

hill-parsonage built up for herself an imperishable name, enriched the

literature of England with treasures of priceless value, and withal

led for nearly forty years a life that was made sacred and noble by

the self-repression and patient endurance which were its most marked

characteristics.

Mrs. Gaskell has done her work so well that the world would scarcely

care to listen to a mere repetition of the Brontë story, even though

the story-teller were as gifted as the author of "Ruth" herself. But

those who have been permitted to gain a new insight into Charlotte

Brontë's character, those who are allowed to command materials of

which the biographer of 1857 could make no use, may venture to lay a

tribute-wreath of their own upon the altar of this great woman's

memory--a tribute-wreath woven of flowers culled from her own letters.

And it cannot be that the time is yet come when the name or the fame

or the touching story of the unique and splendid genius to whom we owe

"Jane Eyre," will fall upon the ears of English readers like "a tale

of little meaning" or of doubtful interest.

II.

THE STORY OF "JANE EYRE."

In the late autumn of 1847 the reading public of London suddenly found

itself called to admire and wonder at a novel which, without

preliminary puff of any kind, had been placed in its hands. "'Jane

Eyre,' by Currer Bell," became the theme of every tongue, and society

exhausted itself in conjectures as to the identity of the author, and

the real meaning of the book. It was no ordinary book, and it produced

no ordinary sensation. Disfigured here and there by certain crudities

of thought and by a clumsiness of expression which betrayed the hand

of a novice, it was nevertheless lit up from the first page to the

last by the fire of a genius the depth and power of which none but the

dullest could deny. The hand of its author seized upon the public mind

whether it would or no, and society was led captive, in the main

against its will, by one who had little of the prevailing spirit of

the age, and who either knew nothing of conventionalism, or despised

it with heart and soul. Fierce was the revolt against the influence of

this new-comer in the wide arena of letters, who had stolen in, as it

were in the night, and taken the citadel by surprise. But for the

moment all opposition was beaten down by sheer force of genius, and

"Jane Eyre" made her way, compelling recognition, wherever men and

women were capable of seeing and admitting a rare and extraordinary

intellectual supremacy. "How well I remember," says Mr. Thackeray,

"the delight and wonder and pleasure with which I read 'Jane Eyre,'

sent to me by an author whose name and sex were then alike unknown to

me; and how with my own work pressing upon me, I could not, having

taken the volumes up, lay them down until they were read through." It

was the same everywhere. Even those who saw nothing to commend in the

story, those who revolted against its free employment of great

passions and great griefs, and those who were elaborately critical

upon its author's ignorance of the ways of polite society, had to

confess themselves bound by the spell of the magician. "Jane Eyre"

gathered admirers fast; and for every admirer she had a score of

readers.

Those who remember that winter of nine-and-twenty years ago know how

something like a "Jane Eyre" fever raged among us. The story which had

suddenly discovered a glory in uncomeliness, a grandeur in

overmastering passion, moulded the fashion of the hour, and "Rochester

airs" and "Jane Eyre graces" became the rage. The book, and its fame

and influence, travelled beyond the seas with a speed which in those

days was marvellous. In sedate New England homes the history of the

English governess was read with an avidity which was not surpassed in

London itself, and within a few months of the publication of the novel

it was famous throughout two continents. No such triumph has been

achieved in our time by any other English author; nor can it be said,

upon the whole, that many triumphs have been better merited. It

happened that this anonymous story, bearing the unmistakable marks of

an unpractised hand, was put before the world at the very moment when

another great masterpiece of fiction was just beginning to gain the

ear of the English public. But at the moment of publication "Jane

Eyre" swept past "Vanity Fair" with a marvellous and impetuous speed

which left Thackeray's work in the distant background; and its unknown

author in a few weeks gained a wider reputation than that which one of

the master minds of the century had been engaged for long years in

building up.

The reaction from this exaggerated fame, of course, set in, and it was

sharp and severe. The blots in the book were easily hit; its author's

unfamiliarity with the stage business of the play was evident

enough--even to dunces; so it was a simple matter to write smart

articles at the expense of a novelist who laid himself open to the

whole battery of conventional criticism. In "Jane Eyre" there was much

painting of souls in their naked reality; the writer had gauged depths

which the plummet of the common story-teller could never have sounded,

and conflicting passions were marshalled on the stage with a masterful

daring which Shakespeare might have envied; but the costumes, the

conventional by-play, the scenery, even the wording of the dialogue,

were poor enough in all conscience. The merest playwright or reviewer

could have done better in these matters--as the unknown author was

soon made to understand. Additional piquancy was given to the attack

by the appearance, at the very time when the "Jane Eyre" fever was at

its height, of two other novels, written by persons whose sexless

names proclaimed them the brothers or the sisters of Currer Bell.

Human nature is not so much changed from what it was in 1847 that one

need apologise for the readiness with which the reading world in

general, and the critical world in particular, adopted the theory that

"Wuthering Heights" and "Agnes Grey" were earlier works from the pen

which had given them "Jane Eyre." In "Wuthering Heights" some of the

faults of the other book were carried to an extreme, and some of its

conspicuous merits were distorted and exaggerated until they became

positive blemishes; whilst "Agnes Grey" was a feeble and commonplace

tale which it was easy to condemn. So the author of "Jane Eyre" was

compelled to bear not only her own burden, but that of the two stories

which had followed the successful novel; and the reviewers--ignorant

of the fact that they were killing three birds at a single

shot--rejoiced in the larger scope which was thus afforded to their

critical energy.

Here and there, indeed, a manful fight on behalf of Currer Bell was

made by writers who knew nothing but the name and the book. "It is soul

speaking to soul," cried _Fraser's Magazine_ in December, 1847; "it is

not a book for prudes," added _Blackwood_, a few months later; "it is

not a book for effeminate and tasteless men; it is for the enjoyment of

a feeling heart and critical understanding." But in the main the

verdict of the critics was adverse. It was discovered that the story

was improper and immoral; it was said to be filled with descriptions of

"courtship after the manner of kangaroos," and to be impregnated with a

"heathenish doctrine of religion;" whilst there went up a perfect

chorus of reprobation directed against its "coarseness of language,"

"laxity of tone," "horrid taste," and "sheer rudeness and vulgarity."

From the book to the author was of course an easy transition. London

had been bewildered, and its literary quidnuncs utterly puzzled, when

such a story first came forth inscribed with an unknown name. Many had

been the rumours eagerly passed from mouth to mouth as to the real

identity of Currer Bell. Upon one point there had, indeed, been

something like unanimity among the critics, and the story of "Jane

Eyre" had been accepted as something more than a romance, as a genuine

autobiography in which real and sorrowful experiences were related.

Even the most hostile critic of the book had acknowledged that "it

contained the story of struggles with such intense suffering and

sorrow, as it was sufficient misery to know that any one had conceived,

far less passed through." Where then was this wonderful governess to be

found? In what obscure hiding-place could the forlorn soul, whose cry

of agony had stirred the hearts of readers everywhere, be discovered?

We may smile now, with more of sadness than of bitterness, at the base

calumnies of the hour, put forth in mere wantonness and levity by a

people ever seeking to know some new thing, and to taste some new

sensation. The favourite theory of the day--a theory duly elaborated

and discussed in the most orthodox and respectable of the reviews--was

that Jane Eyre and Becky Sharp were merely different portraits of the

same character; and that their original was to be found in the person

of a discarded mistress of Mr. Thackeray, who had furnished the great

author with a model for the heroine of "Vanity Fair," and had revenged

herself upon him by painting him as the Rochester of "Jane Eyre!" It

was after dwelling upon this marvellous theory of the authorship of the

story that the _Quarterly Review_, with Pecksniffian charity, calmly

summed up its conclusions in these memorable words: "If we ascribe the

book to a woman at all, we have no alternative but to ascribe it to one

who has for some sufficient reason long forfeited the society of her

own sex."

The world knows the truth now. It knows that these bitter and shameful

words were applied to one of the truest and purest of women; to a

woman who from her birth had led a life of self-sacrifice and patient

endurance; to a woman whose affections dwelt only in the sacred

shelter of her home, or with companions as pure and worthy as herself;

to one of those few women who can pour out all their hearts in

converse with their friends, happy in the assurance that years hence

the stranger into whose hands their frank confessions may pass will

find nothing there that is not loyal, true, and blameless. There was

wonder among the critics, wonder too in the gay world of London, when

the secret was revealed, and men were told that the author of "Jane

Eyre" was no passionate light-o'-love who had merely transcribed the

sad experiences of her own life; but "an austere little Joan of Arc,"

pure, gentle, and high-minded, of whom Thackeray himself could say

that "a great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with

her always." The quidnuncs had searched far and wide for the author of

"Jane Eyre;" but we may well doubt whether, when the truth came out at

last, they were not more than ever mystified by the discovery that

Currer Bell was Charlotte Brontë, the young daughter of a country

parson in a remote moorland parish of Yorkshire.

That such a woman should have written such a book was more than a nine

days' wonder; and for the key to that which is one of the great

marvels and mysteries of English literature we must go to Charlotte

Brontë's life itself.

III.

EARLY HISTORY OF THE BRONTËS.

There is a striking passage in Mr. Greg's "Enigmas of Life," in which

the influence of external circumstances upon the inner lives of men

and women is dwelt upon somewhat minutely, and, by way of example, the

connection between religious "conviction" and an imperfect digestion

is carefully traced out. That we are the creatures of circumstance can

hardly be doubted, nor that our destinies are moulded, just as the

coral reefs are built, by the action of innumerable influences, each

in itself apparently trivial and insignificant. But the habit which

leads men to find a full explanation of the lives of those who have

attained exceptional distinction in the circumstances amid which their

lot has been cast cannot be said to be a very wholesome or happy one.

Few have suffered more cruelly from this trick than the Brontë family.

Graphic pictures have been presented to the world of their home among

the hills, and of their surroundings in their early years; whilst the

public have been asked to believe that some great shadow of gloom

rested over their lives from their birth, and that to this fact, and

to the influence of the moors, must be attributed, not only the

peculiar bent of their genius, but the whole colour and shape of their

lives. Those who are thus determined to account for everything that

lies out of the range of common experience would do well, before they

attempt to analyse the great mystery of genius, to reveal to us the

true cause of the superlative excellence of this or that rare _cru_,

the secret which gives Johannisberg or Château d'Yquem its glory in

the eyes of connoisseurs. Circumstances apparently have little to do

with the production of the fragrance and bouquet of these famous

wines; for we know that grapes growing close at hand on similar vines

and seemingly under precisely similar conditions, warmed by the same

sun, refreshed by the same showers, fanned by the same breezes,

produce a wine which is comparatively worthless. When the world has

expounded this riddle, it will be time enough to deal with that deeper

problem of genius on which we are now too apt to lay presumptuous and

even violent hands.

The Brontës have suffered grievously from this fashion, inasmuch as

their picturesque and striking surroundings have been allowed to

obscure our view of the women themselves. We have made a picture of

their lives, and have filled in the mere accessories with such

pre-Raphaelite minuteness that the distinct individuality of the

heroines has been blurred and confused amid the general blaze of vivid

colour, the crowd of "telling" points. No individual is to be blamed

for this fact. The world, as we have seen, was first introduced to

"Currer Bell" and her sisters under romantic circumstances; the lives

of those simple, sternly-honest women were enveloped from the moment

when the public made their acquaintance in a certain haze of romantic

mystery; and when all had passed away, and the time came for the

"many-headed beast" to demand the full satisfaction of its curiosity,

it would have nothing but the completion of that romance which from

the first it had figured in outline for itself.

Who then does not know the salient points of that strange and touching

story which tells us how the author of "Jane Eyre" lived and died? Who

is not acquainted with that grim parsonage among the hills, where the

sisters dwelt amidst such uncongenial and even weird influences;

living like recluses in the house of a Protestant pastor; associated

with sorrow and suffering, and terrible pictures of degrading vice,

during their blameless maidenhood; constructing an ideal world of

their own, and dwelling in it heedless of the real world which was in

motion all around them? Who has not been amused and interested by

those graphic pictures of Yorkshire life in the last century, in which

the local flavour is so intense and piquant, and which are hardly the

less interesting because they relate to an order of things which had

passed away entirely long before the Brontës appeared upon the stage?

And who has not been moved by the dark tragedy of Branwell Brontë's

life, hinted at rather than explicitly stated, in Mrs. Gaskell's

story, but yet standing out in such prominence that those who know no

better may be forgiven if they regard it as having been the powerful

and all-pervading influence which made the career of the sisters what

it was? The true charm of the history of the Brontës, however, does

not lie in these things. It is not to be found in the surroundings of

their lives, remarkable and romantic as they were, but in the women

themselves, and in those characteristics of their hearts and their

intellects which were independent of the accidents of condition.

Charlotte herself would have been the first to repudiate the notion

that there was anything strikingly exceptional in their outward

circumstances. With a horror of being considered eccentric that

amounted to a passion, she united an almost morbid dread of the notice

of strangers. If she could ever have imagined that readers throughout

the world would come to associate her name, and still more the names

of her idolised sisters, with the ruder features of the Yorkshire

character, or with such a domestic tragedy as that amid which her

unhappy brother's life terminated, her spirit would have arisen in

indignant revolt against that which she would have regarded almost in

the light of a personal outrage.

[Illustration: HAWORTH VILLAGE.]

And yet if their surroundings at Haworth had comparatively little to

do with the development of the genius of the three sisters, it cannot

be doubted that two influences which Mrs. Gaskell has rightly made

prominent in her book did affect their characters, one in a minor, and

the other in a very marked degree. The influence of the moors is to be

traced both in their lives and their works; whilst far more distinctly

is to be traced the influence of their father. As to the first there

is little to be said in addition to that which all know already. There

is a railway station now at Haworth, and all the world therefore can

get to the place without difficulty or inconvenience. Yet even to-day,

when the engine goes, shrieking past it many times between sunrise and

sunset, Haworth is not as other places are. A little manufacturing

village, sheltered in a nook among the hills and moors which stretch

from the heart of Yorkshire into the heart of Lancashire, it bears the

vivid impress of its situation. The moors which lie around it for

miles on every side are superb during the summer and autumn months.

Then Haworth is in its glory; a gray stone hamlet set in the midst of

a vast sea of odorous purple, and swept by breezes which bear into its

winding street the hum of the bees and the fragrance of the heather.

But it is in the drear, leaden days of winter, when the moors are

covered with snow, that we see what Haworth really is. Then we know

that this is a place apart from the outer world; even the railway

seems to have failed to bring it into the midst of that great West

Riding which lies close at hand with its busy mills and multitudes;

and the dullest therefore can understand that in the days when the

railway was not, and Haworth lay quite by itself, neglected and unseen

in its upland valley, its people must have been blessed by some at

least of those insular peculiarities which distinguished the villagers

of Zermatt and Pontresina before the flood of summer tourists had

swept into those comparatively remote crannies of the Alps. Nurtured

among these lonely moors, and accustomed, as all dwellers on

thinly-peopled hillsides are, to study the skies and the weather, as

the inhabitants of towns and plains study the faces of men and women,

the Brontës unquestionably drew their love of nature, their affection

for tempestuous winds and warring clouds, from their residence at

Haworth.

But this influence was trivial compared with the hereditary influences

of their father's character. Few more remarkable personalities than

that of the Rev. Patrick Brontë have obtruded themselves upon the

smooth uniformity of modern society. The readers of Mrs. Gaskell's

biography know that the incumbent of Haworth was an eccentric man, but

the full measure of his eccentricity and waywardness has never yet

been revealed to the world. He was an Irishman by birth, but when

still a young man he had gone to Yorkshire as a curate, and in

Yorkshire he remained to the end of his days. His real name was not

Brontë--regarding the origin of which word there was so much

unnecessary mystery when his daughter became famous--but Prunty. Born

of humble parentage in the parish of Ahaderg, County Down, he was one

of a large family, all of whom were said to be remarkable for their

physical strength and personal beauty. Patrick Prunty was the most

remarkable member of the family, and his talents were early recognised

by Mr. Tighe, the rector of Drumgooland. This gentleman undertook part

at least of the cost of his education, which was completed at St.

John's College, Cambridge. As to the change of name from Prunty to

Brontë, many fantastic stories have been told. Amongst them is one

which represents the Brontës as having derived their name from that of

the Bronterres, an ancient Irish family with which they were

connected. The connection may possibly have existed, but there is no

doubt upon one point. The incumbent of Haworth in early life bore the

name of Prunty, and it was not until very shortly, before he left

Ireland for England that he changed it, at the request of his patron,

Mr. Tighe, for the more euphonious appellation of Brontë. He appears

to have been a strange compound of good and evil. That he was not

without some good is acknowledged by all who knew him. He had kindly

feelings towards most people, and he delighted in the stern rectitude

which distinguished many of his Yorkshire flock. When his daughter

became famous, no one was better pleased at the circumstance than he

was. He cut out of every newspaper every scrap which referred to her;

he was proud of her achievements, proud of her intellect, and jealous

for her reputation. But throughout his whole life there was but one

person with whom he had any real sympathy, and that person was

himself. Passionate, self-willed, vain, habitually cold and distant

in his demeanour towards those of his own household, he exhibited in a

marked degree many of the characteristics which Charlotte Brontë

afterwards sketched in the portrait of the Mr. Helston of "Shirley."

The stranger who encountered him found a scrupulously polite gentleman

of the old school, who was garrulous about his past life, and who

needed nothing more than the stimulus of a glass of wine to become

talkative on the subject of his conquests over the hearts of the

ladies of his acquaintance. As you listened to the quaintly-attired

old man who chatted on with inexhaustible volubility, you possibly

conceived the idea that he was a mere fribble, gay, conceited,

harmless; but at odd times a searching glance from the keen, deep-sunk

eyes warned you that you also were being weighed in the balance by

your companion, and that this assumption of light-hearted vanity was

far from revealing the real man to you. Only those who dwelt under the

same roof knew him as he really was. Among the many stories told of

him by his children, there is one relating to the meek and gentle

woman who was his wife, and whose lot it was to submit to persistent

coldness and neglect. Somebody had given Mrs. Brontë a very pretty

dress, and her husband, who was as proud as he was self-willed, had

taken offence at the gift. A word to his wife, who lived in habitual

dread of her lordly master, would have secured all he wanted; but in

his passionate determination that she should not wear the obnoxious

garment, he deliberately cut it to pieces, and presented her with the

tattered fragments. Even during his wife's lifetime he formed the

habit of taking his meals alone; he constantly carried loaded pistols

in his pockets, and when excited he would fire these at the doors of

the outhouses, so that the villagers were quite accustomed to the

sound of pistol-shots at any hour of the day in their pastor's house.

It would be a mistake to suppose that violence was one of the weapons

to which Mr. Brontë habitually resorted. However stern and peremptory

might be his dealings with his wife (who soon left him to spend the

remainder of his life in a dreary widowhood), his general policy was

to secure his end by craft rather than by force. A profound belief in

his own superior wisdom was conspicuous among his characteristics, and

he felt convinced that no one was too clever to be outwitted by his

diplomacy. He had also an amazing persistency, which led him to pursue

any course on which he had embarked with dogged determination. It

happened in later years, when his strength was failing, and when at

last he began to see his daughter in her true light, that he

quarrelled with her regarding the character of one of their friends.

The daughter, always dutiful and respectful, found that any effort to

stem the torrent of his bitter and unjust wrath when he spoke of the

friend who had offended him, was attended by consequences which were

positively dangerous. The veins of his forehead swelled, his eyes

glared, his voice shook, and she was fain to submit lest her father's

passion should prove fatal to him. But when, wounded beyond endurance

by his violence and injustice, she withdrew for a few days from her

home, and told her father that she would receive no letters from him

in which this friend's name was mentioned, the old man's cunning took

the place of passion. He wrote long and affectionate letters to her on

general subjects; but accompanying each letter was a little slip of

paper, which professed to be a note from Charlotte's dog Flossy to his

"much-respected and beloved mistress," in which the dog, declaring

that he saw "a good deal of human nature that was hid from those who

had the gift of language," was made to repeat the attacks upon the

obnoxious person which Mr. Brontë dared no longer make in his own

character.

It was to the care of such a father as this, in the midst of the rude

and uncongenial society of the lonely manufacturing village, that six

motherless children, five daughters and one son, were left in the year

1821. The parson's children were not allowed to associate with their

little neighbours in the hamlet; their aunt, who came to the parsonage

after their mother's death, had scarcely more sympathy with them than

their father himself; their only friend was the rough but kindly

servant Tabby, who pitied the bairns without understanding them, and

whose acts of graciousness were too often of such a character as to

give them more pain than pleasure. So they grew up strange, lonely,

old-fashioned children, with absolutely no knowledge of the world

outside; so quiet and demure in their habits that, years afterwards,

when they invited some of their Sunday scholars up to the parsonage,

and wished to amuse them, they found that they had to ask the scholars

to teach them how to play--they had never learned. Carefully secluded

from the rest of the world, the little Brontë children found out

fashions of their own in the way of amusement, and curious fashions

they were. Whilst they were still in the nursery, when the oldest of

the family, Maria, was barely nine years old, and Charlotte, the

third, was just six, they had begun to take a quaint interest in

literature and politics. Heaven knows who it was who first told these

wonderful pigmies of the great deeds of a Wellington or the crimes of

a Bonaparte; but at an age when other children are generally busy with

their bricks or their dolls, and when all life's interests are

confined for them within the walls of a nursery, these marvellous

Brontës were discussing the life of the Great Duke, and maintaining

the Tory cause as ardently as the oldest and sturdiest of the village

politicians in the neighbouring inn.

There is a touching story of Charlotte at six years old, which gives

us some notion of the ideal life led by the forlorn little girl at

this time, when, her two elder sisters having been sent to school, she

found herself living at home, the eldest of the motherless brood. She

had read "The Pilgrim's Progress," and had been fascinated, young as

she was, by that wondrous allegory. Everything in it was to her true

and real; her little heart had gone forth with Christian on his

pilgrimage to the Golden City, her bright young mind had been fired by

the Bedford tinker's description of the glories of the Celestial

Place; and she made up her mind that she too would escape from the

City of Destruction, and gain the haven towards which the weary

spirits of every age have turned with eager longing. But where was

this glittering city, with its streets of gold, its gates of pearl,

its walls of precious stones, its streams of life and throne of light?

Poor little girl! The only place which seemed to her to answer

Bunyan's description of the celestial town was one which she had heard

the servants discussing with enthusiasm in the kitchen, and its name

was Bradford! So to Bradford little Charlotte Brontë, escaping from

that Haworth Parsonage which she believed to be a doomed spot, set off

one day in 1822. Ingenious persons may speculate if they please upon

the sore disappointment which awaited her when, like older people,

reaching the place which she had imagined to be Heaven, she found that

it was only Bradford. But she never even reached her imaginary Golden

City. When her tender feet had carried her a mile along the road, she

came to a spot where overhanging trees made the highway dark and

gloomy; she imagined that she had come to the Valley of the Shadow of

Death, and, fearing to go forward, was presently discovered by her

nurse cowering by the roadside.

Of the school-days of the Brontës nothing need be said here. Every

reader of "Jane Eyre" knows what Charlotte Brontë herself thought of

that charitable institution to which she has given so unenviable a

notoriety. There she lost her oldest sister, whose fate is described

in the tragic tale of Helen Burns; and it was whilst she was at this

place that her second sister, Elizabeth, also died. Only one thing

need be added to this dismal record of the stay at Cowan Bridge.

During the whole time of their sojourn there, the young Brontës

scarcely ever knew what it was to be free from the pangs of hunger.

Charlotte was now the head of the little family; the remaining members

of which were her brother Branwell and her sisters Emily and Anne.

Mrs. Gaskell has given the world a vivid picture of the life which

these four survivors from the hardships of Cowan Bridge led between

the years 1825 and 1831. They spent those years at Haworth, almost

without care or sympathy. Their father saw little in their lot to

interest him, nothing to drag him out of his selfish absorption in his

own pursuits; their aunt, a permanent invalid, conceived that her duty

was accomplished when she had taught them a few lessons and insisted

on their doing a certain amount of needlework every day. For the rest

they were left to themselves, and thus early they showed the bent of

their genius by spending their time in writing novels.

Mrs. Gaskell has given us some idea of the character of these juvenile

performances in a series of extracts which sufficiently indicate their

rare merit. She has, however, paid exclusive attention to Charlotte's

productions. All readers of the Brontë story will remember the account

of the play of "The Islanders," and other remarkable specimens,

showing with what real vigour and originality Charlotte could handle

her pen whilst she was still in the first year of her teens; but those

few persons who have seen the whole of the juvenile library of the

family bear testimony to the fact that Branwell and Emily were at

least as industrious and successful as Charlotte herself. Indeed, even

at this early age, the _bizarre_ character of Emily's genius was

beginning to manifest itself, and her leaning towards weird and

supernatural effects was exhibited whilst she composed her first fairy

tales within the walls of her nursery. It may be well to bear in mind

the frequency with which the critics have charged Charlotte Brontë

with exaggerating the precocity of children. What we know of the early

days of the Brontës proves that what would have been exaggeration in

any other person was in the case of Charlotte nothing but a truthful

reproduction of her own experiences.

Only one specimen of these earliest writings of the Brontës can be

quoted here: it is that to which I have already referred, the play of

"The Islanders:"

June the 31st, 1829.

The play of "The Islanders" was formed in December, 1827, in the

following manner. One night, about the time when the cold sleet

and stormy fogs of November are succeeded by the snow-storms and

high piercing night-winds of confirmed winter, we were all sitting

round the warm blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a

quarrel with Tabby concerning the propriety of lighting a candle,

from which she came off victorious, no candles having been

produced. A long pause succeeded, which was at length broken by

Branwell saying, in a lazy manner, "I don't know what to do." This

was echoed by Emily and Anne.

_Tabby._ Wha, ya may go t' bed.

_Branwell._ I'd rather do anything than that.

_Charlotte._ Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby? Oh! suppose

we had each an island of our own.

_Branwell._ If we had, I would choose the Island of Man.

_Charlotte._ And I would choose the Isle of Wight.

_Emily._ The Isle of Arran for me.

_Anne._ And mine shall be Guernsey.

We then chose who should be the chief men in our islands. Branwell

chose John Bull, Astley Cooper, and Leigh Hunt; Emily, Walter

Scott, Mr. Lockhart, Johnny Lockhart; Anne, Michael Sadler, Lord

Bentinck, Sir Henry Halford. I chose the Duke of Wellington and

two sons, Christopher North and Co., and Mr. Abernethy. Here our

conversation was interrupted by the, to us, dismal sound of the

clock striking seven, and we were summoned off to bed.

IV.

THE FAMILY AT HAWORTH.

The years have slipped away, and the Brontës are no longer children.

They have passed out of that strange condition of premature activity

in which their brains were so busy, their lives so much at variance

with the lives of others of their age; they have even "finished" their

education, according to the foolish phrase of the world, and, having

made some acquaintances and a couple of friends at good Miss Wooler's

school at Roehead, Charlotte is again at home, young, hopeful, and in

her own way merry, waiting with her brother and her sisters till that

mystery of life which seems filled with hidden charms to those who

still have it all before them shall be revealed.

One bright June morning in 1833, a handsome carriage and pair is

standing opposite the Devonshire Arms at Bolton Bridge, the spot loved

by all anglers and artists who know anything of the scenery of the

Wharfe. In the carriage with some companions is a young girl, whose

face, figure, and manner may be conjured up by all who have read

"Shirley," for this pleasant, comely Yorkshire maiden, as we see her

on this particular morning, is identical with the Caroline Helston who

figures in the pages of that novel. Miss N---- is waiting for her

quondam schoolfellow and present bosom friend, Charlotte Brontë, who

is coming with her brother and sisters to join in an excursion to the

enchanted site of Bolton Abbey hard by. Presently, on the steep road

which stretches across the moors to Keighley, the sound of wheels is

heard, mingled with the merry speech and merrier laughter of fresh

young voices. Shall we go forward unseen, and study the approaching

travellers whilst they are still upon the road? Their conveyance is no

handsome carriage, but a rickety dogcart, unmistakably betraying its

neighbourship to the carts and ploughs of some rural farmyard. The

horse, freshly taken from the fields, is driven by a youth who, in

spite of his countrified dress, is no mere bumpkin. His shock of red

hair hangs down in somewhat ragged locks behind his ears, for Branwell

Brontë esteems himself a genius and a poet, and, following the fashion

of the times, has that abhorrence of the barber's shears which genius

is supposed to affect. But the lad's face is a handsome and a striking

one, full of Celtic fire and humour, untouched by the slightest shade

of care, giving one the impression of somebody altogether hopeful,

promising, even brilliant. How gaily he jokes with his three sisters;

with what inexhaustible volubility he pours out quotations from his

favourite poets, applying them to the lovely scene around him; and

with what a mischievous delight, in his superior nerve and mettle, he

attempts feats of charioteering which fill the timid heart of the

youngest of the party with sudden terrors! Beside him, in a dress of

marvellous plainness and ugliness, stamped with the brand "home-made"

in characters which none can mistake, is the eldest of the sisters.

Charlotte is talking too; there are bright smiles upon her face; she

is enjoying everything around her, the splendid morning, the charms of

leafy trees and budding roses, and the ever-musical stream; most of

all, perhaps, the charm of her brother's society, and the expectation

of that coming meeting with her friend, which is so near at hand.

Behind sit a pretty little girl, with fine complexion and delicate

regular features, whom the stranger would at once pick out as the

beauty of the company, and a tall, rather angular figure, clad in a

dress exactly resembling Charlotte's. Emily Brontë does not talk so

much as the rest of the party, but her wonderful eyes, brilliant and

unfathomable as the pool at the foot of a waterfall, but radiant also

with a wealth of tenderness and warmth, show how her soul is expanding

under the influences of the scene; how quick she is to note the least

prominent of the beauties around her, how intense is her enjoyment of

the songs of the birds, the brilliancy of the sunshine, the rich scent

of the flower-bespangled hedgerows. If she does not, like Charlotte

and Anne, meet her brother's ceaseless flood of sparkling words with

opposing currents of speech, she utters at times a strange, deep

guttural sound which those who know her best interpret as the language

of a joy too deep for articulate expression. Gaze at them as they pass

you in the quiet road, and acknowledge that, in spite of their rough

and even uncouth exteriors, a happier four could hardly be met with in

this favourite haunt of pleasure-seekers during a long summer's day.

Suddenly the dogcart rattles noisily into the open space in front of

the Devonshire Arms, and the Brontës see the carriage and its

occupants. In an instant there is silence; Branwell contrasts his

humble equipage with that which already stands at the inn door, and a

flush of mortified pride colours his face; the sisters scarcely note

this contrast, but to their dismay they see that their friend is not

alone, and each draws a long deep breath, and prepares for that

fiercest of all the ordeals they know, a meeting with entire

strangers. The laughter is stilled; even Branwell's volubility is at

an end; the glad light dies out of their eyes, and when they alight

and submit to the process of being introduced to Miss N----'s

companions, their faces are as dull and commonplace as their dresses.

It is no imaginary scene we have been watching. Miss N---- still

recalls that painful moment when the merry talk and laughter of her

friends were quenched at sight of the company awaiting them, and when

throughout a day to which all had looked forward with anticipations of

delight, the three Brontës clung to each other or to their friend,

scarcely venturing to speak above a whisper, and betraying in every

look and word the positive agony which filled their hearts when a

stranger approached them. It was this excessive shyness in the company

of those who were unfamiliar to them which was the most marked

characteristic of the sisters. The weakness was as much physical as

moral; and those who suppose that it was accompanied by any morbid

depression of spirits, or any lack of vigour and liveliness when the

incubus of a stranger's presence was removed, entirely mistake their

true character. Unhappily, first impressions are always strongest, and

running through the whole of Mrs. Gaskell's story, may be seen the

impression produced at her first meeting with Charlotte Brontë by her

nervous shrinking and awkwardness in the midst of unknown faces.

It was not thus with those who, brought into the closest of all

fellowship with her, the fellowship of school society, knew the

secrets of her heart far better than did any who became acquainted

with her in after life. To such the real Charlotte Brontë, who knew no

timidity in their presence, was a bold, clever, outspoken and

impulsive girl; ready to laugh with the merriest, and not even

indisposed to join in practical jokes with the rest of her

schoolfellows. The picture we get in the "Life" is that of a victim to

secret terrors and superstitious fancies. The real Charlotte Brontë,

when stories were current as to the presence of a ghost in the upper

chambers of the old school-house at Roehead, did not hesitate to go up

to these rooms alone and in the darkness of a winter's night, leaving

her companions shivering in terror round the fire downstairs. When she

had left school, and began that correspondence with Miss N---- which

is the great source of our knowledge, not merely of the course of her

life, but of the secrets of her heart, it must not be supposed that

she wrote always in that serious spirit which pervades most of the

letters quoted by Mrs. Gaskell. On the contrary, those who have access

to the letters will find that even some of the passages given in the

"Life" are allied to sentences showing that the frame of mind in which

they were written was very different from that which it appears to

have been. The following letter, written from Haworth in the beginning

of 1835, is an example:

Well, here I am as completely separated from you as if a hundred,

instead of seventeen, miles intervened between us. I can neither

hear you nor see you nor feel you. You are become a mere thought,

an unsubstantial impression on the memory, which, however, is

happily incapable of erasure. My journey home was rather

melancholy, and would have been very much so but for the presence

and conversation of my worthy companion. I found him a very

intelligent man. He told me the adventures of his sailor's life,

his shipwreck and the hurricane he had witnessed in the West

Indies, with a much better flow of language than many of far

greater pretensions are masters of. I thought he appeared a little

dismayed by the wildness of the country round Haworth, and I

imagine he has carried back a pretty report of it.

What do you think of the course politics are taking? I make this

inquiry because I now think you have a wholesome interest in the

matter; formerly you did not care greatly about it. B----, you see,

is triumphant. Wretch! I am a hearty hater, and if there is any one

I thoroughly abhor it is that man. But the Opposition is divided.

Red-hots and lukewarms; and the Duke (_par excellence the_ Duke)

and Sir Robert Peel show no signs of insecurity, although they have

been twice beat. So "_courage, mon amie!_" Heaven defend the right!

as the old Cavaliers used to say before they joined battle. Now,

Ellen, laugh heartily at all that rodomontade. But you have brought

it on yourself. Don't you remember telling me to write such letters

to you as I wrote to Mary? There's a specimen! Hereafter should

follow a long disquisition on books; but I'll spare you that.

Those who turn to Mrs. Gaskell's "Life" will find one of the sentences

in this letter quoted, but without the burst of laughter over "all

that rodomontade" at the end which shows that Charlotte's interest in

politics was not unmingled with the happy levity of youth. Still more

striking as an illustration of her true character, with its infinite

variety of moods, its sudden transitions from grave to gay, is the

letter I now quote:

Last Saturday afternoon, being in one of my sentimental humours, I

sat down and wrote to you such a note as I ought to have written

to none but M----, who is nearly as mad as myself; to-day, when I

glanced it over, it occurred to me that Ellen's calm eye would

look at this with scorn, so I determined to concoct some

production more fit for the inspection of common sense. I will not

tell you all I think and feel about you, Ellen. I will preserve

unbroken that reserve which alone enables me to maintain a decent

character for judgment; but for that I should long ago have been

set down by all who know me as a Frenchified fool. You have been

very kind to me of late, and gentle; and you have spared me those

little sallies of ridicule which, owing to my miserable and

wretched touchiness of character, used formerly to make me wince

as if I had been touched with a hot iron; things that nobody else

cares for enter into my mind and rankle there like venom. I know

these feelings are absurd, and therefore I try to hide them; but

they only sting the deeper for concealment, and I'm an idiot.

Ellen, I wish I could live with you always, I begin to cling to

you more fondly than ever I did. If we had but a cottage and a

competency of our own, I do think we might live and love on till

death, without being dependent on any third person for happiness.

Mrs. Gaskell has made a very partial and imperfect use of this letter,

by quoting merely from the words "You have been very kind to me of

late," down to "they only sting the deeper for concealment." Thus it

will be seen that an importance is given to an evanescent mood which

it was far from meriting, and that lighter side to Charlotte's

character which was prominent enough to her nearest and dearest

friends is entirely concealed from the outer world. Again, I say, we

must not blame Mrs. Gaskell. Such sentences as those which she omitted

from the letter I have just given are not only entirely inconsistent

with that ideal portrait of "Currer Bell" which the world had formed

for itself out of the bare materials in existence during the author's

lifetime, but are also utterly at variance with Mrs. Gaskell's

personal conception of Charlotte Brontë's character, founded upon her

brief acquaintance with her during her years of loneliness and fame.

The quick transitions which marked her moods in converse with her

friends may be traced all through her letters to Miss N----. The

quotations I have already made show how suddenly on the same page she

passes from gaiety to sadness; and so her letters, dealing as they do

with an endless variety of topics, reflect only the mood of the writer

at the moment that she penned them, and it is only by reading and

studying the whole, not by selecting those which reflect a particular

phase of her character, that we can complete the portrait we would

fain produce.

Here are some extracts from letters which are not to be found in the

"Life," and which illustrate what I have said. They were all written

between the beginning of 1832 and the end of 1835:

Tell M---- I hope she will derive benefit from the perusal of

Cobbett's lucubrations; but I beg she will on no account burden

her memory with passages to be repeated for my edification, lest I

should not fully appreciate either her kindness or their merit,

since that worthy personage and his principles, whether private or

political, are no great favourites of mine.

I am really very much obliged to you--she writes in September,

1832--for your well-filled and _very_ interesting letter. It

forms a striking contrast to my brief meagre epistles; but I know

you will excuse the utter dearth of news visible in them when you

consider the situation in which I am placed, quite out of the

reach of all intelligence except what I obtain through the medium

of the newspapers, and I believe you would not find much to

interest you in a political discussion, or a summary of the

accidents of the week.... I am sorry, very sorry, that Miss ----

has turned out to be so different from what you thought her; but,

my dearest Ellen, you must never expect perfection in this world;

and I know your naturally confiding and affectionate disposition

has led you to imagine that Miss ---- was almost faultless.... I

think, dearest Ellen, our friendship is destined to form an

exception to the general rule regarding school friendships. At

least I know that absence has not in the least abated the sisterly

affection which I feel towards you.

Your last letter revealed a state of mind which promised much. As I

read it, I could not help wishing that my own feelings more nearly

resembled yours; but unhappily all the good thoughts that enter

_my_ mind evaporate almost before I have had time to ascertain

their existence. Every right resolution which I form is so

transient, so fragile, and so easily broken, that I sometimes fear

I shall never be what I ought.

I write a hasty line to assure you we shall be happy to see you on

the day you mention. As you are now acquainted with the

neighbourhood and its total want of society, and with our plain,

monotonous mode of life, I do not fear so much as I used to do,

that you will be disappointed with the dulness and sameness of

your visit. One thing, however, will make the daily routine more

unvaried than ever. Branwell, who used to enliven us, is to leave

us in a few days, and enter the situation of a private tutor in

the neighbourhood of U----. How he will like to settle remains yet

to be seen. At present he is full of hope and resolution. I, who

know his variable nature and his strong turn for active life, dare

not be too sanguine. We are as busy as possible in preparing for

his departure, and shirt-making and collar-stitching fully occupy

our time.

April, 1835.

The election! the election! that cry has rung even among our

lonely hills like the blast of a trumpet. How has it been round

the populous neighbourhood of B----? Under what banner have your

brothers ranged themselves? the Blue or the Yellow? Use your

influence with them; entreat them, if it be necessary on your

knees, to stand by their country and religion in this day of

danger!... Stuart Wortley, the son of the most patriotic patrician

Yorkshire owns, must be elected the representative of his native

province. Lord Morpeth was at Haworth last week, and I saw him. My

opinion of his lordship is recorded in a letter I wrote yesterday

to Mary. It is not worth writing over again, so I will not trouble

you with it here.

Even these brief extracts will show that Charlotte Brontë's life at

this time was not a morbid one. These years between 1832 and 1835 must

be counted among the happiest of her life--of all the lives of the

little household at Haworth, in fact. The young people were accustomed

to their father's coldness and eccentricity, and to their aunt's

dainty distaste for all Northern customs and Northern people,

themselves included. Shy they were and peculiar, alike in their modes

of life and their modes of thought; but there was a wholesome, healthy

happiness about all of them that gave promise of peaceful lives

hereafter. Some literary efforts of a humble kind brightened their

hopes at this time. Charlotte had written some juvenile poems (not now

worth reprinting), and she sought the opinion of Southey upon them.

The poet laureate gave her a kindly and considerate answer, which did

not encourage her to persevere in these efforts; nor was an attempt by

Branwell to secure the patronage of Wordsworth for some productions of

his own more successful. Had anybody ventured into the wilds of

Haworth parish at this new year of 1835, and made acquaintance with

the parson's family, it is easy to say upon whom the attention of the

stranger would have been riveted. Branwell Brontë, of whom casual

mention is made in one of the foregoing letters, was the hope and

pride of the little household. All who knew him at this time bear

testimony to his remarkable talents, his striking graces. Small in

stature like Charlotte herself, he was endowed with a rare personal

beauty. But it was in his intellectual gifts that his chief charm was

found. Even his father's dull parishioners recognised the fire of

genius in the lad; and any one who cares to go to Haworth now and

inquire into the story of the Brontës, will find that the most vivid

reminiscences, the fondest memories of the older people in the

village, centre in this hapless youth. Ambitious and clever, he seemed

destined to play a considerable part in the world. His conversational

powers were remarkable; he gave promise of more than ordinary ability

as an artist, and he had even as a boy written verses of no common

power. Among other accomplishments, more curious than useful, of which

he could boast, was the ability to write two letters simultaneously.

It is but a small trait in the history of this remarkable family, yet

it deserves to be noticed, that its least successful member excelled

Napoleon himself in one respect. The great conqueror could dictate

half-a-dozen letters concurrently to his secretaries. Branwell Brontë

could do more than this. With a pen in each hand, he could write two

different letters at the same moment.

Charlotte was Branwell's senior by one year. In 1835, when in her

nineteenth year, she was by no means the unattractive person she has

been represented as being. There is a little caricature sketched by

herself lying before me as I write. In it all the more awkward of her

physical points are ingeniously exaggerated. The prominent forehead

bulges out in an aggressive manner, suggestive of hydrocephalus, the

nose, "tip-tilted like the petal of a flower," and the mouth are made

unnecessarily large; whilst the little figure is clumsy and ungainly.

But though she could never pretend to beauty, she had redeeming

features, her eyes, hair, and massive forehead all being attractive

points. Emily, who was two years her junior, had, like Charlotte, a

bad complexion; but she was tall and well-formed, whilst her eyes were

of remarkable beauty. All through her life her temperament was more

than merely peculiar. She inherited not a little of her father's

eccentricity, untempered by her father's _savoir faire_. Her aversion

to strangers has been already mentioned. When the curates, who formed

the only society of Haworth, found their way to the parsonage, she

avoided them as though they had brought the pestilence in their train.

On the rare occasions when she went out into the world, she would sit

absolutely silent in the company of those who were unfamiliar to her.

So intense was this reserve that even in her own family, where alone

she was at ease, something like dread was mingled with the affection

felt towards her. On one occasion, whilst Charlotte's friend was

visiting the parsonage, Charlotte herself was unable through illness to

take any walks with her. To the amazement of the household, Emily

volunteered to accompany Miss N---- on a ramble over the moors. They

set off together, and the girl threw aside her reserve, and talked with

a freedom and vigour which gave evidence of the real strength of her

character. Her companion was charmed with her intelligence and

geniality. But on returning to the parsonage Charlotte was found

awaiting them, and, as soon as she had a chance of doing so, she

anxiously put to Miss N---- the question, "How did Emily behave

herself?" It was the first time she had ever been known to invite the

company of any one outside the narrow limits of the family circle. Her

chief delight was to roam on the moors, followed by her dogs, to whom

she would whistle in masculine fashion. Her heart, indeed, was given to

these dumb creatures of the earth. She never forgave those who

ill-treated them, nor trusted those whom they disliked. One is reminded

of Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" by some traits of Emily Brontë:

If the flowers had been her own infants, she

Could never have nursed them more tenderly;

and, like the lady of the poem, her tenderness and charity could reach

even

----the poor banished insects, whose intent,

Although they did ill, was innocent.

One instance of her remarkable personal courage is related in

"Shirley," where she herself is sketched under the character of the

heroine. It is her adventure with the mad dog which bit her at the

door of the parsonage kitchen whilst she was offering it water. The

brave girl took an iron from the fire, where it chanced to be heating,

and immediately cauterised the wound on her arm, making a broad, deep

scar, which was there until the day of her death. Not until many weeks

after did she tell her sisters what had happened. Passionately fond of

her home among the hills, and of the rough Yorkshire people among whom

she had been reared, she sickened and pined away when absent from

Haworth. A strange untamed and untamable character was hers; and none

but her two sisters ever seem to have appreciated her remarkable

merits, or to have recognised the fine though immature genius which

shows itself in every line of the weird story of "Wuthering Heights."

Anne, the youngest of the family, had beauty in addition to her other

gifts. Intellectually she was greatly inferior to her sisters; but her

mildness and sweetness of temperament won the affections of many who

were repelled by the harsher exteriors of Charlotte and Emily.

This was the family which lived happily and quietly among the hills

during those years when life with its vicissitudes still lay in the

distance. Gay their existence could not be called; but their letters

show that it was unquestionably peaceful, happy, and wholesome.

[Illustration: THE HOUSE THAT CHARLOTTE VISITED.]

V.

LIFE AS A GOVERNESS.

Moved by the hope of lightening the family expenses and enabling

Branwell to get a thorough artistic training at the Royal Academy,

Charlotte resolved to go out as a governess. Her first "place" was at

her old school at Roehead, where she was with her friend, Miss Wooler,

and where she was also very near the home of her confidante, Miss

N----. Emily went with her for a time, but she soon sickened and pined

for the moors, and after a trial of but a few months she returned to

Haworth. A great deal of sympathy has been bestowed upon the Brontës

in connection with their lives as governesses; nor am I prepared to

say that this sympathy is wholly misplaced. Their reserve, their

affection for each other, their ignorance of the world, combined

to make "the cup of life as it is mixed for the class termed

governesses"--to use Charlotte's own phrase--particularly distasteful

to them. But it is a mistake to suppose that they were treated with

harshness during their governess life, or that Charlotte, at least,

felt her trials to be at all unbearable. It was decidedly unpleasant

to sacrifice the independence and the family companionship of Haworth

for drudgery and loneliness in the household of a stranger; but it was

a duty, and as such it was accepted without repining by two, at least,

of the sisters. Emily's peculiar temperament made her quite unfitted

for life among strangers; she made many attempts to overcome her

reserve, but all were unavailing; and after a brief experience in one

or two families in different parts of Yorkshire, she returned to

Haworth to reside there permanently as her father's housekeeper. There

is no need to dwell upon this episode in the lives of the Brontës.

They were living among unfamiliar faces, and had little temptation to

display themselves in their true characters, but extracts from a few

of Charlotte's letters to her friends will show something of the

course of her thought at this time. With the exception of a detached

sentence or two these letters will be quite new to the readers of Mrs.

Gaskell's "Life:"

I have been waiting for an opportunity of sending a letter to you

as you wished; but as no such opportunity offers itself, I have at

length determined to write to you by post, fearing that if I

delayed any longer you would attribute my tardiness to

indifference. I can scarcely realise the distance that lies between

us, or the length of time which may elapse before we meet again.

Now, Ellen, I have no news to tell you, no changes to communicate.

My life since I saw you last has passed away as monotonously and

unvaryingly as ever--nothing but teach, teach, teach, from morning

till night. The greatest variety I ever have is afforded by a

letter from you, a call from the T----s, or by meeting with a

pleasant new book. The "Life of Oberlin," and Legh Richmond's

"Domestic Portraiture," are the last of this description I have

perused. The latter work strongly attracted and strangely

fascinated my attention. Beg, borrow, or steal it without delay,

and read the "Memoir of Richmond." That short record of a brief and

uneventful life I shall never forget. It is beautiful, not on

account of the language in which it is written, not on account of

the incidents it details, but because of the simple narration it

gives of the life and death of a young, talented, sincere

Christian. Get the book, Ellen (I wish I had it to give you), read

it, and tell me what you think of it. Yesterday I heard that you

had been ill since you were in London. I hope you are better now.

Are you any happier than you were? Try to reconcile your mind to

circumstances, and exert the quiet fortitude of which I know you

are not destitute. Your absence leaves a sort of vacancy in my

feelings which nothing has as yet offered of sufficient interest to

supply. I do not forget ten o'clock. I remember it every night, and

if a sincere petition for your welfare will do you any good you

will be benefited. I know the Bible says: "The prayer of the

_righteous_ availeth much," and I am _not righteous_. Nevertheless

I believe God despises no application that is uttered in sincerity.

My own dear E----, good-bye. I can write no more, for I am called

to a less pleasant avocation.

Dewsbury Moor, Oct. 2, 1836.

I should have written to you a week ago, but my time has of late

been so wholly taken up that till now I have really not had an

opportunity of answering your last letter. I assure you I feel the

kindness of so early a reply to my tardy correspondence. It gave

me a sting of self-reproach.... My sister Emily is gone into a

situation as teacher in a large school of near forty pupils, near

Halifax. I have had one letter from her since her departure. It

gives an appalling account of her duties. Hard labour from six in

the morning till near eleven at night, with only one half-hour of

exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she will never stand it.

It gives me sincere pleasure, my dear Ellen, to learn that you

have at last found a few associates of congenial minds. I cannot

conceive a life more dreary than that passed amidst sights,

sounds, and companions all alien to the nature within us. From the

tenor of your letters it seems that your mind remains fixed as it

ever was, in no wise dazzled by novelty or warped by evil example.

I am thankful for it. I could not help smiling at the paragraphs

which related to ----. There was in them a touch of the genuine

unworldly simplicity which forms part of your character. Ellen,

depend upon it, all people have their dark side. Though some

possess the power of throwing a fair veil over the defects, close

acquaintance slowly removes the screen, and one by one the blots

appear; till at last we see the pattern of perfection all slurred

over with stains which even affection cannot efface.

The affectionate commendations of her friend are constantly

accompanied by references of a very different character to herself.

If I like people--she says in one of her letters--it is my nature

to tell them so, and I am not afraid of offering incense to your

vanity. It is from religion that you derive your chief charm, and

may its influence always preserve you as pure, as unassuming, and

as benevolent in thought and deed as you are now. What am I

compared to you? I feel my own utter worthlessness when I make the

comparison. I'm a very coarse, commonplace wretch! I have some

qualities that make me very miserable, some feelings that you can

have no participation in--that few, very few people in the world

can at all understand. I don't pride myself on these

peculiarities. I strive to conceal and suppress them as much as I

can, but they burst out sometimes, and then those who see the

explosion despise me, and I hate myself for days afterwards.

All my notes to you, Ellen, are written in a hurry. I am now

snatching an opportunity. Mr. J---- is here; by his means it will

be transmitted to Miss E----, by her means to X----, by his means

to you. I do not blame you for not coming to see me. I am sure you

have been prevented by sufficient reasons; but I do long to see

you, and I hope I shall be gratified momentarily, at least, ere

long. Next Friday, if all be well, I shall go to G----. On Sunday

I hope I shall at least catch a glimpse of you. Week after week I

have lived on the expectation of your coming. Week after week I

have been disappointed. I have not regretted what I said in my

last note to you. The confession was wrung from me by sympathy and

kindness, such as I can never be sufficiently thankful for. I feel

in a strange state of mind; still gloomy, but not despairing. I

keep trying to do right, checking wrong feelings; repressing wrong

thoughts--but still, every instant I find myself going astray. I

have a constant tendency to scorn people who are far better than I

am. A horror at the idea of becoming one of a certain set--a dread

lest if I made the slightest profession I should sink at once into

Phariseeism, merge wholly in the ranks of the self-righteous. In

writing at this moment I feel an irksome disgust at the idea of

using a single phrase that sounds like religious cant. I abhor

myself; I despise myself. If the doctrine of Calvin be true, I am

already an outcast. You cannot imagine how hard, rebellious, and

intractable all my feelings are. When I begin to study on the

subject I almost grow blasphemous, atheistical in my sentiments.

Don't desert me--don't be horrified at me. You know what I am. I

wish I could see you, my darling. I have lavished the warmest

affections of a very hot, tenacious heart upon you. If you grow

cold it is over.

You will excuse a very brief and meagre answer to your kind note

when I tell you that at the moment it reached me, and that just now

whilst I am scribbling a reply, the whole house is in the bustle of

packing and preparation, for on this day we all _go home_. Your

palliation of my defects is kind and charitable, but I dare not

trust its truth. Few would regard them with so lenient an eye as

you do. Your consolatory admonitions are kind, Ellen; and when I

can read them over in quietness and alone, I trust I shall derive

comfort from them. But just now, in the unsettled, excited state of

mind which I now feel, I cannot enter into the pure scriptural

spirit which they breathe. It would be wrong of me to continue the

subject. My thoughts are distracted and absorbed by other ideas.

You do not mention your visit to Haworth. Have you spoken of it to

the family? Have they agreed to let you come? But I will write when

I get home. Ever since last Friday I have been as busy as I could

be in finishing up the half-year's lessons, which concluded with a

terrible fog in geographical problems (think of explaining that to

Misses ---- and ----!), and subsequently in mending Miss ----'s

clothes. Miss ---- is calling me: something about my _protégée's_

nightcap. Good-bye. We shall meet again ere many days, I trust.

Here it will be seen that the religious struggle was renewed. The

woman who was afterwards to be accused of "heathenism" was going

through tortures such as Cowper knew in his darkest hours, and, like

him, was acquiring faith, humility, and resignation in the midst of

the conflict. But such letters as this are only episodical; in general

she writes cheerfully, sometimes even merrily.

[Illustration: THE ROE HEAD SCHOOL.]

What would the _Quarterly_ reviewer and the other charitable people,

who openly declared their conviction that the author of "Jane Eyre" was

an improper person, who had written an improper book, have said had

they been told that she had written the following letter on the subject

of her first offer of marriage--written it, too, at the time when she

was a governess, and in spite of the fact that the offer opened up to

her a way of escape from all anxiety as to her future life?

You ask me whether I have received a letter from T----. I have

about a week since. The contents I confess did a little surprise

me; but I kept them to myself, and unless you had questioned me on

the subject I would never have adverted to it. T---- says he is

comfortably settled at ----, and that his health is much improved.

He then intimates that in due time he will want a wife, and

frankly asks me to be that wife. Altogether the letter is written

without cant or flattery, and in common-sense style which does

credit to his judgment. Now there were in this proposal some

things that might have proved a strong temptation. I thought if I

were to marry so ---- could live with me, and how happy I should

be. But again I asked myself two questions: Do I love T---- as

much as a woman ought to love her husband? Am I the person best

qualified to make him happy? Alas! my conscience answered "No" to

both these questions. I felt that though I esteemed T----, though

I had a kindly leaning towards him, because he is an amiable,

well-disposed man, yet I had not and never could have that intense

attachment which would make me willing to die for him--and if ever

I marry it must be in that light of adoration that I will regard

my husband. Ten to one I shall never have the chance again; but

_n'importe_. Moreover, I was aware he knew so little of me he could

hardly be conscious to whom he was writing. Why, it would startle

him to see me in my natural home character. He would think I was a

wild, romantic enthusiast indeed. I could not sit all day long

making a grave face before my husband. I would laugh and satirise,

and say whatever came into my head first; and if he were a clever

man and loved me, the whole world weighed in the balance against

his smallest wish would be light as air. Could I, knowing my mind

to be such as that, conscientiously say that I would take a grave,

quiet young man like T----? No; it would have been deceiving him,

and deception of that sort is beneath me. So I wrote a long letter

back in which I expressed my refusal as gently as I could, and also

candidly avowed my reasons for that refusal. I described to him,

too, the sort of character I thought would suit him for a wife.

The girl who could thus calmly decline a more than merely "eligible"

offer, and thus honestly state her reasons for doing so to the friend

she trusted, was strangely different from the author of "Jane Eyre"

pictured by the critics and the public. Perhaps the full cost of the

refusal related in the foregoing letter is only made clear when it is

brought into contrast with such a confession as the following, made

very soon afterwards:

I am miserable when I allow myself to dwell on the necessity of

spending my life as a governess. The chief requisite for that

station seems to me to be the power of taking things easily when

they come, and of making oneself comfortable and at home wherever

one may chance to be--qualities in which all our family are

singularly deficient. I know I cannot live with a person like Mrs.

----; but I hope all women are not like her, and my motto is "Try

again."

How thoroughly at all times she could sympathise alike with the joys

and sorrows of others, is proved by many letters extending over the

whole period of her life. The following is neither the earliest nor

the most characteristic of those utterances of a tender and heartfelt

sympathy with her special friend, which are to be found in her

correspondence, but as Mrs. Gaskell has not made use of it, I may

quote it here:

1838.

We were at breakfast when your note reached me, and I consequently

write in great hurry. Your trials seem to thicken. I trust God

will either remove them or give you strength to bear them. If I

could but come to you and offer you all the little assistance

either my head or hands could afford! But that is impossible. I

scarcely dare offer to comfort you about ---- lest my consolation

should seem like mockery. I know that in cases of sickness

strangers cannot measure what relations feel. One thing, however, I

need not remind _you_ of. You will have repeated it over and over

to yourself before now: God does all for the best; and even should

the worst happen, and Death seem finally to destroy hope, remember

that this will be but a practical test of the strong faith and calm

devotion which have marked you a Christian so long. I would hope,

however, that the time for this test is not yet come, that your

brother may recover, and all be well. It grieves me to hear that

your own health is so indifferent. Once more I wish I were with

you to lighten at least by sympathy the burden that seems so

unsparingly laid upon you. Let me thank you for remembering me in

the midst of such hurry and affliction. We are all apt to grow

selfish in distress. This, so far as I have found, is not your

case. _When_ shall I see you again? The uncertainty in which the

answer to that question must be involved gives me a bitter feeling.

Through all changes, through all chances, I trust I shall love you

as I do now. We can pray for each other and think of each other.

Distance is no bar to recollection. You have promised to write to

me, and I do not doubt that you will keep your word. Give my love

to M---- and your mother. Take with you my blessing and affection,

and all the warmest wishes of a warm heart for your welfare.

From one of her situations as governess in a private family (she had

long since left the kind shelter of Miss Wooler's house) she writes in

1841 a series of letters showing how little she relished the "cup of

life as it is mixed for the class termed governesses."

It is twelve o'clock at night; but I must just write you a word

before I go to bed. If you think I'm going to refuse your

invitation, or if you sent it me with that idea, you're mistaken.

As soon as I had read your shabby little note, I gathered up my

spirits directly, walked on the impulse of the moment into Mrs.

----'s presence, popped the question, and for two minutes received

no answer. "Will she refuse me when I work so hard for her?"

thought I. "Ye--e--es," drawled madam in a reluctant, cold tone.

"Thank you, madam!" said I with extreme cordiality, and was

marching from the room when she recalled me with "You'd better go

on Saturday afternoon, then, when the children have holiday, and

if you return in time for them to have all their lessons on Monday

morning, I don't see that much will be lost." You _are_ a

genuine Turk, thought I; but again I assented, and so the bargain

was struck. Saturday after next, then, is the day appointed. I'll

come, God knows, with a thankful and joyful heart, glad of a day's

reprieve from labour. If you don't send the gig I'll walk. I am

coming to taste the pleasure of liberty; a bit of pleasant

congenial talk, and a sight of two or three faces I like. God

bless you! I want to see you again. Huzza for Saturday afternoon

after next! Good-night, my lass!

During the last three weeks that hideous operation called "a

thorough clean" has been going on in the house. It is now nearly

completed, for which I thank my stars, as during its progress I

have fulfilled the double character of nurse and governess, while

the nurse has been transmuted into cook and housemaid. That nurse,

by-the-bye, is the prettiest lass you ever saw.... I was beginning

to think Mrs. ---- a good sort of body in spite of her bouncing

and toasting, her bad grammar and worse orthography; but I have

had experience of one little trait in her character which condemns

her a long way with me. After treating a person on the most

familiar terms of equality for a long time, if any little thing

goes wrong, she does not scruple to give way to anger in a very

coarse, unladylike manner, though in justice no blame could be

attached where she ascribed it all. I think passion is the true

test of vulgarity or refinement. This place looks exquisitely

beautiful just now. The grounds are certainly lovely, and all as

green as an emerald. I wish you would just come and look at it.

VI.

THE TURNING-POINT.

The "storm and stress" period of Charlotte Brontë's life was not what

the world believes it to have been. Like the rest of our race, she had

to fight her own battle in the wilderness, not with one devil, but

with many; and it was this sharp contest with the temptations which

crowd the threshold of an opening life which made her what she was.

The world believes that it was under the parsonage roof that the

author of "Jane Eyre" gathered up the precious experiences which were

afterwards turned to such good account. Mrs. Gaskell, who was carried

away by her honest womanly horror of hardened vice, gives us to

understand that the tragic turning-point in the history of the sisters

was connected with the disgrace and ruin of their brother. We are even

asked to believe that but for the folly of a single woman, whom it is

probable that Charlotte never saw, "Currer Bell" would never have

taken up her pen, and no halo of glory would have settled on the

scarred and rugged brows of prosaic Haworth.

It is not so. There may be disappointment among those who have been

nurtured on the traditions of the Brontë romance when they find that

the reality is different from what they supposed it to be; some

shallow judges may even assume that Charlotte herself loses in moral

stature when it is shown that it was not her horror at her brother's

fall which drove her to find relief in literary speech. But the truth

must be told; and for my part I see nothing in that truth which

affects, even in an infinitesimal degree, the fame and the honour of

the woman of whom I write.

It was Charlotte's visit to Brussels, then, first as pupil and

afterwards as teacher in the school of Madame Héger, which was the

turning-point in her life, which changed its currents, and gave to it

a new purpose and a new meaning. Up to the moment of that visit she

had been the simple, kindly, truthful Yorkshire girl, endowed with

strange faculties, carried away at times by burning impulses, moved

often by emotions the nature of which she could not fathom, but always

hemmed in by her narrow experiences, her limited knowledge of life and

the world. Until she went to Belgium, her sorest troubles had been

associated with her dislike to the society of strangers, her heaviest

burden had been the necessity under which she lay of tasting that "cup

of life as it is mixed for governesses" which she detested so

heartily. Under the belief that they could qualify themselves to keep

a school of their own if they had once mastered the delicacies of the

French and German languages, she and Emily set off for this sojourn in

Brussels.

One may be forgiven for speculating as to her future lot had she

accepted the offer of marriage she received in her early governess

days, and settled down as the faithful wife of a sober English

gentleman. In that case "Shirley" perhaps might have been written, but

"Jane Eyre" and "Villette" never. She learnt much during her two

years' sojourn in the Belgian capital; but the greatest of all the

lessons she mastered whilst there was that self-knowledge the taste of

which is so bitter to the mouth, though so wholesome to the life. Mrs.

Gaskell has made such ample use of the letters she penned during the

long months which she spent as an exile from England, that there is

comparatively little left to cull from them. Everybody knows the

outward circumstances of her story at this time. For a brief period

she had the company of Emily; and the two sisters, working together

with the unremitting zeal of those who have learned that time is

money, were happy and hopeful, enjoying the novel sights of the gay

foreign capital, gathering fresh experiences every day, and looking

forward to the moment when they would return to familiar Haworth, and

realise the dream of their lives by opening a school of their own

within the walls of the parsonage. But then Emily left, and Charlotte,

after a brief holiday at home, returned alone. Years after, writing to

her friend, she speaks of her return in these words: "I returned to

Brussels after aunt's death against my conscience, prompted by what

then seemed an irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish

folly by a total withdrawal for more than two years of happiness and

peace of mind." Why did she thus go back "against her conscience?" Her

friends declared that her future husband dwelt somewhere within sound

of the chimes of St. Gudule, and that she insisted upon returning to

Brussels because she was about to be married there. We know now how

different was the reality. The husband who awaited her was even then

about to begin his long apprenticeship of love at Haworth. Yet none

the less had her spirit, if not her heart, been captured and held

captive in the Belgian city. It is not in her letters that we find the

truth regarding her life at this time. The truth indeed is there, but

not all the truth. "In catalepsy and dread trance," says Lucy Snowe,

"I studiously held the quick of my nature.... It is on the surface

only the common gaze will fall." The secrets of her inner life could

not be trusted to paper, even though the lines were intended for no

eyes but those of her friend and confidante. There are some things, as

we know well, that the heart hides as by instinct, and which even

frank and open natures only reveal under compulsion. Writing to her

friend from Brussels in October, 1843, she says: "I have much to say,

Ellen; many little odd things, queer and puzzling enough, which I do

not like to trust to a letter, but which one day, perhaps, or rather

one evening, if ever we should find ourselves again by the fireside at

Haworth, or at B----, with our feet on the fender, curling our hair, I

may communicate to you." One of the hardest features of the last year

she spent at Brussels was the necessity she was under of locking all

the deepest emotions of her life within her own breast, of preserving

the calm and even cold exterior, which should tell nothing to the

common gaze, above the troubled, fevered heart that beat within.

When do you think I shall see you?--she cries to her friend within

a few days of her final return to Haworth--I have, of course, much

to tell you, and I dare say you have much also to tell me--things

which we should neither of us wish to commit to paper.... I do not

know whether you feel as I do, but there are times now when it

appears to me as if all my ideas and feelings, except a few

friendships and affections, are changed from what they used to be.

Something in me which used to be enthusiasm is tamed down and

broken. I have fewer illusions. What I wish for now is active

exertion--a stake in life. Haworth seems such a lonely, quiet

spot, buried away from the world. I no longer regard myself as

young; indeed, I shall soon be twenty-eight, and it seems as if I

ought to be working and braving the rough realities of the world,

as other people do. It is, however, my duty to restrain this

feeling at present, and I will endeavour to do so.