CHAPTER VI

THE LOVE-LETTERS OF A ROMANTIC[1]

Taking up the study of Charlotte's letters written to M. Heger after her

return to Haworth, and reading them in the light of what we know of the

circumstances and emotions that have formed the feelings, and decided

the tone and attitude of the writer, what do we find to be the sentiment

they reveal to us?

Is it the 'enthusiasm for a great man,' and the desire (for the sake of

vanity, or of amusement) to keep up a correspondence with him?

Or is it the intellectual need of this teacher's instructions and

advice, as a means of mental improvement?

Or is it the want of a companion to exchange ideas with, who is a

brighter and more cultivated being than the Nusseys, Taylors, Woolers,

and the others?

Or is it the pleasure of having a man friend, in the case of a woman who

is neither pretty, nor young, nor silly, enough to indulge in an

ordinary flirtation?

Or is it none amongst these several forms of desire, or want, that seeks

its own good?

Is it love?--a love so exalted, so passionate, so personal, so distinct

from any other instinct or interest, physical, social or intellectual,

that this sentiment stands out, in the order of human feelings, as

honourable not only to the heart that feels it, but to human nature: so

that brought into touch with it, one's own heart is uplifted above the

common world, and gladdened '_by the sense_,' as Byron said,[2] '_of the

existence of Love in its most extended and sublime capacity and of our

own participation of its good and of its glory._[3]

My contention is that it _is_ this romantic Love that reveals itself in

Charlotte's letters to M. Heger. And for this reason, I agree with Mr.

Clement Shorter that they put her upon a higher pedestal than ever. For

to have a heart capable of this great and glorious, albeit often

tragical, romantic Love, that 'seeketh not its own,' and compared with

which all other sorts of love, that _do_ seek their own, are as sounding

brass and a tinkling cymbal is, _independently of deeds or works_,

greatly to serve mankind. For it is to stand as a witness, amongst the

meannesses of mortal and worldly things, to the existence of Something

personal and immortal in the soul and heart of man, helping him '_to

gild his dross thereby_.'[4] Something sovereign, that, quite

independently of forms of belief, or fashions of opinion, '_rules by

every school, till love and longing die_.' Something indestructible,

confined to no epoch, ancient, mediæval or modern, but, '_that was, or

yet the lights were set, a whisper in the void; that will be sung in

planets young when this is clean destroyed_.' In other words, I esteem

human nature honoured in Charlotte Brontë, and Charlotte Brontë honoured

in these Letters, _because they are love-letters of a rare and wonderful

sort amongst the most beautiful, although they are the most sad ever

written_. If they were _not_ love-letters, but expressed the enthusiasm

of a woman wanting comradeship with a great man, I should esteem them

discreditable to any hero-worshipper. Because one should not pester

one's hero with letters, nor conceive the conceit of comradeship with an

object of worship. And it is not true that Charlotte's letters to

Thackeray, George Henry Lewes and other men of letters after she became

famous, had the same character as these love-letters written to M.

Heger before her name was known; because in her letters to different

celebrated writers, Charlotte talked about books or the criticism of

books. But to M. Heger she throws open the secret chamber of her heart:

she pours out its treasures of passionate feelings (as pure as they were

passionate) at the feet of the man she loves; all she asks for from him

in return is not to reprove her, nor refuse the offering; not to

withdraw himself from her life altogether. To let her hear from him

sometimes: not to leave her utterly alone, in the darkness, without any

knowledge of what good or evil may befall one so dear to her.

Unfortunately we do not possess the first Letters of this

correspondence. The four Letters given by Dr. Paul Heger to the British

Museum all belong to a period when the Professor, who had answered (one

does not know precisely in what way) Charlotte's first epistles, had

left off replying to her; and the consistent motive of these four

appeals is for some tidings of him, some proof that the 'estrangement

from her Master,' to which she says she will never 'voluntarily'

consent, has not, in spite of her own unaltered devotion, irrevocably

taken place.

'Tell me about anything you like, my Master,' she writes, 'only tell me

something! No doubt, to write to a former under-mistress (no, I will not

remember my employment as under-mistress, I refuse to recall it), but to

write to an old pupil, cannot be, for you, an interesting occupation. I

realise this; but for _me_, it is life. Your last letter served to keep

me alive, to nourish me during six months. Now I must have another one;

and you will give me one. Not because you bear me friendship (you cannot

bear me much!), but because you have a compassionate soul, and because

you would not condemn any one to slow suffering, simply to spare

yourself a few moments of fatigue! To forbid me to write to you, to

refuse to reply to me, would be to tear from me the only joy that I have

in the world; to deprive me of my last privilege, a privilege which I

will never _voluntarily_ renounce. Believe me, my Master! by writing to

me, you do a good action--so long as I can believe you are not angry

with me, so long as the hope is left me of news of you, I can be

tranquil, and not too sad. But when a gloomy and prolonged silence warns

me of the estrangement from me of my Master, when from day to day I

expect a letter, and when, day after day, comes disappointment, to

plunge me in overwhelming grief; and when the sweet and dear consolation

of seeing your handwriting, of reading your counsels, fades from me like

a vain vision,--then fever attacks me, appetite and sleep fail: I feel

that life wastes away.'[5]

This passage is quoted from the Letter dated by Charlotte 18_th

November_, without any indication of the year. Mr. Spielmann (who is

responsible for the order given the Letters in the _Times_) esteems this

one to be the last of the series; that is to say, to have been written

ten months after the Letter dated by Charlotte 8 January, supposed by

him to belong to the year 1845. With Dr. Paul Heger, I believe, on the

contrary, that the Letter of the 18th November is the first of the

series: and that it belongs to the year 1844; that is to say, was

written ten months after Charlotte's return to England. This opinion

seems to me established by the contents of the Letter, and by the

account it gives of the conditions of affairs at Haworth, which were

those that we find (if we consult Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte

Brontë_) did prevail in November 1844, but not in November 1845, and

still less in November 1846.

My father (she writes) is in good health, but his eyesight

is all but gone; he can no longer either read or write: and

yet the doctors advise waiting some months longer before

attempting any operation. This winter will be for him one

long night. He rarely complains: and I admire his patience.

If Providence has the same calamity in reserve for me, may

it grant me the same patience to endure it. It seems to me,

Monsieur, that what is most bitter in severe physical

afflictions, is that they compel us to share our sufferings

with those who surround us. One can hide the maladies of the

soul; but those that attack the body and enfeeble our

faculties cannot be hidden. My father now allows me to read

to and to write for him. He shows much more confidence in me

than he has ever done before; and this is a great

consolation to me.

Charlotte's account in this Letter of her father's patient resignation

and increased confidence in her under the trial, to a man of his

independent and somewhat domineering temper, of compulsory reliance on

the assistance of a daughter from whom he had exacted complete

submission heretofore and from her childhood upwards, is confirmed in

Mrs. Gaskell's biography by the testimony of other letters belonging to

the first year of her return from Belgium. But by November 1845 Mr.

Brontë's philosophy, before his own unmerited misfortune, had been

troubled and transformed into acute misery and anxious forebodings by

the downfall, both moral and physical, of his favourite amongst his

children, Bramwell, the unhappy son--the only one--in this family of

gifted daughters, whose perversion seems also to have had something of

the irresponsibility of genius about it. Writing on the 4th November

1845 to Ellen Nussey,[6] Charlotte says:--

I hoped to be able to ask you to come to Haworth. It almost

seemed as if Bramwell had a chance of getting employment;

and I waited to know the results of his efforts, in order to

say 'Dear Ellen, come and see us.' But the place is given to

another person. Bramwell still remains at home, and whilst

_he_ is here, _you_ shall not come.'

Here is Mrs. Gaskell's account of Mr. Brontë's experiences in this

period, that are not to be reconciled with the account given of his good

health and philosophical patience and resignation to dependence upon

Charlotte given by her a year earlier:

For the last three years of his life, Bramwell took opium

habitually, by way of stunning conscience: he drank,

moreover, whenever he could get the opportunity.... He slept

in his father's room; and he would sometimes declare that

either he or his father would be dead before the morning!

The trembling sisters, sick with fright, would implore their

father not to expose himself to this danger. But Mr. Brontë

was no timid man; and perhaps he felt that he could possibly

influence his son to some self-restraint more by showing

trust in him than by showing fear. The sisters often

listened for the report of a pistol in the dead of night,

till watchful eye and hearkening ear grew heavy and dull

with the perpetual strain upon their nerves. In the

mornings, young Brontë would saunter out saying, with a

drunkard's incontinence of speech, 'The poor old man and I

have had a terrible night of it; he does his best, the poor

old man, but it's all over with me.'

One may safely affirm that if Charlotte had been writing in November

1845 it would not have been only his patience under the trial of loss of

sight that she would have found to admire in her father. In November

1846 Mr. Brontë had successfully undergone the operation for cataract

that saved him from blindness: and Charlotte herself, ten months after

the overwhelming evidence of her 'master's estrangement,' given in his

silence after her Letter of the 8th January, had saved her own soul

from the malady she had endured without sharing her sufferings with any

one; and was already writing _Jane Eyre_ ... so that the conclusion is

surely forced upon us that the Letter of the 18th November belongs to

the year 1844, and written ten months after her return to Haworth, 2nd

January 1844, and represents the first, and not the last of these four

Letters.

[Illustration: REDUCED FROM A DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË OF ASHBURNHAM

CHURCH SENT TO M. HEGER. The drawing showing the date 1846 was given to

the author by Mlle. Louise Heger]

It is important to establish this, because one has to read these Letters

in their right order before one can understand the story they disclose

of the long training in deferred hope, in expectation, crowned with

disappointment, in vain pursuit of shadows that eluded her grasp, and of

illusions that reveal themselves as forms of self-deceit only in the

very hour when they have conquered belief; in other words, of the long

training in personal suffering it took to create and fashion the genius

of a writer whose magical gift was to be the power of transforming words

into feelings.

Carrying through the examination of these documents by the rule that

recognises the Letter of the 18th November as written ten months after

Charlotte's return to England, we discover in the opening sentence the

fact that the last letter Charlotte had received from her Professor must

have been in May of this same year; that is to say, four months after

the sentimental leave-taking with her Professor, which sent Charlotte

home to England with illusions about the extent to which her own

passionate grief at their separation was shared by M. Heger. By November

these illusions have been dispelled; Charlotte understands perfectly now

(although this does not make her any more just to Madame Heger) that the

'grief' of her 'Master,' that she had said she would 'never forget,

never mind how long she might live,' was a very short-lived affair on

his side; merely the transient regret of a teacher who will miss a

favourite pupil from his class.

'_Que ne puis-je avoir pour vous juste autant d'amitié que vous avez

pour moi_,' she writes to him, '_ni plus, ni moins? Je serais alors si

tranquille, si libre: je pourrais garder le silence pendant six mois

sans effort_.'

There is a note of bitterness in this. In what precedes it there is no

bitterness, but we have one of the passages in these wonderful letters

that seem to me to place them above all the other love-letters preserved

in the world, as immortal records of the Romantic Love that honours

human nature in the hearts that cherish it.

'The six months of silence are over: we are now at the 18th of

November,' she writes:--

I may, then, write to you, without breaking my promise. The

summer and winter have seemed very long to me: in truth, it

has cost me painful efforts to endure up to now the

privation I have imposed upon myself. You, for your part,

cannot understand this! But, Monsieur, try to imagine, for

one moment, that one of your children is a hundred and sixty

leagues away from you; and that you are condemned to remain

for six months, without writing to him; without receiving

any news from him; without hearing anything about him;

without knowing how he is;--well, then you may be able to

understand, perhaps, how hard is such an obligation imposed

upon me.

In connection with the opening phrase, we must recognise in it the

confirmation of an assertion made in my article in the _Woman at Home_

published twenty years before these Letters were published, but which

had for its authority the information given me by Dr. Paul Heger upon

the occasion of a conversation, when he very kindly talked over with me

the questions connected with events in his parents' life that, inasmuch

as they happened before his birth, he knew as family traditions

chiefly--but still as traditions derived from the only authentic sources

of information that exist: Dr. Paul Heger's theory was that until

Charlotte had left Bruxelles and commenced to write to his father

letters in a tone of exaltation that announced an exaggerated

attachment, Monsieur Heger himself had never suspected the existence of

any such sentiment; and that he, and Madame Heger (?)--were disposed to

regard it as an attack of morbid regret for the more animated life she

had led in Bruxelles, and the dulness of her home surroundings. And

that, acting upon this supposition, they had thought it advisable (and

this in Charlotte's own interests chiefly) to let her know that they

were both of them distressed and displeased by the tone of her letters;

and that if she wished to keep up the correspondence, she must become

more reasonable and temperate in her way of expressing herself; and

that, as the exchange of letters between busy people became onerous,

there must be only two letters every year at intervals of six months. We

find Charlotte acknowledging this condition, as one that she had

accepted, but that she complained of as a great 'privation': and she

then goes on to explain (as only one taught by romantic, that is to say

by unselfish, and unsensual, love, that 'does not seek its own,' could

explain it) in what this 'privation' consists.

Did any woman, neglected by the man she loves, ever discover a device,

at once so passionate, and so poetically pure as Charlotte's, who makes

the man who does not love her, but whom she knows is an adoring father,

try to realise what she feels, so far away from him, and left without

tidings _by asking him to picture what he would feel if separated by a

hundred and sixty leagues from his little child, he were left without

news of him?_

But now if we consult honestly our own impressions, does this letter

reveal that '_it is no cause of grief to Charlotte that M. Heger is

married_'? Is it true that _there 'is nothing in it that any

enthusiastic woman might not write to a married man with a family who

had been her teacher_'?

What the letter does reveal (thus it seems to me at least) is one

supreme thing before all others: that the writer of it is past saving,

by this time, from the destiny she prophesied for herself ten months ago

in Bruxelles. '_My heart will break_,' Charlotte said then: when fate

(in the garb of Madame Heger) thrust herself between her and her beloved

Professor.

And now, touching and eloquent as it all is, what escape is there from

the conclusion that the writer of this letter _must_ break her heart?

What else can happen? Let us recognise her plight. Here one has an

entirely honourable, passionately tender, tenderly passionate, very

serious woman, her mind dominated (as she says herself) by one

tyrannical fixed idea; let us rather say by one tragical passion; and

who sees her own life, and her claims upon the man she loves through the

medium of this tragical passion: _and who gives her life an impossible

purpose; and who makes impossible claims_. They are very small claims,

she pleads. And so they are, very small in comparison with what she

gives, her whole life's devotion poured out at the feet of her 'Master,'

from whom she only asks in return that he will not forbid her worship;

that, now and again, he will give her the joy of seeing his handwriting,

and of knowing that he is well. But small as these claims are, they are

unreasonable:--'_to the last degree "inconvenient" and impossible_,' as

Madame would have said,--in the particular case of this 'Master'; a

married man and an attached husband with five children, the Director of

a Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles who has need to be especially circumspect;

and who cannot discreetly, nor even honourably, allow a former

under-mistress to address him passionate, romantic love-letters, even

every six months. Nor can this loyal husband and self-respecting

Catholic and Professor undertake to appear to sanction this

indiscretion, by keeping her informed of his health and welfare at

regular intervals. So that, building her heart's desires upon false

hopes, that, from day to day, wear themselves out in disappointment, and

looking for consolation to things necessarily withdrawn; and that she

pursues in vain like 'fading visions,'--how is our poor Charlotte to

find any escape from the heart-break that is the natural term of the

path along which this Love, that has become her destiny, leads her? No

way of escape is there for Charlotte: not in heaven above, nor on the

earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. For no miracle can

give her love a happy ending; say that even a thunderbolt fell from

heaven to remove Madame Heger,--it would be extremely unjust--but admit

that a murderous miracle be granted--even so, it would not alter the

fact that M. Heger is not in love with Charlotte. And no earthly scheme

either can bridge the separation--wider than the 160 leagues between

Yorkshire and Brussels--that now severs Charlotte, breaking her heart in

Yorkshire, from her Master in literature, carrying on, as stormily and

triumphantly as when she assisted at them, his lessons in the

class-rooms in the Rue d'Isabelle: those memory-haunted class-rooms she

will never see again; because although we find her in these Letters

speaking of projects of earning money that she may return to Bruxelles,

if only to see her professor once again, one knows that there would be

Madame to count with; and even Monsieur Heger's obstinate neglect to

reply to these appealing Letters does not indicate any answering wish on

his side to see his former pupil again. Nor yet does there exist in the

waters under the earth any pool of magical power of healing sufficient

to soothe these bitter regrets and reproaches; nor any well deep enough

to drown rebellious desires and memories: for Charlotte has too splendid

a soul to think of suicide; or to quench anguish by drugs. So that one

knows that Charlotte's fate is sealed: and that we must follow her

through these last steps to the end, with pity and admiration and love

for her--but still not with injustice to others. Because no one outside

of herself, not Madame Heger, nor Monsieur Heger, is responsible for

what has happened, and what is going to happen; but only the Love that

has Charlotte's soul in thrall, the Love that 'seeketh not its

own,'--romantic, or if it be preferred, Platonic Love; who as the wise

woman, Diotima, told Socrates, is 'not a god, but an immortal spirit,

who spans the gulf between heaven and earth, carrying to the gods the

prayers of men, and to the earth the commands of the gods.' Love, who is

'the child of plenty and of poverty, often, like his mother, without

house or home to cover him' (and who consequently is not highly esteemed

by respectable householders). Love, the 'instinct of immortality in a

mortal creature,' leading him amongst mortal conditions to where

Charlotte is being led to,--the grave of hope,--_but not leaving hope

there entombed, but raising it, not clogged with the pollution of

mortality._

All this, that the wise Diotima related, is a true parable of Charlotte

Brontë. And the proof that Diotima was a good psychologist, and had

based her opinions upon the study of facts, is found in the assertion

that Love, although an immortal spirit, is _not a god_. Because a god

sees clearly, and does not make mistakes: whereas Love, as every one

knows, is often blind, and never very clear-sighted; and _is_ liable to

make mistakes, and to be unjust even: and to attribute his own errors to

other people. Thus Charlotte, under the dominion of Love, was unjust,

and made mistakes: she attributed to Madame Heger disappointments and

misadventures and pangs, that were not of Madame Heger's preparation at

all, but were simply the imprudences of this 'Child of plenty and

poverty,' who inherits from both parents and is so often extravagant and

houseless, and consequently in bad odour with householders and the

worshippers of 'convenience,' because 'he has no home to cover him.'

Charlotte should not have attributed, for instance, malevolence or

jealousy or the cruel pleasure of tantalising and torturing her in

Bruxelles to Madame Heger, simply because, as the Directress of a

Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles and wife of M. Heger, she did not want to

take in Romantic Love as a boarder; nor to permit this 'Child of plenty

and poverty' to disorganise the well-balanced domestic and conjugal

relationships between herself and M. Heger. In all this Madame Heger was

not persecuting Charlotte, but protecting her own rights. And if we

examine the circumstances even in the narrative of the scene in the

class-room between the Directress and her English teacher, and the scene

of the farewell interview between the Professor and his pupil, where the

Directress of the Pensionnat is put out of the room because she objects

to this sentimental leave-taking, we shall find that recognising the

true relationships between these three people, if Madame Heger behaved

exactly as Madame Beck is said to have done, then there is not any fault

whatever to be found with Madame Heger. Nay, one does not see how she

could have been more considerate. Another false impression of

Charlotte's--that Madame Heger intercepted her letters, and that M.

Heger did not answer because he did not receive them--has no evidence to

support it. Nor is this all; there is undeniable proof that the letter

we have just considered (_which M. Heger did not answer_) _was_

received by him: and that he was not very much affected by the

passionate homage of his worshipper. 'On the edge of this letter he has

made some commonplace notes in pencil;--one of them is the name and

address of a shoemaker,' Mr. Spielmann tells us.

There is a natural feeling of indignation against this masculine

insensibility to a woman's tragical passion, even though one recognises

that honour stood in the way of any responsive sentiment. But one must

not forget M. Heger's special vocation and his daily occupations and

preoccupations. Here you have a Professor of literature in a Pensionnat

de Jeunes Filles who spends, week by week, several days in correcting

and improving 'compositions' and exercises in 'style' of numberless

schoolgirls, full of the eloquent sentimentality that belongs to young

writers between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Monsieur Heger had

been Charlotte's master in literature, remember: and there is another

fact to be realised also, one that upon the authority of my own

knowledge of him, in the character of my own Professor, I am allowed to

testify to: _he was before all things a born teacher, and one who saw

the world as his class-room, and his fellow-creatures in the light of

pupils_. Applying this knowledge of him to the criticism of what we know

about his relations with Charlotte Brontë, we arrive at entirely

different opinions to those formed by people who either see M. Heger

through the medium of Charlotte's passion for him and as she painted him

in _Villette_; or outside of any personal knowledge of him at all, as he

appears to them judged in the light of the impression that he played

with Charlotte's feelings: first of all encouraging by sentimental

flattery her affection for him, and then, when he found that she had

become inconveniently fond of him, behaving with cruel indifference.

None of these decisions is based on a correct knowledge of M. Heger, nor

of his true behaviour and character. The true M. Heger was not the Paul

Emanuel who was _the lover of Lucy Snowe_, because he is very truthfully

and admirably painted in the domineering but interesting,

terror-striking but captivating, masterful and masterly Professor of

literature, so full of talent, and fiery captivating ardour for

beautiful thoughts nobly expressed. The real Professor was _not_

tender-hearted; nor very tender in manner; nor even very pleasant and

considerate; nor even kind, outside of his professorial character: and

he had no sympathy whatever to spare for people who were not his pupils.

And his sympathy for his pupils, _as his pupils_, led him to work upon

their sympathies, as a way of inducing a frame of mind in them and an

emotional state of feeling, rendering them susceptible to literary

impressions, and putting them in key with himself, in this very fine

enthusiasm of his, not only for enjoying literature himself, but for

throwing open to others, and to young votaries especially, the worship

of beautiful literature--as the record of the best that has been thought

and said in the world.

But the very exclusive literary temperament of M. Heger left him rather

cold-blooded than particularly warm-hearted, where his pupils' feelings

interfered with their good style in writing; or good accent when

speaking; or with their sense of the first importance of a warm

appreciation of the beauties of literature. If one reversed directly the

description of Charlotte Brontë herself, as a writer whose _words became

feelings_, one might justly say of M. Heger that for him, feelings were

chiefly good with reference to their effects upon words, and the

creation of beautiful language--so that Charlotte's love-letters to him

would be no more than the '_Devoirs de Style_' of a former pupil sent

him for criticism. The shoemaker's address may have been jotted down by

accident, when he was running his eye down the page? If the further

notes signified by Mr. Spielmann on this page, where poor Charlotte's

heart's Secret lay exposed and quivering, had been '_Bon--mais un peu

trop d'exaltation--la Ponctuation n'est pas soignée_,' no one who knew

M. Heger would blame him for _voluntary_ unkindness. But upon this

matter no more must be said at present: we have to return to Charlotte,

and her Letters.

The second in the order in which I am studying them (that seems to me

unmistakably indicated by the context) would have been written--if we

take the year 1845 as the date--eight, instead of six, months after the

one, dated November, that refers to a preceding letter in the May of the

same year--when Charlotte would have accepted the obligation laid upon

her not to write again for six months. This Letter, dated 24th July,

indicates by the opening sentence, not that she is writing outside of

the appointed time, but _outside of her turn_: that is to say, it shows

that M. Heger had not answered her November Letter; that she had waited

for his reply, but could not wait longer, and so wrote a second letter,

before M. Heger's reply to the first. The custom shows us that poor

Charlotte is uneasily conscious that her former one in November may have

given offence. She apologises for it, as we shall see; and works hard to

write with cheerfulness in a more temperate tone:--

Ah, Monsieur! I know I once wrote you a letter that was not

a reasonable one, because my heart was choked with grief;

but I will not do it again! I will try not to be selfish;

although I cannot but feel your letters the greatest

happiness I know. I will wait patiently to receive one,

until it pleases you, and it is convenient to write one. At

the same time, I may write you a little letter from time to

time; you authorised me to do that.

The effort she is putting upon herself in this Letter is evident. She

has become reasonable; she does not reproach him for not writing, but

only asks him to remember how much she desires it. She tells him of her

plans, as she was recommended to do, instead of dwelling on her

feelings. She humours and flatters his vanity and taste by her

acknowledgment of all she owes him; and of her unfailing gratitude and

wish to dedicate a book to him--she even sends a message to Madame!--

_Please present to Madame the assurance of my esteem_. I

fear that Maria, Louise and Claire will have forgotten me.

Prospère and Victorine never knew me, but I remember all

five of them, and especially Louise. There was so much

character, so much naïveté expressed in her little face.

Farewell, Monsieur--Your grateful pupil,

C. Brontë.

_July_ 24.--I have not begged you to write to me soon,

because I am afraid of troubling you, but you are too kind

to forget how much I desire it. Yes! I do desire it so much.

But that is enough. After all, do as you like, Monsieur, for

if I received a letter from you and I thought you wrote it

out of pity, it would hurt me very much.... Oh I shall

certainly see you some day. It must come to pass. Because as

soon as I earn any money, I shall go to Bruxelles--and I

shall see you again, if only for a moment.

It is all of no avail! No answer does M. Heger vouchsafe. October comes

round, and she writes again. This time she imagines that she has found a

means of making her Letter reach its destination. In other words, she is

convinced, or tries to be convinced, that it is all Madame Heger's fault

again; she it is who will not allow her husband to receive Charlotte's

Letters.

_October_ 24.--Monsieur--I am quite joyous to-day. A thing

that has not often happened during the last two years.[7]

The reason is that a gentleman amongst my friends is

passing through Bruxelles, and he has offered to take charge

of a letter for you, and to give this same letter into your

hands; or else his sister will do this, so that I shall be

quite certain that you receive it.

Now comes the final blow to this faithful worshipper. Up to this hour,

she has hoped and waited, waited and hoped. But all this time there has

been the suspicion of Madame Heger--that has kept alive in her the

belief in M. Heger's friendship, who (perhaps?) writes, although his

letters never arrive: who (perhaps?) never receives her letters,

although whenever she dares, and even in defiance of the terms laid down

for her, she writes him letters where the vibration of her passionate

attachment is felt. Now, however, he _has_ received her letter placed in

his own hand. Had he written she would now have held in her turn the

talisman of the beloved handwriting her eyes were weary with waiting to

see again. But he remained obdurate and silent.

Mr. Taylor has returned (she writes): I asked him if he had

no letter for me. 'No: nothing.' Be patient, I told myself:

soon his sister will return. Miss Taylor came back: 'I have

nothing for you from Monsieur Heger,' she said; 'neither

letter, nor any message.'

Understanding only too well what this meant, I told myself

just what I should have told any one else in the same

circumstances: Resign yourself to what you cannot alter, and

before all things do not grieve for a misfortune that you

have not deserved. I would not allow myself to weep nor

complain. But when one refuses to oneself the right to tears

and lamentations in certain cases, one is a tyrant; and

natural faculties revolt; so that one buys outward calm at

the price of an inner conflict that cannot be subdued.

Neither by day, nor by night can I find rest nor peace: even

if I sleep, I have tormenting dreams, where I see you,

always severe, gloomy, angry with me. Forgive me, Monsieur,

if I am driven to take the course of writing to you once

more. How can I endure my life, if I am forbidden to make

any effort to alleviate my sufferings?

She continues in this piteous strain. She pleads with him not to reprove

her again as she has been reproved before, for exaggeration, morbidness,

sentimentality. She tells him all this may be true--she is not going to

defend herself--but the case is as she states it. She _cannot_ resign

herself to the loss of her master's friendship without one last effort

to preserve it.

I submit to all the reproaches you may make against me; if

my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall

remain without hope; if he keeps a little for me (never mind

though it be _very_ little) I shall have some motive for

living, for working.

Monsieur (she continues), the poor do not need much to keep

them alive; they ask only for the crumbs that fall from the

rich man's table, but if these crumbs are refused them,

_then_ they die of hunger! For me too, I make no claim

either to great affection from those I love; I should hardly

know how to understand an exclusive and perfect friendship,

I have so little experience of it! But once upon a time, at

Bruxelles, when I was your pupil, you _did_ show me a little

interest: and just this small amount of interest you gave me

then, I hold to and I care for and prize, as I hold to and

care for life itself....

... I will not re-read this letter, I must send it as it is

written. And yet I know, by some secret instinct, that

certain absolutely reasonable and cool-headed people reading

it through will say:--'She appears to have gone mad.' By

way of revenge on such judges, all I would wish them is that

they too might endure, _for one day only_, the sufferings I

have borne for eight months--then, one would see, if they

too did not 'appear to have gone mad.'

One endures in silence whilst one has his strength to do it.

But when this strength fails one, one speaks without

weighing one's words. I wish Monsieur all happiness and

prosperity.

Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, 8_th January_.

The Letter obtained no answer. And thus the end was reached. We now know

where in Charlotte Brontë's life lay her experiences that formed her

genius and made her the great Romantic--whose quality was that she saw

all events and personages through the medium of one passion--the passion

of a predestined tragical and unrequited love.

END OF PART I.

[1] I have to thank Mr. Clement Shorter, who has purchased the copyright

of Charlotte Brontë's manuscripts, for his generous permission to quote

from these letters freely for the purposes of my criticism.--(F.M.)

[2] _Childe Harold_, note 9 to canto iii.

[3] The author of _Childe Harold_ adds on this note as a comment upon

what he has said of 'Love' as the inspiration of the greatest of all

Romantics, J.-J. Rousseau:--

'His love was passion's essence--as a tree

On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame

Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be

Thus, and enamour'd, were in him the same.

But his was not the love of living dame,

Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,

But of Ideal beauty, which became

In him existence and o'erflowing teems

Along his burning page, distemper'd tho' it seems.

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this

Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;

This hallow'd too the memorable kiss

Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet,

From hers, who but with friendship his would meet:

But to that gentle touch, thro' brain and breast

Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat;

In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest

Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.'

[4] Rudyard Kipling.

[5] See Letter, 18 Nov. I am giving my own translation from the French

of Charlotte's Letters in these extracts, not certainly on account of

any dissatisfaction with Mr. Spielmann's English versions of them, but

in order to avoid the risk of any infringement of Mr. Spielmann's

copyright in his Introduction.

[6] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life, p._ 290.

[7] Charlotte had been a year and ten months in England in October 1845.

This phrase, however, proves that the Letter belongs to this year and

not to 1844, and consequently that the Letter that follows it, January

8, is 1846.

PART II

SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE

REAL MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER

THIS SECOND PART IS

DEDICATED TO

MY BROTHER

THE LATE ABBÉ AUSTIN RICHARDSON

WHO DIED SUDDENLY, 20TH AUG. 1913

Dearest, before you went away

And left me here behind you,

How often would you talk to me,

And I, too, would remind you

Of stories in this book retold,

That for us two could ne'er grow old;

Of scenes that we could live through yet,

Just you and I,--and not forget:

And now I feel, since you are gone,

I wrote this book for you alone.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE

FACT FROM FICTION

The purpose of the First Part of this study was to show that with the

knowledge of the Secret of Charlotte Brontë, brought to us by Dr. Paul

Heger's generous gift of these pathetic and beautiful Love-letters, the

'Problem of Charlotte Brontë,' as so many very clever but inattentive

psychological critics have stated it, has lost all claim to serious

attention.

The basis of the 'Problem' was the alleged 'dissonance' between

Charlotte's personality and her genius--between her dreary, desolate,

dull, well-tamed existence, uncoloured, untroubled by romance (as Mrs.

Gaskell painted it), and the passionate atmosphere of her novels, where

all events and personages are seen through the medium of one

sentiment--tragical romantic love.

We now know that the dissonance did not exist; that from her

twenty-sixth year downwards, Charlotte's life was, not only coloured,

but governed by a tragical romantic love: that, in its first stage,

threw her into a hopeless conflict against the force of things and broke

her heart: but that, because the battle was fought in the force, and in

the cause, of noble emotions, saved her soul alive; and called her

genius forth to life: so that it rose as an immortal spirit from the

grave of personal hopes.

Understanding this, we know that there is no 'Problem' of Charlotte

Brontë: but that her personality and her genius and her life and her

books were all those of a Romantic. But although there is no

psychological Problem, a difficulty that concerns the historical

criticism of Charlotte's life and her books does remain. And this

difficulty has to be faced and conquered, not by speculations nor

arguments, but by methods of enquiry.

When we study Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece _Villette_ in comparison

with what we now know about the romance in her own life, we recognise

two facts: the first is that, _in this work especially_, she has painted

with such power the emotions she has undergone that her words become

feelings that lift and ennoble the reader's sensibility: and thus serve

him--in the way that it belongs to Romantics to serve mankind.

But the second fact we discover is that,--again, _in this book

particularly_,--historical personages and real events are used as the

materials for an imaginary story, in a way that has produced critical

confusion: and what is graver still--has caused false and injurious

opinions to be formed about historical people. And the difficulty we

have to face is, not what amount of blame belongs to Charlotte for

misrepresenting historical facts, nor even need we ask ourselves what

reason she had for thus misrepresenting them. Because the reason becomes

plain when we take the trouble to realise that the motive the writer of

this work of genius had in view was one that concerned her own personal

liberation from haunting memories, rather than any motive concerning

the impressions she might produce.

There can be no doubt that Charlotte's motive in _Villette_, judged as a

method of personal salvation, was not only a permissible, but a noble

one. It is the one that Pater attributed to Michael Angelo: '_the effort

of a strong nature to attune itself to tranquillise vehement emotions by

withdrawing them into the region of ideal sentiments':--'an effort to

throw off the clutch of cruel and humiliating facts by translating them

into the imaginative realm, where the artist, the author, the dreamer

even, has things as he wills, because the hold of outward things_' (such

a stern and merciless one in the case of Charlotte Brontë!) '_is thrown

off at pleasure_.'

But, judged as a literary and historical method, was Charlotte Brontë's

manner of treating the real Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in

the Rue d'Isabelle a justifiable or fair one? Can she be held without

fault in this; that in Paul Emanuel and in Madame Beck she painted

Monsieur and Madame Heger in a way that rendered them visible to every

one who knew them; and then placed them in fictitious circumstances

that altered the character of their actions and feelings, in such a way

as to misrepresent their true behaviour? It seems to me that we must

admit that the authoress of the _Professor_ and of _Villette_ adopted an

unjust literary and historical method in so far as these real people are

concerned: and that in the case of Madame Heger especially, passion and

prejudice betrayed her: and rendered her guilty of a fault that must be

recognised as a very grave one. But when this fault has been recognised

and admitted, it seems to me a conscientious critic's duty does not

compel him to scold this woman of genius for having the passions of her

kind. A great Romantic is not an angel: and in this case the main facts

about Charlotte are not her shortcomings as a celestial being, but her

transcendent merits as an interpreter of the human heart. For my own

part, I confess that after reading Charlotte's Love-letters, I am in no

mood to look for faults in her, nor even to lend much attention to some

faults that, without looking for them, one is bound to recognise. For

what a thankless and unseemly, as well as what an unprofitable, sort of

criticism is that represented in ancient days by the youngest amongst

Job's Friends, who had such a delightfully expressive name, Elihu, the

son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram! Elihu's criticism of

Job (the man of genius, plunged into dire misfortune, not by any fault

or folly of his own, but by the will of the Higher Powers, who desired

to prove his virtue and to call forth his genius), is exactly the same

method of criticising men and women of genius in the same case as Job,

practised by Elihu's intellectual descendents, Buzites of the kindred of

Ram, in all countries and in every age, down to England in the twentieth

century. The fundamental doctrine of this critical method was, and is,

that '_great men are not always wise_,' and that it is the vocation of

smaller men to teach them wisdom, without 'respecting their persons or

giving them flattering titles' (truly, as a matter of fact, by calling

them names--knaves, hypocrites, sentimental cads, blackguards, etc.). In

other words, the rule with these Buzites is that the main purpose of

criticising great people is _to find fault with them_; to surprise them

in their 'unwise' moments, to concentrate attention upon the faults they

may, or may not, have committed in these moments; and to build upon

these occasional real, or imaginary, faults, psychological and

pathological theories about the madness, wickedness, or folly of people

capable of them. And to conclude that there is 'very much to reprobate

and a great deal to laugh at' in these men and women of genius--and that

the fact that they had genius, and that as witnesses to the 'instinct of

immortality in mortal creatures' they have served and honoured mankind,

and also have bequeathed to us treasures of ideal beauty, is a mere

accident, and may be left unnoticed.

But let not _my_ portion ever be with these fault-finders, who '_darken

counsel by words without knowledge_,' as the original Elihu was told,

'out of the Whirlwind,' by the Supreme Critic; 'in whose stead' the son

of Barachel had arrogated to himself the right to scold and scoff at

Job; and to tell him that his misfortunes were all the result of his

bad character and of his uncontrolled emotions. I refuse, then, to

recognise as a question of vital importance Charlotte's forgetfulness of

historical exactitude in _Villette_; and I do not myself understand how

any one (except a Buzite) who has read these Letters given to us by Dr.

Paul Heger, and especially the last one, that received no answer, can

help feeling that the suffering the writer of the Letters must have

undergone, in the unbroken silent solitude that followed her unanswered

appeal, must have made the hold upon her memory of 'outward things' so

hard to bear, that to break that hold, to live in the realm of

imagination free from it, _having things as she would_, justified almost

any method of self-liberation.

Still the fact of the critical confusion of the personages in the novel

with the historical Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue

d'Isabelle does create difficulties in the way of forming right

opinions. And to remove them, we have to follow the plan already

recommended,--to make sure of our facts, before calling in the aid of

psychological arguments. And in this case, to see the position clearly,

we must disentangle from the imaginary story in _Villette_ the real

personages and events woven into the fabric of a parable where, as I

have said, they appear amongst fictitious circumstances and produce

consequently false impressions. In other words, we have to recover a

clear knowledge of the true Monsieur Heger before we can determine where

'Paul Emanuel' resembles, and where he differs from, the Professor,

_whom Charlotte loved: but who never showed any particle of love for

Charlotte, such as Paul Emanuel bestowed on Lucy Snowe_. And then we

have to re-establish in her true place, as Monsieur Heger's wife and the

mother of his five children, the true Directress of the Pensionnat in

the Rue d'Isabelle--who must be contrasted, rather than compared, with

the crafty, jealous and pitiless Madame Beck of the novel, selfishly and

cruelly interfering with the true course of an entirely legitimate and

romantic attachment between her English teacher and her cousin, the

Professor of literature. And the relative positions of these two

Directresses clearly seen, we have to ask ourselves, Whether the real

Madame Heger is proved to have had the base and detestable character of

the hateful Madame Beck? and whether she really _was_, in any voluntary

or even involuntary, way, the direct cause of poor Charlotte's anguish,

suspense and final heart-break? And whether, given the positions and the

different views of life and sense of duty of the different people whose

destinies become entangled in this tragical romance, we can find fault

with any person concerned in these events,--unless, indeed, we follow

Greek methods, and drag in the Eumenides? Or, else, suppose it a

parallel case with Job's: and decide that it was the will of the Higher

Powers to prove Charlotte's virtue and to call forth her genius? But in

so far as mere mortals are concerned, we have to see whether anything

else could have happened, and whether poor Charlotte was not bound to

break her heart?

So that the purpose of the Second Part of this study of the 'Secret of

Charlotte Brontë' really lies outside of the 'Secret' itself, and

becomes an effort to know 'as in themselves they really were,' and

independently of their relationships with Charlotte, the Professor whom

she loved (probably much more than he deserved), and the Directress of

the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle--whom she certainly hated, without

any reasonable cause for this hatred, although this hatred had a natural

cause--that if only we will use psychology for the purpose of

penetrating facts, and not for playing with such fictions as that _it

was 'no serious grief to Charlotte that Monsieur Heger was married'_ we

may easily discover. After all, one must not ask for entire

'reasonableness' from Romantics, who see personages and events through

the medium of one great Passion. And one must not demand from them

absolute impartiality, when judging the impediment that divides them

from the object of this passion.

We are not judges then in this case, but enquirers into the facts of the

personality and true characters of the Director and Directress of the

Bruxelles school and of their environment, as the influences that so

largely created the Romantic atmosphere where Charlotte's genius lived

and moved and had its being. And, by the special circumstances of my own

life, I am able to assist in a way that is not (so I am tempted to

believe) possible to any other living critic. The difficulty that stands

in the way of most modern investigators is that long ago the historical

people with their environment 'have become ghostly.' Long ago, for most

readers of _Villette_, the once famous Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles in

the Rue d'Isabelle, with its memory-haunted class-rooms, with its

high-walled garden in the heart of a city whose voices reached one, as

from a world far away, and 'down whose peaceful alleys it was pleasant

to stray and hear the bells of St Jean Baptiste peal out with their

sweet, soft, exalted sound,' have vanished out of life. _Yes--but out of

my life they have not vanished!_ For me--the historical Monsieur and

Madame Heger exist quite independently of all associations with the

imaginary personages Paul Emanuel and Madame Beck. For me--the old

school, the class-rooms, the walled garden, with its ancient pear-trees

that still 'faithfully renewed their perfumed snow in spring and

honey-sweet pendants in autumn,' remain--as they were planted vivid

images and visions in my memory half a century ago, when, as a

schoolgirl, I knew nothing about Charlotte Brontë nor _Villette_: but

when I sat, twenty years after Charlotte, in the class-rooms where she

had waited for M. Heger, on the eve of her departure from Bruxelles,

myself an attentive pupil of her Professor, and a witness, half

terrified, and half exasperated, of his varying moods. And when, too, I

saw, rather than heard, Madame Heger, moving noiselessly, where M.

Heger's movements were always attended with shock and excitement; only

to me, Madame Heger appeared always a friendly rather than an adverse

presence--an abiding influence of serenity that reassured one, after

sudden recurrent gusts of nerve-disturbing storms.

And I would point out that the value of my testimony about the personal

impressions I derived, quite independently of any knowledge of Charlotte

Brontë's residence in what was for me _my_ school, and of her

enthusiasm for _my_ Professor, or her dislike of _my_ schoolmistress, is

enhanced both by the resemblances and by the differences of our several

points of view. Thus--like Charlotte--I was an English pupil and a

Protestant in this Belgian and Catholic school. Like her--my vocation

was to be that of a woman of letters. And although, when she was brought

under M. Heger's influence, she was a woman of genius, already well

acquainted with good literature, and not without experience as a writer,

whereas I was only an unformed girl, with very little reading and no

culture: and merely by force of an inborn desire to follow a certain

purpose in life that filled me with happiness, even in anticipation,

justified in supposing that I had a literary vocation at all, and

although no doubt I have not turned my advantages to account as

Charlotte did, yet I myself owe to M. Heger, not only admirable rules

for criticism and practice, that have always claimed and still claim my

absolute belief, but also I owe to him, as she did, a full enjoyment of

beautiful thoughts, beautifully expressed, and of treasures of the mind

and of the imagination, that, lying outside of the recognised paths of

English study, I might never have found, nor even have recognised as

treasures, had I not been cured of insularity of taste by M. Heger.

So that upon this point I am able to say of M. Heger what Charlotte

said: he was the only master in literature I ever had; and up to the

present hour I esteem him, in this domain of literary composition, the

only master whose rules I trust.

But if my judgment of M. Heger, as a Professor, coincides with

Charlotte's, my judgment of him, outside of this capacity, does not show

him to me at all as the model of the man from whom she painted Paul

Emanuel. In other words, I never found nor saw in the real Monsieur

Heger the lovableness under the outward harshness,--the depths of

tenderness under the very apparent severity and irritability,--the

concealed consideration for the feelings of others, under the outer

indifference to the feelings of any one who ruffled his temper; nor yet

did I ever discover meekness and modesty in him, under the dogmatic and

imperious manner that swept aside all opposition. In fact, I never found

out that M. Heger wore a mask. But, irritable, imperious, harsh, not

_unkind_, but certainly the reverse of tender, and without any

consideration for any one's feelings, or any respect for any one's

opinions, thus, _just as he seemed to be, so in reality, in my opinion,

M. Heger actually was_. And what one must remember is that Charlotte's

point of view, from which she formed the opinion that M. Heger _was_

tender-hearted, and modest and meek, was the point of view of a woman in

love; and this standpoint is not one that ensures impartiality.

My own point of view, between 1859 and 1861, was that of an English

schoolgirl, under sixteen, of a Belgian schoolmaster, over fifty, who in

his capacity of a literary Professor, was almost a deity to her; but

who, outside of this capacity, was not a lovable, but a formidable man:

a 'Terror,' in the sense children and nursery-maids give the term; that

is to say, some one who is sure to appear upon the scene when one is

least prepared to face him, and who is constantly finding fault with

one. Now a 'Terror,' in this popular sense of the term, although he is

not a lovable, is not necessarily a hateful personage. There may belong

to him an interest of excitement, and even a secret admiration for his

cleverness in fulfilling his role of taking one unawares and finding

something in one to quarrel about. And most certainly this interest of

excitement, and even of a sense of amusement, entered into my sentiment

for M. Heger, whom I recognised as a double-being, an admirable literary

Professor, but an alarming and irritating personality. But although I

never hated him, I yet had some special grievances against this

'Terror,' not only because he had a trick of surprising me in weak

moments, and of finding out my worst sides, but also because he was

really, in my own particular case, unjust; and full of prejudice and

impatience against my nationality, and personal idiosyncrasies that were

not faults; and that I couldn't help. Thus he stirred up in me

rebellious protests, that could not be uttered; because how was an

English schoolgirl of fifteen to protest against the injustice of a

Belgian 'Master,' in his own country, and his own school: who was a man

past fifty, too; and what was more, in his capacity of literary

Professor, if not quite a deity, at least, in my own opinion, the keeper

of the keys of palaces where dwelt the Immortals?

And that my opinion of M. Heger's personality, as that of a 'Terror' (in

the childish and popular sense) did really show me the man apart from

the Professor very much as he really was, is confirmed by the first

impression he made upon Charlotte herself before the glamour of romantic

love had interfered with her critical perspicacity. Here is the original

description of M. Heger, in the early days of her residence in

Bruxelles:

'There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken,' she wrote to

Ellen Nussey, 'M. Heger, the husband of Madame. He is Professor of

rhetoric: a man of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in

temperament, a little black being, with a face that varies in

expression. Sometimes he borrows the lineaments of a tom-cat: sometimes

those of a delirious hyena: occasionally, but very seldom, he discards

these perilous attractions and assumes an air not above one hundred

degrees removed from mild and gentleman-like. He is very angry with me

just now, because I have written a translation which he stigmatises as

_peu correct_. He did not tell me so, but wrote the word on the margin

of my book and asked me, in very stern _phrase_, how it happened that my

compositions were always better than my translations, adding that the

thing seemed to him inexplicable. The fact is that three weeks ago in a

high-flown humour he forbade me to use either dictionary or grammar when

translating the most difficult English composition into French. This

makes the task rather arduous, and compels me every now and then to

introduce an English word, which nearly plucks the eyes out of his head

when he sees it. Emily and he don't draw well together at all.'

I am quoting this view of M. Heger's personality, taken by Charlotte

Brontë before she became a partial witness, because, by and by, when I

am giving my own reminiscences, it will be found that in 1842 M. Heger

was very much the same Professor whom I knew in 1861.

And Madame Heger? Here too my impressions are obtained from a point of

view unquestionably more impartial than Charlotte Brontë's. And it will

be found that, when the alteration of clear power of vision that

personal prejudices make has been realised, my opposite judgment of the

Directress of the Pensionnat to the judgment of the authoress of

_Villette_, is not the result of any difference in the _facts_ of Madame

Heger's characteristics and behaviour, but in the difference between the

standpoints from which we severally judge them.

Charlotte's standpoint was the one of the devotee, of the great spirit

who is neither a god nor a mortal, but the 'Child of plenty and poverty,

who is often houseless and homeless'--and who cannot well see 'as in

herself she really is,' the Mistress of the house; who prudently, _not

necessarily with cruelty_, closes the doors of her home against

intruders--that standpoint also is not one conducive to impartial

judgments.

My own point of view was that of a girl on the threshold of womanhood,

who saw in Madame Heger an embodiment of two qualities especially, that,

perhaps because I did not possess them and could never possess them

(passionate as I was by nature and with strong personal likings and

dislikings), inspired me with a sentiment of reverence and wonder, as

for a remote perfection, that, though unattainable, it did one good to

know existed somewhere; just as it does one good, with feet planted on

the earth, to see the stars. The qualities I saw in Madame Heger were

serene sweetness, a kindness without preferences, covering her little

world of pupils and teachers with a watchful care. _Tranquillité,

Douceur, Bonté:_ the French words express better than English ones the

commingled qualities I felt existed in Madame Heger as she moved

noiselessly (as Charlotte Brontë has described), whilst the more

brilliant and gifted Professor's movements were always stormy.

When relating these reminiscences of Monsieur and Madame Heger and of

the old school and garden, as I myself treasure them, and quite

independently of their associations with Charlotte Brontë, I shall not

be losing sight of the purpose that justifies this record (as an

endeavour to disentangle fact from fiction) if, in so far as the facts

that concern my own experiences are concerned, I ask now to be allowed

to relate them in a different tone--that is to say, not any longer in

the tone of a literary critic, nor as one supporting any thesis or

argument, but simply as a story-teller 'who has been young and now is

old.' And who, before the darkening day has turned to night, calls to

remembrance scenes and personages long since vanished out of the world,

but still alive for me, bathed in the light that shines upon the

undimmed visions of my youth--although to almost every one else now

alive these scenes have become 'as it were a tale that is told.'

CHAPTER II

MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE

BRONTË'S PROFESSOR[1]

'Madame,--quelquefois, donner, c'est semer'--_Speech

made to my Mother by M. Heger_.

In 1859 this memorable thing happened:--I was introduced by my mother to

M. Heger as his future pupil. I was fourteen years of age: but I

remember everything in connection with this event as though it had

happened yesterday. We were staying at Ostend, where my mother had taken

my brother and myself for a long summer holiday, because she believed we

had been previously overworked at our former schools, from which she had

removed us. She was convinced that we both of us stood in need of

sea-air, exercise and healthy recreation, before we could take up our

studies again, after the strain we had undergone. Upon this point my

brother and I were entirely of one mind with our mother.

But after a holiday of three months, we had also begun to feel, with

her, that this state of things could not go on for ever, and that--as

she expressed it--'something had to be done with us.' What was done with

us was the result of circumstances that I cannot but regard as

fortunate, in my own case at any rate. They brought into my life, at a

very impressionable age, influences and memories that have always been,

and that are still, after more than half a century, extraordinarily

serviceable and sweet to me.

The first of these fortunate circumstances was the renewal (due to an

accidental meeting at Ostend) of my mother's friendship with a relative

whom she had lost sight of for a great many years; who had married a

Dutch lady and settled in Holland. The eldest daughter of these

re-discovered cousins was an exceptionally charming girl of nineteen;

and upon enquiry my mother found out that she had been educated at a

school in Brussels, _situated in the Rue d'Isabelle, and kept by a

certain Madame Heger_. How it came to pass that, only four years after

the publication of _Villette_, and two years after Mrs. Gaskell's _Life

of Charlotte Brontë_, it did not occur to my mother to identify this

particular Brussels school with the one where the Director was the fiery

and perilously attractive 'Professor Paul Emanuel' and where the

Directress was painted as the crafty and treacherous 'Madame Beck,' I

really cannot say; but, so it was. There can be no doubt that it was

solely because the account rendered by her delightful young kinswoman of

the school where she had spent three years was thoroughly satisfactory

to my mother, and because the unaffected and accomplished girl herself

was an excellent proof of the happy results of the education she had

received, that my mother made up her mind that the best thing that could

be 'done with me,' was to send me to Madame Heger's school. She had

entered into correspondence with this lady, and the plan had developed

into a further arrangement, that my brother was to be placed with a

French tutor recommended by Madame Heger, and who was the Professor of

History at her establishment. All these conditions were very nearly

settled, when M. Heger came to visit my mother at Ostend; to talk

matters over and to make final arrangements.

Of course from the point of view of my own humble interest I recognised

that the visit of this Brussels Professor was an event of great

importance. I was fully conscious of this, because my cousin had told me

a great deal about M. Heger, explaining that _he_ was the ruling spirit

in the Pensionnat; that he was rather a terrible personage; and that _if

he took a dislike to one,--well, he could be very disagreeable_. I had

received so much advice upon this particular subject from my cousin that

I had talked the matter over very seriously with my brother afterwards,

and asked him what he thought I ought to do in order to avoid the

misfortune of offending M. Heger. My brother's advice was

sound:--'Don't let the man see you are afraid of him,' he said, 'and

then, whatever you do, don't show off.'

Keeping these counsels in mind, after M. Heger's arrival, I sat upon the

extreme edge of the rickety sofa that filled the darkest corner in the

little salle-à-manger of our Ostend apartments over the Patissier's shop

in the Rue de la Chapelle--I remember the very name of the Patissier; it

was Dubois--watching and listening eagerly to the conversation of the

Professor with my mother, who, strange to say, did not seem to be in the

least afraid of him; nor to recognise that he was in any way different

to ordinary mortals! And I must say, looking back to that September

afternoon to-day, and realising our attitude of mind, my mother's and

mine, towards this interesting personage to us, but interesting solely

in his character of _my_ future teacher, there does seem to me something

amazing--so amazing as to be almost amusing--in our total

unconsciousness of his already well-established real, or rather ideal

claims as a personage immortalised in English literature, by an

illustrious writer who, four years before my birth, had been his pupil;

and whose romantic love for him, whilst it had broken her heart, had

served as the inspiration of her genius; so that her literary

masterpiece was precisely a book where the very school I was going to

inhabit was painted, with extraordinary veracity, in so far as outward

and local points of resemblance were concerned.

As for my own ignorance of all these circumstances there is nothing

strange in that. Fifty-four years ago a schoolgirl of my age was not

very likely to have read _Villette_. But what one may pause to inquire

is whether if by any accident the book _had_ come into my hands, and

thus revealed to me my true position, should I have gone down on

my bended knees to my mother, or to express the case more exactly,

should I have flung my arms round her dear neck, and prayed, '_Don't

send me to this school; I am afraid of Professor Paul Emanuel; I

loathe Madame Beck; I shall never make friends with these horrid

Lesbassecouriennes?_' Well, really, I don't think I should have done

anything of the sort! At fourteen one adores an adventure. It seems to

me probable that the excitement of going to the same school, and

learning my lessons in the same class-rooms, and treading the paths of

the same garden, and being instructed by the same teachers as a writer

of genius, who had left these scenes haunted by romance, would have made

me hold under all apprehensions of the Lesbassecouriennes as

school-fellows, of the perfidious Directress with her stealthy methods

of espionage, of the explosive, nerve-wrecking Professor, always

breaking in upon one like a clap of thunder. Yes; but though held under,

the apprehension would have troubled my inner soul a good deal all the

same; and this would have been a pity. Because, in so far as the real

Directress and real Belgian schoolgirls whom I was going to know in the

Rue d'Isabelle went, these apprehensions would have been superfluous and

misleading.

But now if there were no danger of my finding in the real Pensionnat any

spiritual counterparts of either the fictitious Madame Beck, or of the

perverted Lesbassecouriennes pupils, was it equally certain that, if I

had read _Villette_, I should not have recognised and been justified in

recognising in Monsieur Heger the original model and living image of

that immortal figure in English fiction, '_the magnificent-minded,

grand-hearted, dear, faulty little man_'--Professor Paul Emanuel?

We shall perhaps be able to decide this question better at the end of

these reminiscences than here. But what must be realised is, that the

very fact that lends some general interest to my mother's first

impressions and my own about M. Heger is chiefly this: that it expresses

observations made from a purely personal standpoint; out of sight of any

literary views about 'Paul Emanuel,' or historical judgments upon his

relations with Charlotte Brontë. The perfectly simple purpose we had in

view was to see clearly what sort of a Professor M. Heger was going to

prove, and whether I was going to do well as his pupil, and get on

satisfactorily, amongst these foreign surroundings.

My mother formed a most favourable opinion of our visitor, and decided

that I was fortunate in obtaining such a Professor. What had especially

impressed her was a sentence delivered by M. Heger, with a masterly

little gesture, that, as she herself said, entirely won her over to his

opinions upon a question where elaborate arguments might have left her

unconvinced. And I may observe here, that this belonged to M. Heger's

methods, not so much of arguing, as of dispensing with arguments. His

mind was made up upon most subjects, and as he had got into the habit of

regarding the world as his class-room, and his fellow-creatures as

pupils, he did not argue; he told people what they ought to think about

things. And in order to make this method of settling questions not only

convincing, but stimulating, to his most intelligent pupils, he held in

reserve a store of these really luminous phrases, that he would use as

little Lanterns, flashing them, now in this direction, now in that, but

always with a special and appropriate direction given to the

illuminative phrase, so that it lit up the point of view upon which he

desired to fix attention. The particular sentence that conquered my

mother's admiration and acquiescence in M. Heger's point of view was the

one I have made the heading of this chapter. Here was how he contrived

to introduce it. After discussing the plan of _my_ studies, and the

arrangements for my being taken to the English church by my brother

every Sunday, and allowed to take walks with him upon half-holidays (to

all of which of course I listened with passionate attention), they

passed on to discuss the terms asked by the tutor whom the Hegers had

recommended. My mother had been told by her Dutch cousin that they were

exorbitant terms; and, as a matter of fact, I believe they were exactly

twice the amount charged by the Hegers themselves: '_I am not a rich

woman_,' my mother had said, apologetically, '_and I have put aside a

fixed sum for my children's education; I doubt if I can give this_.' ...

Then did the Professor see, and seize, his opportunity: '_Madame,'_ he

said, with a gesture, '_quelquefois, donner, c'est semer_.' My mother,

dazzled with this prophetic utterance, remained speechless and

vanquished. In the evening of the same day I heard her quote to the

Dutch cousin, who did not approve of her consent to these charges,

'_what that clever man, Professor Heger) said so well_,' as though it

had been unanswerable. In the course of the next two years I often heard

the same luminous phrase used, with equal appropriateness, to light up

other propositions. (I have heard M. Heger use it in a sense where it

became a different formula for expressing a fundamental doctrine of

Rousseau, thus, '_Instruire, ce n'est pas donner, c'est semer_,' but I

never heard the words without going back to the first impression, and to

the vision it called up. I would see again the little _salle-à-manger_

in the Rue de la Chapelle at Ostend, I would watch the masterly gesture

of the Professor's hand when he delivered his triumphant sentence, that

is not an argument, but is worth more; I would see the look of

admiration and sudden conviction come into my dear mother's face; I

would feel myself sitting upon the little rickety sofa in the dark

corner, _and I would shudder with the foreknowledge of what was coming_,

for, woebetide me that I should have to tell it, this first interview

_did not leave with me the same impression of confidence in M. Heger as

my future teacher and guardian that it did with my mother;_ it left with

me, on the contrary, the miserable conviction that the very worst thing

that could have happened had happened; that M. Heger had taken a

vehement dislike to me, and consequently that all hope of happiness for

me in the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle was over and done with.

And the worst of it was, that it was all my own fault; or rather, to be

just, it was my misfortune.

For I had had a really very bad time of it, sitting on that rickety

little sofa. My mother, who had only too flattering an opinion of me in

every way, had meant to say the kindest things about me to M. Heger, and

I knew this perfectly. But unfortunately, although she spoke French with

the greatest fluency and self-confidence (because as she was a very

charming woman, and as Frenchmen are always polite in their criticism of

the French of charming English women, she had been very often

complimented upon her command of the language),--unfortunately, I say,

her French was really English, literally translated; and every one who

has experience of what false meanings can be conveyed by this sort of

French will realise what I had suffered, because, though I only spoke

French badly at this time, I understood the language better than my

mother. And this is how I had heard myself described to my future

Professor. My mother had _wished_ to say that I was more fond of study

and of reading than was good for the health of a girl of my age; but

what she _actually_ said was that I was fond of reading things that were

not healthy or suitable (_convenable_) for a young girl. Again, she had

_meant_ to say that as I had worked too hard, she had let me run wild a

little; and that consequently I might find it difficult to get into

working habits again; but that as I had a capital head of my own, and

plenty of courage, I should, no doubt, soon get into good ways again.

But instead of all these flattering things (that might have been rather

irritating too, only a Professor of experience knows how to forgive a

parent's partiality), I had heard this fond mother of mine say that her

daughter had recently contracted the habits of a little savage; and that

it would require courageous discipline, as she was very headstrong, to

bring her into the right way again. It will be understood that to sit

and listen to all this about oneself was anguish. But, carefully

watching M. Heger's face, I had a notion that he had found out there was

some mistake. Still I was depressed and bewildered; and in dread of what

I was going to say, when the time came, as I knew it must, when he would

say something to me, and I should have a chance of answering for myself.

And the misfortune was, that _when_ the critical moment came, I wasn't

expecting it; because, here, at least, what the author of _Villette_

says of Professor Paul Emanuel was true of M. Heger--everything he did

was sudden; and he always contrived to take one by surprise.

It was immediately after he had won his triumph over my mother, and in

the moment when I myself was under the spell of admiration for his

talent, that he turned upon me, in a sort of flash, smiling down upon me

(very red and startled to find him so near), and nodding his head with

an irritating look of amusement as his penetrating eyes searched my

doleful face. '_Aa-ah_,' he said, in a half-playful, but as it sounded

to me, more mocking, than kindly tone, '_Aa-ah_' (another nod of the

head), 'so this is the little Savage I have to discipline and vanquish,

is it? And she is headstrong (_têtue_). Tell me, Mees, am I to be too

indulgent? or too severe? (_Dois-je être trop indulgent? ou trop

sévère?_') Now, if only I had made the natural reply, the one obviously

expected from me--the one any girl in my position would have made, and

which I myself should have made if I hadn't been addressed as 'a little

savage,' and if I hadn't been smarting under the sense that he must have

the worst possible opinion of me, and that I ought to vindicate my

honour in some way,--if only, in short, I had remembered my brother's

wholesome advice, '_Don't show off_,' that is to say, if only I had

said, amiably and nicely, with a timid little smile, '_Trop indulgent,

s'il vous plait, Monsieur_,' THEN all would have been well with me; M.

Heger would have continued to smile; we should have exchanged amiable

glances and parted the best of friends.... But of what use are these

speculations? What I _did_ reply to his question of whether he was to be

too indulgent or too severe was--'_Ni l'un ni l'autre, Monsieur; soyez

juste, celà suffit_' ... and I listened to the broadness of my own

British accent, whilst I said it, in despairing wonder! M. Heger's

smiles vanished; there came what I took to be a 'look of undying hatred'

into his face--it was not perhaps so bad as all that, but ... well, I

certainly hadn't conquered his favour. He said something disagreeable

about Les Anglaises being over wise, too philosophical for him, which my

mother thought was a compliment to my cleverness. But I knew what I had

done, and that it could never be undone, henceforth ...

Well, but the case really was not quite so desperate perhaps?

[1] This chapter is reproduced from the _Cornhill_ by the kind

permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co.

CHAPTER III

MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW

THEM; AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I

KNEW THEM

Let me give here my mother's, and my own, account of the impressions

made upon us by M. Heger's personal appearance at this time.

'He is very like one of those selected Roman Catholic Priests,' my

mother told her Dutch relatives, 'who go into society and look after the

eldest sons of Catholic noblemen. He has too good a nose for a Belgian

and, I should say, he has Italian blood in him.'

My own report, to my brother, who made anxious inquiries of me, was less

flattering perhaps, but it was not intended to be disrespectful. I

always see M. Heger as I saw him then: as too interesting to be

alarming; but too alarming to be lovable.

'He is rather like Punch,' I said, 'but better looking of course; and

not so good-tempered.'

Let me justify these two descriptions by showing that both of them were

based upon an accurate observation of the man himself.

M. Heger, as I remember him, was no longer what Charlotte called him,

angrily, in her letter to Ellen Nussey, a _little Black Being_, and,

affectionately, under the disguise of Paul Emanuel, '_a spare, alert

man, showing the velvet blackness of a close-shorn head, and the sallow

ivory of his brow beneath_.' M. Heger in 1859 was still alert, but he

was not spare, he was inclining towards stoutness. His hair was not

velvet black, but grizzled, and he was bald on the crown of his head, in

a way that might have been mistaken for a tonsure; and this no doubt

added to the resemblance my mother saw in him to a Priest. He did not

look in the least old, however. His brow, not sallow but bronzed, was

unwrinkled; his eyes were still clear and penetrating (Charlotte said

they were violet blue; and certainly she ought to have known. Still, _do

violet eyes penetrate one's soul like points of steel?_) The Roman

nose, that my mother thought too good a nose to be Belgian, and that

reminded me of Punch (but a good-looking Punch) was a commanding

feature. And the curved chin (also suggesting a good-looking Punch, to a

young and irreverent observer), although it indicated humour, meant

sarcasm, rather than a sense of fun. But Monsieur Heger had one really

beautiful feature, that I remember often watching with extreme pleasure

when he recited fine poetry or read noble prose:--his mouth, when

uttering words that moved him, had a delightful smile, not in the least

tender towards ordinary mortals, but almost tender in its homage to the

excellence of writers of genius.