BRANWELL BRONTE AND 'THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.'
Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in
consequence of her Brother's Conduct--Supposition of Some that
Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon--The Characters are
Entirely Distinct--Real Sources of the Story--Anne Bronte at
Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of
Branwell.
Charlotte Bronte, who never dreamed of attributing the production
of so dire a story as 'Wuthering Heights,' by her sister Emily,
o brooding on Branwell's misfortunes, has, however, in her
remarks on Anne Bronte's second novel, 'The Tenant of Wildfell
Hall,'--meant by its author as a tale of warning against the evils of
intemperance,--intimated that it was carried out as a duty by Anne, in
consequence of the impression made upon her by her brother's conduct;
and certain writers, questioning the statement of Charlotte that the
characters are fictitious, have concluded that, in Arthur Huntingdon,
we have 'a picture' and a 'portrait' of Branwell Bronte. It seems to
me, rightly considered, a cruel thing to Anne Bronte to believe that
she has given us a portrait of her brother in the character of the
perfidious Huntingdon. Had her brother been thus vile, she could not
have borne to write over the details of his character; were he not
like Huntingdon, she could not have libelled him so.
As none of the biographers of the Bronte sisters ever knew Branwell,
it is probable that the Branwell Bronte of the biographies owes more
to the supposed Branwell of the novels, than the characters in the
novels do to the brother of the Brontes. It is Huntingdon's wit,
superficial as it is, that has connected him with the ideal of
Branwell Bronte. A few traits of his, indeed, there may be in
Huntingdon, but they are not the worst of those depicted in that
character. The contempt for gambling which Huntingdon expresses may
be taken as an instance.
We shall, however, look in vain for any true resemblance between the
characters of Arthur Huntingdon and Branwell Bronte, and, certainly,
in almost every respect, one is a direct contrast to the other. The
biographer of Emily Bronte says, indeed, that Branwell 'sat to Anne
sorrily enough for the portrait of Henry (_sic_) Huntingdon;' but I
would ask where that portraiture lies? Huntingdon, be it marked, is
not only a drunkard, but he is a libertine, a man who has even the
callous brutality to recount to his trusting wife, as she sits by him
on the sofa, endeavouring to amuse him, the 'stories of his former
amours, always turning upon the ruin of some confiding girl, or the
cozening of some unsuspecting husband; and when I express my horror
and indignation,' she says, 'he lays it to the charge of jealousy, and
laughs till the tears run down his cheeks.' But it was different with
Branwell, against whom it has never been charged that he sank to these
low depths of criminal debauchery, indulgence, and treachery; and even
those who have recounted the story of his passion for the wife of his
employer, are compelled to say that he remained pure, and shrank in
horror from the advances which they suppose she made. Huntingdon's
vicious disposition, too, is so sunk in selfishness, and there is in
him such a cold brutality,--as where on many an occasion he triumphs
over his powerless wife,--that he is placed in absolute contrast to
Branwell, with his confiding, considerate, open-hearted, and generous
nature.
It is but necessary to allude to Huntingdon's hypocrisy to establish
a further difference between his character and Branwell's; and it
is, moreover, very distinctive of Huntingdon's mind that he is,
throughout, utterly irreverent and irreligious, to such an extent that
he jests at sacred things, and declares that his wife's piety is
enough to make him jealous of his Maker. Again he says, when he places
her hand on the top of his head, and it sinks in a bed of curls,
'rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle;' 'if God meant me to
be religious, why didn't He give me a proper organ of veneration?'
This irreverence he carries with him into domestic life, and he
invades the sanctity of human affection, and the places the heart
keeps holy, with his gross and insensate brutality. How different is
this from Branwell Bronte, in whose character reverence and affection,
above all things, were strong! Can we imagine Huntingdon dwelling so
fondly in the affection of the long departed, as Branwell does in his
poems of 'Caroline;' can we imagine him venerating as a precious
possession to his dying day the sacred memories of his early years, as
his supposed prototype did? What 'swell of thought,' seeming to fill
'the bursting heart, the gushing eye' with the memories of bygone
years, could flood the shallow brain of the selfish and unfeeling
Huntingdon? And Huntingdon, too, is afflicted with that well-known
complaint of the continual drinker; he loses all interest in the
affairs of life, and exists in perpetual levity. 'There is always a
"but" in this imperfect world,' says his wife, 'and I do wish he would
sometimes be serious. I cannot get him to write or speak in real,
solid earnest. I don't much mind it now, but if it be always so what
shall I do with the serious part of myself?' I would ask when Branwell
Bronte displayed this unseemly levity? if he did not always write and
speak in solid earnest; if, indeed, he did not live in the very midst
of that storm and stress of acute feeling which Huntingdon's wretched
nature was incapable of experiencing at all?
Lastly, Helen Huntingdon tells us that her husband is impenetrable to
good and lofty thoughts, that he never reads anything but newspapers
and sporting magazines, that she wishes he would take up some literary
study, or learn to draw or play; and that, when deprived of his
friends, his condition is comfortless, unalleviated as it is by the
consolations of intellectual resources, and the answer of a good
conscience towards God. What, then, were Branwell's mental resources?
His thoughts, on the contrary, were good and lofty enough; he was a
student of literature, and especially a reader of the great poets; he
had, indeed, taken up literary work; and he could and did both draw,
and play on the organ; and when he was deprived of society, or cast
into trouble, he found his consolation in his literary labours, and we
have seen that, for the very purpose of obtaining alleviation in
distress, he had written a volume of his novel. In short, he was, as
far as his intellectual character and habits were concerned, exactly
what Helen Huntingdon wished her husband might be.
If, then, there is no resemblance between Branwell Bronte's
disposition, character, and capabilities and those of Huntingdon in
the novel, we might, after what has been said, surely expect to find
that, in the unique point in which there is a correspondence of
fact--their indulgence in drink--there would be some similar traits.
But here, again, the resemblance is of the faintest, while the
differences are radical. Huntingdon, for instance, is a continual and
inveterate drinker; Branwell drank but occasionally, and had long
periods of temperance: Huntingdon drinks for the love of drink;
Branwell drank in order to drown his sorrows. It is, moreover, made a
special point by the Bronte biographers that part of Branwell's
intemperance was in taking opium, but this feature does not exist in
Huntingdon, though Anne was clearly acquainted with the practice, for
she mentions in the novel that Lord Lowborough at one time took it.
But, for the character of Huntingdon, we must look elsewhere. The
account Charlotte gave of one whom the Brontes had known well, will
show from what sources Anne drew her plot.
'You remember Mr. and Mrs. ----? Mrs. ---- came here the other day,
with a most melancholy tale of her wretched husband's drunken,
extravagant, profligate habits. She asked papa's advice; there was
nothing, she said, but ruin before them. They owed debts which they
could never pay. She expected Mr. ----'s instant dismissal from his
curacy; she knew, from bitter experience, that his vices were utterly
hopeless. He treated her and her child savagely; with much more to the
same effect. Papa advised her to leave him for ever, and go home, if
she had a home to go to. She said this was what she had long resolved
to do; and she would leave him directly, as soon as Mr. B----
dismissed him. She expressed great disgust and contempt towards him,
and did not affect to have the shadow of regard in any way. I do not
wonder at this, but I do wonder she should ever marry a man towards
whom her feelings must always have been pretty much the same as they
are now. I am morally certain no decent woman could experience
anything but aversion towards such a man as Mr. ----. Before I knew,
or suspected his character, and when I rather wondered at his
versatile talents, I felt it in an uncontrollable degree. I hated to
talk with him--hated to look at him; though, as I was not certain that
there was substantial reason for such a dislike, and thought it absurd
to trust to mere instinct, I both concealed and repressed the feeling
as much as I could; and, on all occasions, treated him with as much
civility as I was mistress of. I was struck with Mary's expression of
a similar feeling at first sight; she said, when we left him, "That is
a hideous man, Charlotte!" I thought, "He is indeed."'[41]
[41] Gaskell's 'Life of Charlotte Bronte,' chap. ix.
And here is another case known to the Brontes. 'Do you remember my
telling you--or did I ever tell you--about that wretched and most
criminal Mr. ----? After running an infamous career of vice, both in
England and France, abandoning his wife to disease and total
destitution in Manchester, with two children and without a farthing,
in a strange lodging-house? Yesterday evening Martha came upstairs to
say that a woman--"rather lady-like," as she said--wished to speak to
me in the kitchen. I went down. There stood Mrs. ----, pale and worn,
but still interesting-looking and cleanly and neatly dressed, as was
her little girl who was with her. I kissed her heartily. I could
almost have cried to see her, for I had pitied her with my whole soul
when I heard of her undeserved sufferings, agonies, and physical
degradation. She took tea with us, stayed about two hours, and frankly
entered into a narrative of her appalling distresses.... She does not
know where Mr. ---- is, and of course can never more endure to see
him. She is now staying a few days at E---- with the ----s, who, I
believe, have been all along very kind to her, and the circumstance is
greatly to their credit.'[42]
[42] T. Wemyss Reid's 'Charlotte Bronte, a Monograph,' chap.
vii., p. 83.
It was with cases like these before them that the Brontes wrought the
infelicity of Heathcliff and Isabella, of Huntingdon and Helen. They
felt themselves compelled to represent life as it appeared to them,
they said.
Consumption and intemperance, the curses of our island and our
climate, are found not the less in the West-Riding of Yorkshire. A
cold and humid atmosphere, like poverty and want, begets a recourse to
stimulants, and, with some natures, the bounds of moderation are soon
passed. The prevalence of the latter evil had entered deeply into
Anne's thoughts. Her brother's occasional indulgence had made it
familiar to her; but we should clearly commit an error, as well as a
great injustice to her, in supposing that, in the character of
Huntingdon, she wished to present his failings to the public.
A careful study of the question has, indeed, convinced me, not only
that Huntingdon is no portrait of Branwell Bronte, but that he is
distinctly and designedly his very antitype. The author of 'Wildfell
Hall' could scarcely have created a character so completely different
from Branwell, unless she intended to do so; for, otherwise, writing
under the influence of circumstances, and the inspiration of the
moment, something of his strong personality must surely have found its
way into the book. It is pleasant to be thus able to record, as an act
of justice to Anne Bronte, that, though she had been compelled to
witness the results of intemperance both in Branwell and in others,
she purposely conveyed her lesson of these evils in the acts and
thoughts of a character utterly distinct from her brother. Indeed, she
was at considerable pains--which have unfortunately availed little--to
prevent even a suspicion that her brother was the prototype of
Huntingdon; for, to remove that impression, she has placed the hero of
the story, Gilbert Markham, to a considerable extent, in Branwell's
very circumstances. There is no resemblance between Markham's
character and Branwell's, beyond that of an ardent and generous
temperament; but it should be observed that--exactly as with
Branwell--Markham is enamoured of a married woman, the death of whose
husband he anxiously awaits; that this passion is attributed to him as
a monomania--'A monomania,' says his brother Fergus, 'but don't
mention it; all right but that;' and, lastly, that Markham, too,
thinks, as Branwell did, that the deceased husband of the lady 'might
have so constructed his will as to place restrictions upon her
marrying again.'
It should likewise be observed that 'Wildfell Hall' is just as much
a protest against _mariages de convenance_, as it is against
intemperance; but what had this to do with the family circumstances of
the Brontes? It had far more to do with such instances as that of 'Mr.
and Mrs. ----,' quoted above from Charlotte's letter, where infelicity
was combined with intemperance, as it is in the case of Arthur and
Helen Huntingdon.