The Key to the Brontë Works

(Rose Yorke) was in New Zealand when Charlotte Brontë died. Her fondness for travel is mentioned in the _Shirley_ chapter named. The male members of this family were thought by Currer Bell most characteristic Yorkshire folk, hence the name of Yorke. I mention Yorke Hunsden as one of the Yorkshire-Hégers of Miss Brontë's method of dual portraiture. I believe this important character in _The Professor_ will be found, like his fellows, to be entirely a Taylor-Héger. The name for Hunsden was apparently dictated by the Taylors' connection with Hunsworth, and it may be noted his Christian name of Yorke came to be later the surname of Mr. Taylor as portrayed in _Shirley_. But the Héger element was always superior to the Yorkshire element in Charlotte Brontë's heroes. The latter might provide useful and necessary external characteristics, but the "intensitives" were the lines she drew from her model, M. Héger. Of him as M.

a melancholy, almost suffering expression of countenance; his physiognomy was _fine et spirituelle_. This "melancholy almost suffering expression of countenance" she thus described was evidently once a marked characteristic of M. Héger's physiognomy. A reference to it occurs in M. de Morville, whom I identify as a phase of M. l'expression de légère souffrance habituelle à sa physionomie, d'ailleurs si ouverte, s'est compliquée d'une sorte de contrainte lorsqu'il se trouve au milieu de sa famille. de Morville semble profondément attristé. it might only be a bilious caprice.

arch girl. Regarding these facial metamorphoses Charlotte Brontë wrote similarly concerning M. [49] I remark that M. Héger's harshness evidently had impressed Charlotte Brontë considerably at first, and thus reflects her thoughts on this point in the introduction of the phases she gives of him in her books. impatient, yet formal in Mr. interested in a this moment I am not I continued the man who seemed disposed to accost conversation with more exaggeratedly her." myself. proceeding was piquant. I felt interested to see how he would go on. We read of Rochester:--"The frown, the roughness of the stranger

set me at my ease"; and in _Villette_, we read of M. Héger as M. the darkness, the manner displeased me. I preferred him before all humanity," which explains why Charlotte Brontë wrote of Rochester:--"The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish," and explains why she admits to the piquancy in exploiting the possibilities of Heathcliffe's startling harshness. And again, as further evidence of the influence of M. Héger over her Yorkshire Hunsden, we find this character in the close of _The Professor_ implicated with a mysterious "Lucia," whom he would have married but could not, which Lucia we discover to have meant really the original of the Lucy Snowe of _Villette_--Charlotte Brontë herself.

It is obvious that while Currer Bell, for "story" and other purposes, made use of a composite method in presenting a portrait, she drew from characters who possessed much in common: as with the composite character of the Rev. Mr. Helstone, meant for her father, a clergyman, but presenting also a phase of another clergyman, the Rev. Hammond Roberson; and as with Dr. John Bretton, a composite character drawn from the two Scotsmen, Mr. Smith her publisher, and the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, who subsequently became her husband. Doubtless, characteristics in the Taylors were similar to some of M. Héger's. Perhaps the fact that they spoke French and sojourned on the Continent, accentuated to her these characteristics. In a letter, Miss Brontë described all the Taylors as "Republicans." And so of Yorke Hunsden in _The Professor_, Chap. and family standing." Thus, in _Shirley_, Chap.

, in which work that character appears stripped of the Héger element, as Mr. sarcasm. As he was not merciful, he would sometimes

Mr. _Viâ_ Yorke Hunsden of _The Professor_ and Mr. Yorke of _Shirley_ the reader has returned to a character who typified more than any other of Charlotte Brontë's Yorkshire-Héger portrayals the merciless, strong and shrewd-natured Taylor--Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_. But the Yorkshire element in Heathcliffe was a caricature and an exaggeration for the purposes of the "cuckoo story," resulting from the tale Montagu tells of a foundling; and the emphasis laid on his barbarity was largely a result, too, of the consideration I mention in the chapters entitled "The Recoil," which consideration had to do with the Héger phase of Heathcliffe.

The fact that evidence shows Heathcliffe to have been, like Hunsden and Rochester, a composite character drawn from a dual model--the Taylor-Héger model--traceable in origin absolutely to Charlotte Brontë's idiosyncratic estimate of two male characters who are shown to have seriously interested her, in itself sufficiently demonstrates her authorship of _Wuthering Heights_, and is indeed of great interest. [51] Having herself suffered thus, there was a temptation--at what I elsewhere call the dark season of Charlotte Brontë's inner life, at the season of the recoil--to present in her work _Wuthering Heights_ the Yorkshire-Héger with the hypochondria of her Yorkshire model, and let his demon be the original of her Catherine Earnshaw--be herself. To this temptation Charlotte Brontë gave no opposition, much to her regret later.

Herewith we have the origin of Heathcliffe's miserable hypochondria and monomania--his digging for Catherine in the grave till his spade scraped the coffin, in _Wuthering Heights_, Chap. , and

a devil to me! I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! It racked me! through eighteen years!" Mr. the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject. In the light of the foregoing, therefore, we may understand the truth of Charlotte Brontë's narration in _The Professor_, Chap. a prey to hypochondria. I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom and holding me with arms of bone. freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon. Both by reason of Mrs.

Gaskell's suspicion that she had drawn from them in the portrayals of the heroes of her first books and by reason of the undeniable evidence of her works, we must accept the Taylors as the originals of most that was "Yorkshire" in Charlotte Brontë's Yorke Hunsden, Heathcliffe, Rochester, and Yorke, understanding the term in Currer Bell's implication of "independent," "hard," and "open-spoken." But M. Héger contributed what Charlotte Brontë calls in Chap. of _Villette_, in speaking of him as M. Paul Emanuel--"that swart, sallow,

southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood," and this gave colour to the physiognomy of "the swart, sallow" Heathcliffe and Rochester.[52] In the succeeding chapters I deal more particularly with the relation of Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_, to Rochester of _Jane Eyre_, and I promise my readers to present therein most important and sensational revelations. CHAPTER X. HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE" ONE

**AND THE SAME:** Without herewith further entering into the question as to the original of the morose and harsh characters who were the heroes of Charlotte Brontë's novels, I will at once show she had drawn from the same model in both _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_. I have given in the foregoing chapter the introduction of Lockwood to Heathcliffe and that of Jane to Rochester side by side. _ Heathcliffe. Rochester. Most people would have thought Heathcliffe is a dark-skinned Mr. one erect and handsome figure; and inevitably shared the rather morose. in my secret soul that tells me it is nothing of I knew his kindness to me was the sort: I know by instinct his balanced by unjust severity to reserve springs from an aversion others. to showy displays of feeling--to and when he looked up a morose, manifestations of mutual almost a malignant, scowl kindliness.

equally under one cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I am running on too fast; I bestow my own attributes over liberally on him. Heathcliffe and Rochester are both black-avised, stubborn of countenance, negligent as to external appearance, moody, proud in carry, and morose. Charlotte Brontë tells us of one that on external judgment "most people would have thought him" possessed of a disqualification, and of the other that "some people might suspect him" of having a disqualification. And in each case a similar offset--the internal

his kindliness to me was balanced by unjust severity to others." I find the singular expression indicated by the "hell's light" epithets applied to Heathcliffe's eyes was an expression Charlotte Brontë had apparently noticed in the original of this character. Rochester's eyes in _Jane Eyre_ have "strange gleams," and we are told "his eye had a tawny--nay, a bloody light in its gloom," and so forth. in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering among volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape. _ His cheeks were sallow and half-covered with black whiskers, the brows were lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. His upright carry suggested his having been in the army [M. looked intelligent.

A half-civilized ferocity lurked in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, and his manner was even dignified, though too stern for grace. In view of the general evidence that Heathcliffe, like Rochester, was drawn by Charlotte Brontë from M. Héger, her Brussels friend the professor, it is not surprising that Heathcliffe's was "a deep voice and

**AND THE SAME:** foreign in sound." Her reference in _Wuthering Heights_ to his Spanish extraction reminds us of M. Paul Emanuel's "jetty hair and Spanish face" in _Villette_, and of course it is well known M. Paul Emanuel was drawn by Currer Bell from M. Héger. CHAPTER XI. CATHERINE AND HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AS JANE AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE." We have already seen Catherine in _Wuthering Heights_ represented Charlotte Brontë as intimately portrayed by herself in the work, and that Heathcliffe was drawn by her from the original of the Rochester of _Jane Eyre_. So faithfully did Charlotte Brontë tell again in _Jane Eyre_ the history of her life in relation to her family and M. Héger, that she gives the main lines of her biography in both works. I will show them side by side. For the literal parallels when not given in this chapter see the index.

_ Opening scene: A rainy day in Opening scene: A rainy day in Catherine's (Charlotte Brontë's) Jane's (Charlotte Brontë's) childhood. She is treated childhood. She is treated unkindly by the rest of the unkindly by the rest of the household. It is impossible to household. go out on account of the rain. aloof from the family group. family. Nevertheless, though banished, Nevertheless, though banished Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) herself, Jane (Charlotte Brontë) makes herself snug in a recess makes herself snug in a recess behind a curtain, and believes behind a curtain, and believes

**AND THE SAME:** herself secure, when Hindley herself secure, when John Reed Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë), (Branwell Brontë), coming up coming up from his paradise on from his paradise on the hearth, the hearth, makes her come out makes her come out of the recess of the recess precipitantly, precipitantly. He hurls the book after she has hurled the book she was reading. Little Jane she was reading. sees a tyrant in Hindley He tells her that he is the Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë). of the house. Later, Catherine complains to Later, Jane complains to herself herself of her brother Hindley's of John Reed's (Branwell's) (Branwell's) tyrannies. He has tyrannies. behaviour.

Little Catherine (Charlotte Little Jane (Charlotte Brontë), Brontë), although she was held although she was held to be to be passionate, and was passionate, and was treated treated harshly and almost as an harshly and almost an outsider outsider by the rest of the by the rest of the household, household, finds a kind, but finds a kind, but apparently apparently unsympathetic, friend unsympathetic, friend in a in a woman-servant, Nelly Dean, woman-servant, Bessie, who has a who has a remarkable gift of remarkable gift of narrative, narrative, like Tabitha Aykroyd, like Tabitha Aykroyd, whom whom Charlotte Brontë loved, and Charlotte Brontë loved, and who who came to the Haworth came to the Haworth parsonage parsonage when Charlotte was when Charlotte was about nine about nine years of age. But years of age. mistrusted her.

She even believes that Catherine She even believes that Jane (Charlotte Brontë) is an actor (Charlotte) is an actor and

of frenzy. locked. In a paroxysm of alarm, In a paroxysm of alarm, Jane Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) (Charlotte Brontë) summons summons Mrs. Dean (Tabitha Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd) Aykroyd) frantically, and with a frantically, and with a piercing piercing scream. The latter scream. unsympathetic. overhears this. She had desired She finds Bessie (Tabitha Mrs. with a basin in her hand. Catherine (Charlotte) relates Jane (Charlotte) relates her her fears of the locked room: fears of the locked room: How How she thought it haunted; she she thought it haunted; she showed fear of the mirror, and showed fear of the mirror, and describes excitedly to Mrs. Dean describes excitedly to Bessie (Tabitha) her terrifying (Tabitha) her terrifying sensations previous to her sensations previous to her losing consciousness, and how losing consciousness. of fit. Mrs.

Dean (Tabitha) suggests Bessie (Tabitha) suggests sleep sleep to Catherine (Charlotte to Jane (Charlotte Brontë). Brontë). Mrs. Dean (Tabitha) believes Bessie (Tabitha) believes that that to see the apparition of a the apparition of a child is a child is a sign of calamity sign of calamity having befallen having befallen some one near some one near akin. Jane dreams akin. One day Mrs. Dean sees a of a child-apparition, and fears child-apparition, and fears it it may be a sign of calamity, may be a sign of calamity to and the day following Bessie's

**AND THE SAME:** Catherine's (Charlotte's) husband brings word of the brother, Hindley Earnshaw disgrace of John Reed (Branwell (Branwell Brontë). in disgrace. Catherine falls in love with Jane falls in love with a a morose, "sallow-cheeked" morose, "olive-cheeked" individual with deep eyes, that individual with deep eyes, that have a singular expression, have a singular expression, which makes the narrator which makes the narrator associate "hell's light" with associate "hell's light" with them. He has a handsome, erect them. He has a handsome, erect carry, but is rather negligent carry, but is rather negligent in his apparel. His speech is in his apparel. His speech is abrupt. (His name is abrupt. (His name is Rochester.) Heathcliffe.) But Catherine loved him, and he But Jane loved him, and he loved loved Catherine. Indeed, Jane.

Indeed, Jane likens Catherine likens themselves to a themselves to a cloven tree, cloven tree by saying that which is one at the root, but whosoever would come between divided by storm. Thus she them to divide them would meet believes in the "twin-soul" or the fate of Mïlo, who, of the elective affinities, and course, endeavoured to drive says of Rochester:-- asunder a cloven tree held firmly at its base, and was himself trapped by it for his pains. Yet, while I than I am. unexpectedly. , interchange of the sexes of characters.) Catherine dreams she is in Jane finds refuge with the heaven, but broke her heart to Rivers family (the Brontë family

**AND THE SAME:** come to earth again, on which at Haworth). [54] Rochester's voice calling, though he was miles away. , (interchange of the sexes of characters of the sexes of characters portrayed), we arrive at another portrayed), we arrive at another of my sensational and important of my sensational and important Brontë discoveries. Brontë discoveries. _ Chapter X. Chapter XXXVII. Entering a the building. " and some shape was about to issue from the grange. "] It opened slowly: dressed in dark clothes, with a figure came out into the dark face and hair. Dusk as it was I

Rochester. sallow, and half-covered with His form was of the same strong black whiskers; the brows and stalwart contour as ever: lowering, the eyes deep-set and his port was still erect, his singular. He closed the door. She started as if she had seen a ghost: I calmed her. To her hurried "Is it really you, "What!" hands in amazement. you come back? Is it really you? " person wishes to speak to him." here? Speak! I want to have one word with her--your mistress "You are to send in your name [Catherine]. desires to see her." I could not persuade myself "Is that what he rang for?" I to proceed. by a window whose lattice lay back. "Give the tray to me, I will carry it in." Mr. answered. Mr. who it was? "Mary is in the kitchen," I answered. "Some one mistress does not

**AND THE SAME:** expect," I replied. _What_ is it? She'd be sadly grieved to hear you. he ran off. I guess his return will make a jubilee to her." --what delusion has come over me? Oh! " to be real!" without being absurd! " sight of your welcoming a runaway servant." " the master and mistress. --in the flesh? But I cannot be so blest quite divested of roughness, after all my misery. " he would vanish were she to remove it. the undisguised delight he drank "No, you must not go. feeling but a

" she cried. "I shall very delirium of desire to not be able to believe that I behold my Jane again. Will she not depart as suddenly Cruel Heathcliffe! You don't as she came? I deserve this welcome. absent and silent for three Cruel, cruel deserter! " discovered you had fled and left Thornfield?" said Catherine, "has reconciled I, in my stiff-necked rebellion, me to God and humanity! I began to experience can afford to suffer anything remorse, repentance; the wish hereafter! I'm an angel!" "). The above parallel descriptions, it will be found, agree practically word for word. _

disappears. One evening Heathcliffe as One evening Jane as suddenly suddenly returns. The narrator returns. for some time. Dusk as it is, Dusk as it is, she recognizes she recognizes Heathcliffe. Rochester. dangerous to approach in his sullen woe." you come back? runaway Heathcliffe. Tell your master a person your mistress," says Heathcliffe wishes to see him," says Jane to to the servant. desires to see her." considered as a pretext. " me?" "I shall think it a dream "I am come back to you," says to-morrow. I shall not be able Jane.

To-morrow I fear I shall Heathcliffe. And reproachfully find [you] no more," says he exclaims:-- Rochester to Jane. a very delirium of desire to deserve this welcome," says behold my Jane again. never think of me." Cruel, cruel, deserter! " says Rochester. life. The absolute dependence of Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and _Villette_ on her own inner life in relation to M. Héger is proved by the evidence in the chapter on "The Rivers Family," in the chapters on "Eugène Sue and Charlotte Brontë's Brussels Life," and in those entitled "The Recoil." CHAPTER XII. EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE. I.

**MDLLE:** LAGRANGE AND HER MANUSCRIPT "CATHERINE BELL THE ORPHAN." When Mrs. Gaskell published her Brontë biography it was discovered that while she had been enabled by aid of the mass of commonplace Brontë correspondence to present an interesting picture of the domestic conditions at the Haworth parsonage, she had yet been unable to throw any light on that episode in Charlotte Brontë's life which, it had been suspected, was responsible for the extraordinary love passages in the Brontë works and Miss Brontë's insistence in choosing the hero of each of her books from the same model.

It is therefore most miraculous and sensational that after having found Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_ was the key to _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_, I should further come to discover, what the world had thought would never be found: external evidence throwing light on Miss Brontë's real relations with the Hégers at Brussels, to whose _pensionnat_ she went in the 'forties. This discovery was the subject of my article "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil" Mr. W. L. Courtney commissioned me to write in the _Fortnightly Review_. Therein I showed Eugène Sue had presented the whole history of M. Héger's passion for Charlotte Brontë, and Madame Héger's jealousy, in a work entitled _Miss Mary ou l'Institutrice_, published in 1850-51--seven years before the publication of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life_, and before the publication of either _The Professor_ or _Villette_; and we saw that M. Héger knew all Miss Brontë's literary secrets in 1850.

Skilfully enough Eugène Sue in this story--the first version of which was issued serially in September 1850, from _The Weekly Times_ Office, London, whence were published many of M. [57] Indeed it will be found that in this work Eugène Sue also imitated

, interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed from life. The two phases of Miss Brontë in this romance are Miss Mary Lawson, an Irish governess at the de Morville establishment; and Mademoiselle Lagrange, a former governess at the same house. The Mademoiselle Lagrange is, however, always referred to in the abstract, and serves to illustrate, it appears, Miss Brontë before her first departure from and return to Brussels, as well as after, for she was twice at the Hégers. And it may be observed that Charlotte Brontë was called "Mademoiselle Charlotte" at the Héger _pension_ when she was governess there in 1843. Certainly the choice of Lagrange for Miss Brontë was pertinent: _la grange_ is French for "the barn," and may have been suggested by the Eyre of _Jane Eyre_, which to a French ear would recall _aire_--a barn floor. Mdlle. Lagrange who had left the de Morville (_Anglicè_, Morton.

As we have seen, Morton of _Jane Eyre_ was Haworth to Charlotte Brontë) establishment on account of the jealousy of Madame de Morville, whom I identify as Madame Héger, is a plain-featured literary aspirant, and she writes a manuscript entitled not exactly Currer Bell, but "Kitty Bell, the Orphan." de Morville, who reads it aloud to his family. It is a parody, as it were, of _Jane Eyre_, with an imitation of Charlotte Brontë's methods of introducing private biographical facts. For instance, in presenting the Lowood school incidents it calls the school "the Kendall Institute," named after "a Mr. Kendall, its founder." Evidently the writer had heard, as only few indeed had at this early day, that the Lowood school of _Jane Eyre_ was afterwards removed to Casterton in the Union of Kendal, or had heard that in a wise it was connected with a place of that name.

Other extraordinary facts with which he shows acquaintance are, that Charlotte Brontë had a sister Elizabeth at this school; that Helen Burns was her sister; that there was a West Indian girl at the school; that Charlotte Brontë was born on or about the 21st of April; that she might

**MDLLE:** be called Kitty (Currer) Bell at home, but she must be called Catherine (Catherine Earnshaw); that Miss Brontë was the governess-daughter of an Irishman; that the original of John Reed was her brother and was no hero, and had shown strange signs of insanity during the last year or two, as it is now known he had at the time; that a female relative had provided Miss Brontë the money for the _pensionnat_; that skin disorders as well as the typhus fever were prevalent at the Clergy Daughters' School (it is in a private letter that Miss Brontë referred to scrofula at this school); that the original of Mr.

Rochester was a foreigner and a resident abroad, an ex-soldier, and married to a lady who was not pretty, albeit "la vivacité, l'agrément de sa physionomie expressive, suppléaient à la beauté qui lui manquait"; that Charlotte Brontë had had in her possession since her childhood an old copy in English of _The Imitation of Christ_; that Miss Brontë was called a _bas bleu_ at the _pensionnat_; that to form an opinion of her character by Madame Héger's estimate of her disposition would be completely erroneous; that M. Héger was accustomed to read _feuilletons_ aloud; that religious differences existed between her and others at the establishment where Charlotte Brontë was; that Catherine's (Catherine Earnshaw's) rival was Isabella (Heathcliffe's wife--Madame Héger of the Rue d'Isabelle); that Miss Brontë travelled alone to Brussels and was accosted by _deux jeunes gens_--compare the opening chapters of _Miss Mary_ with Lucy Snowe's arrival at Villette, evidently in some wise founded on fact, as to these two young men.

See also _The Professor_, Chapter VII. But to return to "Mdlle. Lagrange's Manuscript," the pseudo _Jane Eyre_, which of course at once identifies its author, Mdlle. , amplified with biographical additions. For instance, take the hair-cutting incident of _Jane Eyre_ as represented in "Lagrange's Manuscript"-- The master called out:--

And yet what do I see? " The last of these had not been a week at the institution. with a fine tinge of the Creole in her face. ] We have seen in the chapter on "The Rivers or Brontë Family in _Jane Eyre_" that Charlotte Brontë portrayed in the character Julia Severn, who is first mentioned in connection with the hair-cutting incident, her sister Elizabeth, and it is most significant that M. Sue made play on the name Elizabeth in the connection. In regard to the mention of a West Indian girl at the Lowood school and her being coupled with a fair-haired Yorkshire girl, it is important to note that no reference is made in _Jane Eyre_ to a West Indian girl at this school. It is indeed astonishing how much M. Sue knew of Charlotte Brontë's private life. Here we find him telling the world in 1850 of a West Indian girl being with Charlotte Brontë at the Clergy Daughters' School, and not till seven years later did Mrs.

Gaskell learn of the Rev. Patrick Brontë--Charlotte Brontë was then dead--that a girl from the West Indies had been Charlotte's friend at this school. Her name, he thought, was Mellany Hane, so far as he could remember to pronounce it. Mysteriously enough, the words "West Indies" or "West Indian" in this connection have been deleted from the later editions of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_. See the Second Edition. "Lagrange's Manuscript" is of considerable length and interest, and can be drawn on in future editions of _The Key to the Brontë Works_.

[58] Take a Helen Burns incident whereby M. was on Agnes Jones [Helen Burns]. Day by day I saw her pretty cheeks growing thinner and thinner, her eyes sinking still more deeply into her head, her little mouth becoming more blue and ashy, her long, thin fingers more transparent. It was not much I had learned from Agnes [Helen] since I had been at the institution; but never till then had I known her spirit so genial, her heart so lovingly persuasive; the beneficent lessons of those days, burning like candles within me, have since guided me well through life: _she spoke to me like a prophet, and I listened to her like a believer_. Oh, I could have lived for ever in that chamber, and Agnes [Helen] might have been to me the world!

just at that pleasant hour of twilight when two of God's wonders--night and day--cross each other like ships on the sea, Agnes [Helen] said:--'Life has its holiness as well as death, Catherine [Jane]; and you may live in the world as purely and justly as those who die in the cradle.' "The world is full of temptation?" If you think of me,

**MDLLE:** think of me living, not dead. Think of your playfellow in the garden; think of your elder sister who lived with you for six years." Maria Brontë, Charlotte's eldest sister, and the original of Helen Burns, died when Charlotte was eight or nine. It is sensational indeed, that M. Sue thus identified Helen Burns seven years before the publication of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_. The death of this character in "Lagrange's Manuscript" is in perfect agreement with that of Helen Burns. _ "Kitty Bell, the Orphan." Chapter IX. By the Mademoiselle Lagrange, of Eugène Sue's _Miss Mary ou By Currer Bell. L'Institutrice_. The death of Helen Burns. The death of Agnes Jones. Mr. inquire after our friend, Miss Jones." "How is Helen Burns?" I looked in. "Helen!" I whispered to me:-- softly; "are you awake?" until the sweet dove fell asleep. I still heard my sister

so greedily? Don't heart? " emerging from the pure body at my side, I know not! her; and we soon slumbered. you awake?" I learned that Miss Temple, on called again--then a third, and returning to her own room at a fourth time! no dawn, had found me laid in a reply! round her neck. hear! Alarmed, but unwilling to trust my fears, I felt for her hand. it was cold as ice, and rigid as stone! and rushed out to call the Superintendent [Miss Temple]. When we entered the chamber, we found no Agnes there! No; her spirit had fled, and all we saw was the lifeless body of a poor houseless girl.

Another biographical passage occurs where Catherine Bell first sees the Miss Temple of "Lagrange's Manuscript," who herself, under the name of Ashton (Eshton),[59] is at times Miss Brontë, who took the name of the original of Miss Temple (Evans) for herself in the phase of Frances Evans Henri in _The Professor_, a work not published, we must note, till after Charlotte Brontë's death:--

**MDLLE:** "I love you, madam," I said. "Your name, I believe, is Catherine Bell, is it not?" "Kitty Bell, if you please, madam," I answered. "Kitty Bell at home, my dear, but here we must call you Catherine; for a school, you know, is where many forms must be observed. How old are you?" "I shall be ten next birthday, madam." "And when will that be?" "On the 23rd of April." "Shakespeare's Day, I declare!" The above is, of course, not in _Jane Eyre_. There is a stroke of sarcasm in the last sentence. It would appear that Currer Bell playfully had moved her birthday forward two days, in her private conversation with one from whom M. Sue had gleaned information--and this could be only M. Héger himself. , tells us that M. Paul Emanuel (M. Héger) said:-- "I wanted to prove to Miss Lucy that I _could_ keep a secret. How often has she taunted me with lack of dignified reserve and needful caution!

How many times has she saucily insinuated that all my affairs are the secret of Polichinelle!" And this had doubtless a reference to some such indiscretions as resulted in M. Sue while at Brussels (and he was publishing _L'Orgueil_ from Brussels in 1844, in the January of which year Charlotte Brontë arrived home from the Belgian capital), learning the literary secrets of _Jane Eyre_, and perhaps _Wuthering Heights_. A further reference to Currer Bell's literary aspirations--in the spirit of Mdlle. Reuter's sneers, in _The Professor_, at Mdlle. Henri's literary ambition--occurs in M. "take this shilling and tell me when I shall be Empress of Morocco?" then shook her head doubtfully:-- "Your life, lady, will be a troubled one--full of hopes and fears!" "So I suppose; most people's lives are pretty well divided in this manner." Without fortune, too?" "True, what more?" "You will be married and not married."

**MDLLE:** "That's impossible. What can you mean by married and not married?" "That deserves another shilling!" that will do for to-day." "Mdlle. " passage. For constructive purposes the West Indian girl, or Creole, in "Lagrange's Manuscript," is made to take the place of the Mrs. Rochester of _Jane Eyre_, who is therein represented as a Creole:-- I did my best [continues Catherine Bell] to make a friend of her, but to no purpose. for at that time I was a little given to flattery myself. I preferred more solid advantages, because my vanity assured me that I had them myself, while my personal appearance was insignificant compared with hers. [M. Héger seems to have found pleasure in his intellectual talks with Currer Bell], but to Isabella [this, as I have said, is the name of Catherine's rival in _Wuthering Heights_, who was married to Heathcliffe] it was hateful. She imagined I wanted to expose her ignorance.

I have given some of the biographical facts respecting Miss Brontë embodied in Mdlle. Lagrange's story, and before closing this chapter dealing with that extraordinary manuscript I will print a further extract or so from it. The opening is as follows:-- "KITTY BELL, THE ORPHAN." My little head has been cut with more than one fall, and blood has flowed down my neck. But nobody

a widow [Mrs. Burke], and though she treated me with great rigour, she melted on her death-bed. She is locked in the room wherein Mrs. The gleam shot through the key-hole a third time, with treble radiance. was it a ghost? It was a tall figure in white, like a winding sheet, with a hideous face and balls of gleaming fire where the eyes should be. I cannot say how long I continued in this swoon, but when I began to recover myself I was in my own bed. She had received medical treatment, she learns as did Jane Eyre in the similar incident. The "ghost," however, had been only George Burke--the John Reed of _Jane Eyre_. Hence the choice of the name Burke by reason of its connection with the Hare of the Burke and Hare association, the writer by this choice showing his acquaintance with the fact that in real life the Reeds and Jane Eyre were relations.

After this incident the story is for a while occupied with the petty happenings connected with this orphan who "was not yet nine years old." An aunt of the Burkes [? she was fully six feet high." This is palpably antithetical: Miss Branwell was not tall. And it is this aunt who provides the money for Catherine Bell to go to school. Under the guise of presenting the Lowood school in

**MDLLE:** "Lagrange's Manuscript," M. Sue gives us often the Héger _pensionnat_. Aunt Branwell provided Charlotte Brontë the money that enabled her to go to the Hégers'. _ "Kitty Bell, the Orphan." of Eugène Sue's _Miss Mary ou L'Institutrice_. The first days at the The first days at the Institution. Institution. my legs were numb with cold. " she asked. I with my box. servant was standing there with a lamp. " she asked me. "My name is Kitty Bell, if you please," replied I. there was no there was no candle. warming my numb hands and limbs. a tall forget. My heart told me lady with dark hair, dark eyes, directly it was Miss Ashton and a pale and large forehead [Eshton]. her [Miss Temple. them in the fine sacred pictures of Murillo--those pictures of grand female beauty. She considered me attentively Everything in that face was

] She advanced towards me stately, but kindly, touched my cheek with her finger, and then seeing me smile, she smiled in return, and, after scanning my features a moment, she lifted me up and kissed me. "I love you, madam," I said. alluded to the I had been at the Kendall visits of Mr. Brocklehurst [Rev. Institute about three weeks Mr. Carus Wilson]; his absence without seeing Mr. Mr. Brocklehurst. I knew without being told this After some lines we have the strange man was Mr. " called out Manuscript." after and not before Catherine (Jane) has been commanded to stand before the class. " cried Mr. King. much respect and gratitude! Is this true, Catherine Bell?" children, it becomes my duty to warn you that "No, sir; not a word of it."

" ingrate? Stand here!" children. My pride had been savagely assailed. I did not want pity. a refutation of the cruel charge; I was not a liar; and those who taxed me with ingratitude had no gratitude to claim from me. and how my little heart did swell! Often Mdlle. Lagrange's "Kitty Bell the Orphan" is mysterious in its allusions. As when Catherine Bell says she does not like a French lady teacher. she is a very good sort of a woman." " "What is that to you or me, Catherine Bell? Surely it is no business of ours?" I gave her a slice of my seed-cake yesterday, and she returned me half of it." "That showed a good disposition in poor Madame Dubois; did it not?" "Yes; but when I was going to eat it myself I was seized with a fit of sneezing, which I shall not forget in a hurry, I promise you!" "You took snuff then, Catherine Bell, for the first time in your life?" " shouted the teachers and examples that moment.

The following is an extract dealing with the fever scenes of _Jane Eyre_:-- Fever and consumption had fixed their abode under the large roof of Kendall Institution, death was stealing along with its soft, wolf-like tread, to feed on these poor children. The first symptoms I remember that startled me were certain cold shiverings and sudden fits of perspiration without warmth, which seized on the younger children. Then sickness and nausea, followed

[M. When we went to the church on Sundays, and saw the many little mounds of fresh black earth lying over our innocent playmates of yesterday, our heads sank on our bosoms and we wept most sorrowfully. In the hope of overcoming my persistency in refusing his so often proffered and as often rejected love, he urged on by every imaginable means the final decision, which in the eyes of man were to permit a second marriage, guilty in the sight of God. Nor did she consider whether I encouraged or rebuked him. She suspected, she spied, she believed, and unscrupulously involved me in the hateful vengeance she swore to take both on her husband and myself. For a portrait of Mdlle. Lagrange who, as the author of this version of _Jane Eyre_, is of course meant for Charlotte Brontë, we turn to the _feuilleton_ itself:-- Meanwhile we have lost sight of our blue-stocking friend, Mdlle. remains to be described.

Now, to form any opinion of it by Madame de Morville's [Madame Héger's] appreciation of that girl's disposition, would be completely erroneous. Lagrange was not devoid of intellectual faculties; she possessed an imaginative

**MDLLE:** mind, rather too fond of romance, and too little of practical truths; but, above all, cunning and ambition formed the main basis of her character: she had risen from nothing, and _would_ become something. Imbued as she was with the ideas prevalent among the lower rank [Had Charlotte Brontë related her father's history to the Hégers? She had 'views' on money. M. Sue, however, never seems to have forgotten the rank of his own god-parents], she deemed it her right and duty to concentrate all the power of her faculties towards the end she sighed for--wealth and a name. Thus it was she displayed all the resources of her subtle nature to make every circumstance serve to the gratifying of her ambition. What, then, was to be her means of success? --yes, that perpetual dream of maidens, and a dream which too often ends in an everlasting nightmare. ]. This had become her ruling desire.

[62] This was already a point gained, and an encouragement to her literary propensities. Thus far the Mdlle. Lagrange phase of Currer Bell according to Eugène Sue, and before the publication of _The Professor_, _Villette_, and Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_. The next chapter shall deal with Eugène Sue's relation of her as "Miss Mary," the leading character of this extraordinary _feuilleton_, whereby it will be proved finally that in her works Charlotte Brontë has written from her own life-story. CHAPTER XIII. EUGÈNE SUE AND CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S BRUSSELS LIFE. II. ACCUSATIONS AND PROTESTATIONS! I have said Eugène Sue, in _Miss Mary ou l'Institutrice_, gave two phases of Charlotte Brontë. With the one as Mdlle. Lagrange I dealt in the preceding chapter, and now I write concerning that wherein Miss

[63] Easy it is to recognize this character is a phase of Charlotte Brontë, but as her pupil Alphonsine puts it plainly in describing her, she is "Mdlle. Lagrange, avec la beauté de plus"--Charlotte Brontë, with beauty and virtues exaggerated. The following incident I find only in the _feuilleton_ (not the extant volume), the which circumstances support as history concerning the days of Miss Brontë's dejection at the Brussels _pensionnat_. of _The Professor_, where she, as Frances Evans Henri, tells Crimsworth, obviously M. Héger, that he remarked her _devoirs_ dwelt a great deal on fortitude in bearing grief. de Morville's daughter, who says many things we know must have issued from M. , interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed from life. I see a book on your work-table. _" exclaimed Alphonsine, after having read the title-page. this is a beautiful book, is it not?"

" answered Mary; "the cover is old, the pages worn out in many places. [64] Her copy was then an old one. Evidently she took the book with her to Brussels and read it at the _pensionnat_. It would seem M. " continues Alphonsine. "I should so much like to hear you read it to me: I have occasionally

**MDLLE:** read a page of _The Imitation_, but always in French; now, if you would be so good as to read slowly and pronounce very distinctly, I think I could understand this pious work in your language." She read:-- "THE NECESSITY OF HUMBLE SUBMISSION. receive assistance from Him." " observed Alphonsine; "you will read to me every evening some passage of your _Imitation_, will you not? English sounds so sweetly to my ear when spoken by you. We will begin to-morrow evening, n'est ce pas?" Surely this is M. Héger and his sympathetic, depressed English teacher. There is in the opening chapter of _Miss Mary_ a long conversation regarding the departed governess Lagrange, and Madame de Morville (Madame Héger) avows she had been jealous of her, and that her harshness towards the governess had resulted in her abruptly leaving on a false plea of ill-health. tandis que tu restais seul ici avec tes livres.

I endeavoured to suppress them, to suffer no part of what I felt to transpire; for I must confess poor Lagrange was quite the lamb du bon Dieu, yet in spite of myself I sometimes broke out into fits of petulance and absurd irony, which wounded her. I saw it did by the sudden dejection of that excellent young person. But even this was not all." is it you who speaks thus? You whose kind, benevolent heart I have so often admired." "Would you that I should avow something worse to you? In fine, I cannot conceal from myself that the result of all this was that Mdlle. she was not dismissed," said Mdlle. , when the Professor asked whether Mdlle. Frances Henri[65] (Miss Brontë) had left voluntarily. No need to have recourse to

"] Enfin, it faut bien me l'avouer, le résultat de tout ceci a été que Mademoiselle Lagrange a demandé à quitter la maison, sous prétexte de santé; véritable prétexte. For the rest I will do myself this justice, I would have suffered even to the end rather than have sent back that excellent girl." The Hégers were surprised at Miss Brontë's sudden resolution to leave them, but she is said to have had her father's failing eyesight as a reason. "I suffered much before I left Brussels," wrote Charlotte, and this was in mind, not body. "I have long concealed the greater part of these resentful sentiments from you," continues Madame de Morville, "notwithstanding the implicit trust reposed in you. I wish I alone had suffered by them. But no, poor Lagrange doubtless could not endure the thousand vexations and spites ('taquineries sournoises') to which she was subjected, and was thereby driven from our house."

All this should be read as in connection with the departure of Miss Mary, the other phase of Miss Brontë, towards the end of the book. "I think, however long I live I shall not forget what the parting with M. [66] Here is M. de Morville started, then regarding the governess with stupor, for he could not believe what he heard, he cried:-- "Quoi! Miss Mary, vous dites?" "I say, monsieur, that I return to England, where I am recalled by my family." The real reason why Miss Brontë left is given in the Lagrange passages to which I have alluded. but that is impossible! A departure so brusque, si peu attendu!" il a fallu des raisons graves, very grave, to compel me to such a resolution." de Morville. that this should be the last time that I should see you, that I should speak to you! But this is not possible! They do not kill a man thus by a single blow! For you well know that you kill me! You well know that I love you!

do not say you were unaware of my unhappy love," he

**MDLLE:** continues, "you know well enough what an irresistible charm has drawn me towards you, what happiness I have had to tell you my life, my secret thoughts, my wrongs even! A timid reserve followed the first entrancement, but it was the struggle of respect, of honour against a fatal passion. the traces of that struggle, should they not have been too evident to your eyes! have not you divined the cause of that sombre discouragement which made me seek solitude where I isolated myself from all interests, from all affection? you have divined nothing, read nothing of mes traits, in my eyes red with tears and sleeplessness? suffered so much, and not to have even the consolation of saying: She knows that I have suffered." de Morville's unhappy love was that of an honourable and a loyal-hearted man, while the governess was also without reproach. (These extracts do not occur in the _feuilleton_ as published in English.)

Have I attempted to pervert your mind, to seduce your heart? No, no! I have suffered, suffered in silence [see my reference to the _Imitation of Christ_], suffered alone, suffered always. It is to make to you the avowal of suffering on the day when you go to leave me for ever a prey to incurable despair!" Thus have we real insight into the state of affairs at Brussels when Miss Brontë left. We see the divining, jealous Madame de Morville--Madame Héger, of course--subjecting her to the "taquineries sournoises"; we hear Madame saying of her: "Ce que me faisait tolérer cette pauvre Mdlle. Lagrange, c'est qu'elle était laide comme les sept péchés mortels," and sneering at the excuse she made to leave the

**MDLLE:** establishment, calling it a "véritable prétexte" when the real reason was Madame's jealousy and its causes. Oh, the bitterness of it! no longer regarded with the former kindliness of feeling by Madame Héger. In consequence of this state of things working down with a sharp edge into a sensitive mind, she suddenly announced to that lady her immediate intention of returning to England. _The Spectator_, in consonance with others, says:--"Mr. Malham-Dembleby has found a _feuilleton_ by Eugène Sue which is curious, as it certainly indicates a knowledge of Charlotte Brontë and of Monsieur and Madame Héger at Brussels." In the extant French copy Eugène Sue has given a dramatic version of the parting scene between "Miss Mary" and "Madame de Morville"--Charlotte Brontë and Madame Héger. The latter had surprised her husband and the Irish governess, _tête-à-tête_ in the lonely pavilion, late in the evening.

I will not permit you, in my presence, to dare to calumniate and outrage Mademoiselle Lawson." Miss Mary asks him not to defend her, as she does not wish to be a cause of irritating discussion between them. " cried Madame de Morville, with a burst of sardonic laughter--"Grâce au bon accord du ménage, mademoiselle would desire to continue in perfect tranquillity the undignified rôle she has played at my house!" I reply nothing to these words, which you will

**MDLLE:** soon regret. The two years that I have been here [Charlotte Brontë was two years with the Hégers] I have learned to know you, madam; and if sometimes I have without complaint [see the Lagrange passages] suffered from the vivacité de vos premiers mouvements, I have also often been able to appreciate your goodness of heart." "Enough, mademoiselle, enough! Believe you that you can dupe me by your hypocrisies and base flatteries? Do you think you can impose my silence by that pretended resignation?" So the scene continues until Madame de Morville accuses the other of wishing to take the affections of her husband. de Morville, and of desiring to dominate at your house? Here is my reply." And her reply is that she is returning to England. fut complètement déroutée par l'annonce du départ de Miss Mary. The latter says she profoundly regrets if she had caused "malheurs," for she had been the involuntary cause.

"Involuntary or not," cried Madame de Morville, "you are un _porte-malheur_, and thus have been two years, since your arrival here. We were all happy and peaceful before your advent here, and to-day, when you go you leave us dans le chagrin." madame, le jour le plus malheureux de ma vie serait celui où je quitterais votre famille avec la douloureuse conviction que mon nom y serait maudit." There were, we see, conflicting views in Brussels social and literary circles, in the eighteen-forties, as to the degree of intimacy to which Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger attained. It is when we perceive the ambiguity of the relations existing between Miss Brontë and the professor that we recognize the fidelity of Eugène Sue's portrayal of Currer Bell's Brussels life. Even Charlotte Brontë herself, in _Villette_, published after M. Sue's story, relates that M. Paul Emanuel

**MDLLE:** (M. Héger) said to her:--"I call myself your brother. I hardly know what I am--brother--friend--I cannot tell. I know I think of you--I feel I wish you well--but I must check myself; you are to be feared. My best friends point out danger and whisper caution." In Mdlle. Lagrange and Catherine Bell, Charlotte Brontë figures as represented by those who said ill of her; as Miss Mary Lawson, the Irish governess, she has "beauty, youth, and grace," which charms, Jane tells us, she possessed in Rochester's eyes. Of her, in the phase of Catherine Bell, we have many insinuations of a detractive character, the keynote to which is found in the fortune-telling incident, wherein Catherine is foretold she will be "married and not married"; while in Miss Mary Lawson we have a portrayal of _un bon ange_[67] of whom Madame de Morville is jealous, not without reason, though, to use Miss Mary's own words, she had been "la cause involontaire."

We must, therefore, set it to the credit of Eugène Sue that he placed two versions in the balance; and his evidence for ever sweeps away the illogical and unfair contention of some writers on the Brontës, that Charlotte Brontë may have cared for M. Héger, but that he, in his turn, had been only "intellectually" interested in her. M. Sue shows the attitude of M. Héger was ever unequivocal as regards Charlotte Brontë; whether in her phase as "Lagrange," as "Catherine Bell," or as "Miss Mary Lawson"--she was loved by him. We now see Morton of _Jane Eyre_ was Haworth to Charlotte Brontë, and Thornfield, the home of Mr. Rochester, the Pensionnat Héger. And the flight from temptation at Thornfield and seeking refuge with the Rivers family were really representative of her leaving Brussels and returning home to her father and sisters. Obviously M.

Sue wrote his _feuilleton_ to aid, maliciously or not, in breaking the dangerous friendship between M. Héger and Miss Brontë. Charlotte Brontë's works are testimony it was not only Madame Héger's harsh jealousy that led her to leave Brussels. of _The Professor_, published years after M. Sue's work, but written before it,

**MDLLE:** she gives us the reason for this determination. , Interchange of the sexes of characters portrayed from life, Professor Crimsworth, who is alternately Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger, in this instance is Charlotte Brontë, while Mdlle. Reuter is M. Héger. Her [his] present demeanour towards me was deficient neither in dignity nor propriety; but I knew her [his] former feeling was unchanged. Decorum now repressed, and Policy masked it, but Opportunity would be too strong for either of these--Temptation would shiver their restraints. [68] Rough and steep was the path indicated by divine suggestion; mossy and declining the green way along which Temptation strewed flowers. And thus at last do we understand why Charlotte Brontë asks herself as Jane Eyre when at home with the Rivers family--with her father, her sisters, and Tabby at Haworth:-- Which is better? to have been now living in France, Mr.

Whether is it better, I ask, to be a slave in a fool's paradise at Marseilles--fevered with delusive bliss one hour--suffocating with the bitterest tears of remorse and shame the next--or to be a village schoolmistress [The Brontë school project was under contemplation in 1844], free and honest, in a breezy mountain nook in the healthy heart of England? Yes, I feel now that I was right when I adhered to principle and law, and crushed the insane promptings of a frenzied moment. God directed

**MDLLE:** me to a correct choice: I thank His providence for the guidance. And her fervent gratitude is as sincere when in the same connection she says in _Villette_ of her confessor--her Fénelon[69]:--"He was kind when I needed kindness; he did me good. May Heaven bless him!" But we now see Charlotte Brontë did not suffer alone. de Morville's (M. Héger's) life, which resulted from their unhappy love, and doubtless those words of Heathcliffe to Catherine in _Wuthering Heights_ were uttered or written by M. Because misery and degradation and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, _you_, of your own will did it. I have not broken your heart--_you_ have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me that I am strong." Charlotte Brontë tells us in _Jane Eyre_ she loved to imagine she and Mr.

Rochester had met under happier conditions; and if the meeting of the runaway lovers Charlotte Brontë repeats so faithfully in _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ did not refer to a private meeting subsequent to the beginning of 1844, between her and M. Héger, or to their meeting again when she returned to Brussels the second time, then have we evidence of the fact that she at one time perhaps believed _Wuthering Heights_ would be never published. Assuredly nothing was sweeter to Currer Bell's fancy than a dream of the happiness that might have been hers, and well may she have written in the last sentences of _Villette_:-- Leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life. Charlotte Brontë and M.

Constantin Gilles Romain Héger loved each other as those who are worshippers of two high ideals, when one of these ideals is love, the other honour. And this was tragedy. To the agonizing

**MDLLE:** nature of unrequitable affection endured for honour's sake do we owe Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_. CHAPTER XIV.

**THE RECOIL:** I. The elements that conduce to reaction and recoil are sometimes fatal to the best proposed and ablest evolved schemes of man. Priests and counsellors may gravely devise; knight and maid may devoutly swear; the pious neophyte and the exalted religionist may make solemn pledge, but reaction often brings catastrophe. Thus the Christian Church is rightfully a watchful Body, a militant Force, preaches the weakness of man and cries "Ora continenter!" And herein lies the value of a ponderous state procedure. Irritating in its slow gravity and indifferent to the passionate appeals of emotionalism, such procedure yet withstands the backward wave which comes as answer to courageous but costly proposals. The unsupported and undisciplined individual, like communities, cannot always safely stand alone, and finally resolves into an automaton at the service of unlicensed and unconsidered impulse when the day of reaction comes.

The anthropologist and the pathologist relate how exacting straitness suddenly has broken down with a lamentable demonstration of most morbid prurience; and relentless history has chronicled grievous moral declensions in the lives of men and women whose careers in the greater part were records of generous and unselfish devotion to a noble cause or an honourable work. Until the day of reaction is safely fought through the battle is not won. Perhaps it was to prevent all possibility of a final and definite reconciliation between M. Héger and Miss Brontë that M. Sue, aided by his friends, ridiculed their attachment in his _feuilleton, Miss Mary_. Not that Eugène Sue would do this necessarily for Virtue's sake, but the position of moral reprehender gave him title to the rôle he had assumed. M. Héger was sorely punished to lose Miss Brontë, as M.

Sue has shown, and as we have seen Charlotte Brontë herself tells us in a letter; and the intensity of his affection for her is only further accentuated by the light M. Sue throws on the subject in a conversation which occurs between Alphonsine and the jealous mother, concerning Mdlle. Lagrange in the opening chapters of his _feuilleton_. As I have stated, evidence

**THE RECOIL:** compels us to perceive M. , Interchange of the sexes for obfuscation's sake, M. Héger in Alphonsine: Madame de Morville (Madame Héger) has just said Mdlle. Lagrange (Miss Brontë) affected a little to speak of her humble origin. c'est une erreur. Quand, par hasard, elle parlait de sa famille, c'est que la conversation venait là-dessus. D'ailleurs, écoute donc, Mademoiselle Lagrange eût été fière qu'elle en avait le droit." not of her face, poor girl." "No, that is true." Madame de Morville admits that Mdlle. Lagrange was endowed with patience, learning, and fortitude; and says, "Tu le sais, nous avions pour elle les plus grands égards." and myself, I loved her like a sister." To which Madame de Morville retorts: "A ce point que, pendant les premiers jours qui ont suivi son départ je t'ai vue souvent pleurer, et que depuis je te trouve triste." se quitter après plus de trois ans d'intimité, cela vous laisse du chagrin."

"This sensibility does credit to your heart, but after all it seems to me that you and I shall be able by our mutual tenderness to console each other for the loss d'une étrangère." tu es pour moi, n'est-ce pas, aussi affectueuse que possible; pourtant tu m'imposes toujours; il y a mille riens, mille folies, mille bêtises si tu veux, que je n'oserais jamais te dire, et qui nous amusaient et nous faisaient rire aux larmes avec cette pauvre Mademoiselle Lagrange; et puis ces causeries sans fin pendant les récréations, nos jeux mêmes, car elle était très enfant quand elle s'y mettait[70]; all this made our temps de l'étude pass like a dream, and that of recreation like a flash." je ne jouissais de la société de ces demoiselles que lors de notre promenade d'avant dîner, ou le soir jusqu'à l'heure du thé." The irreparableness of the loss at first to M. Héger is herein clearly

**THE RECOIL:** shown. But whether he would confess himself to Miss Brontë afterwards is not certain. , to that "He was a religious little man, in his way: the self-denying and self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion commanded the homage of his soul." Likely enough it is that M. Héger hailed, as do truly noble men, the day of trial, and elevated by the very agony of great sacrifice the personality which worshipped a conception of duty consonant with Divine law. It seems, though, that then the battle was won; his day of reaction was fought through. At the time of what M. de Morville call "ce premier entraînement" was the greatest danger, and abundant testimony goes to prove he would have gone the length of indiscretion but that Charlotte Brontë, herself innately honourable and influenced by her Christian upbringing, checked the mad rush of impetuous passion. Then the Church of M. Héger intervened.

: "We were under the surveillance of a sleepless eye: Rome watched jealously her son through that mystic lattice at which I had knelt once, and to which M. Emanuel drew nigh month by month--the sliding panel of the confessional." She was much gratified by M. Héger's fervent admiration, though she had perforce to remember their circumstances. As M. Sue said of Lagrange so it had been with Miss Brontë:-- The girl had never before known love, save by reading and hearing of its magical influence. All the natural tenderness which lay in her heart she had year after year suppressed. , if we may read them in the biographical sense Mr. Mackay suggests, show there had been a day when she perceived external influences were dictating to M. Héger a line of moral procedure. Obviously, while she herself had held temptation at bay she was strong; but once she discovered an ally was lessening the

**THE RECOIL:** necessity of her defence her woman's nature awoke. She doubted the sincerity of the past protestations of passion; she saw in every eye a sinister spy; she found in the Roman Church nothing but a partisan of Madame Héger (see Madame Beck and the Roman Church in _Villette_), and M. Héger became to her a very impersonation of insincerity and treachery. Of the secret tempest which had begun to rage within herself she would disclose nothing to M. Héger; and she would know that once the storm slept the end might be the worst. But Charlotte Brontë was not yet in the season of the recoil, though alone, wretched, and rapidly losing faith in God and man. As for M. Héger, he was supported by the knowledge that the ideal of the good and pious is glorified by sacrifice. That "Hell holds no fury like a woman scorned" is a platitude, for a woman scorned in the meaning of the writer is a woman with a shattered life.

In her fullest and native sense she ceases to exist thereafter. However, as in many cases Nature provides a remedy for her maimed, woman has given her dissimulation. But to quote Charlotte Brontë's poem, "Frances":-- "Who can for ever crush the heart, Restrain its throbbing, curb its life? Dissemble truth with ceaseless art, With outward calm mask inward strife?" It is a dangerous day when woman is her very self and thwarted. Then, and only then, can she utter the distressing blasphemies Charlotte Brontë places in the mouth of the speaker in her verses, "Apostasy":-- "Talk not of thy Last Sacrament, Tell not thy beads for me; Both rite and prayer are vainly spent, As dews on the sea. Speak not one word of Heaven above Rave not of Hell's alarms; Give me but back my Walter's love, Restore me to his arms! 'Tis my religion thus to love, My creed thus fixed to be; Not Death shall shake, nor Priestcraft break My rock-like constancy!" I

an existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if I were entirely contained here? my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and _he_ remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I _am_ Heathcliffe,--he's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am a pleasure to myself--but as my own being--so don't talk of our separation again." It is of the barriers which divided the woman of the verses "Apostasy" from her lover that the priest has reminded her. Did I need that thou shouldst tell What mighty barriers rise To part me from that dungeon-cell Where my loved Walter lies?" The whole history of Charlotte Brontë's Brussels life before us, the fact that an insurmountable barrier--his marriage--separated her from M.

Héger, and the fact that she herself consulted[72] a Roman Catholic priest whom I designate as her "Fénélon," advising, like the Mentor of Télémaque,[73] the tempted one to "flee temptation," identify these "barriers" as a covert reference to the circumstances unhappily existing which made intimacy between Miss Brontë and M. Héger dangerous. We know this was no freak, as also that it was impossible for Charlotte to mention the subject to her sister without attributing it to a freak. More, we perceive now the nature of her confession, and, the "Flee temptation!"

of himself I must ever retain a grateful recollection. He was kind when I needed kindness; he did me good. May heaven bless him! I mention that by her composite method of presenting characters, which Charlotte Brontë admitted to have employed, Dr. John Bretton, while often in the beginning representing Mr. Smith the publisher, becomes finally a representation of the Rev. Mr. [74] So in _Jane Eyre_, St. John Rivers while in the main representing the Rev. Patrick Brontë, becomes associated temporarily with that priest I have called Charlotte Brontë's Brussels Fénélon. " Miss Brontë admits he had had great influence with her, and this fact and the testimony of her poem "Apostasy" just quoted show this priest and his admonitions were in her mind when she wrote the final scene between herself and St. ).

Therein, as in that poem and in _Wuthering Heights_, "Religion" and "Angels"[75] are set as being less to her than the vicinage of her lover. Indeed the India and the missionary life of _Jane Eyre_, and the marriage with St. outline of my experience," as she terms it. Therefore it is interesting to observe that, as the woman in "Apostasy" suddenly hears the voice of her lover calling and says:-- "He calls--I come--my pulse scarce beats, My heart fails in my breast. Again that voice--how far away, How dreary sounds that tone!

**THE RECOIL:** And I, methinks, am gone astray In trackless wastes and lone. [76] I come! in haste she said, 'Twas Walter's voice I heard!" so in the scene in _Jane Eyre_: St. John ejaculates-- 'My prayers are heard!' He pressed his hand firmer on my head, as if he claimed me; he surrounded me with his arm, _almost_ as if he loved me ["That priest had arms which could influence me; he was naturally kind, with a sentimental French kindness, to whose softness I knew myself not wholly impervious. 'Show me, show me the path!' I heard a voice somewhere cry 'Jane! Jane! I had heard it--where or whence, for ever impossible to know! 'I am coming!' 'Wait for me! Oh, I will come!' I broke from St. John, who would have detained me. _My_ powers were in play, and in force. fell on my knees, and prayed in my way--a different way to St. eager but for the daylight. Mrs.

Gaskell related that Charlotte Brontë in private conversation in reference to this preternatural crying of a voice, replied with much gravity and without further enlightenment that such an incident really did occur in her experience. Whether it occurred in connection with her

**THE RECOIL:** Brussels Fénélon and immediately preceded a reconciliation between herself and M. Héger I know not. As, however, Charlotte Brontë's expression of gratitude to this priest and the whole fervent story of thankfulness for the deliverance from dangerous temptation were written subsequently to her return from Brussels, it is clear there was never a reconciliation which cost either her or M. Héger honour. I do not urge this as an advocate; I state it on the strength of unmistakable evidence. Miss Brontë believed it better to leave Brussels and avoid the possibilities of the peculiar situation--a situation always fraught with temptation. Hence her sudden resolve to return to England. Arrived at Haworth the full recoil came. She had won through a great ordeal, and she knew that surrounded by his wife and family,[77] comforted by piety and the knowledge of his happy issue from involution in disastrous complications, M.

Héger would resume tranquilly his accustomed course of life. To Charlotte Brontë, who by the showing of all evidence was initially responsible for a morally gratifying outcome of their dangerous attachment, this was a galling picture. Knowing nothing of the ecstatic delights of the pietist in the sacrificial sense of M. Héger, who was a devoted member of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, and, as he is made to describe himself in _Villette_, "a sort of lay Jesuit," she became just a woman living in the world of her primal nature and conceiving but that she had lost. Miss Rigby--afterwards Lady Eastlake--who wrote the remarkable article on _Jane Eyre_ in _The Quarterly Review_ of 1849, perceived with a flash of real insight and the instinct of womanhood that Currer Bell's pen had presented ungarbed, vital relations of some man and woman identical in both _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_.

_Wuthering Heights_, which so soon had followed the appearance of _Jane Eyre_, she suddenly recognized as the very storm-centre of this literary tornado of passionate declamation; and she chastised that work in the name of _Jane

**THE RECOIL:** Eyre_, for she could not know all the cruel truth, and she feared to popularize _Wuthering Heights_. Although Miss Rigby wrote:--"It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength," she added, "but it is the strength of a mere heathenish mind which is a law unto itself." ] to be written by Ellis Bell--unless it were for the sake of a more individual reprobation. ], is abominably pagan. Miss Rigby thus excused herself a further consideration of _Wuthering Heights_. In the days of the gratification of discovering the one she loved in return loved her,[78] this recognition stood between Charlotte Brontë and "every thought of religion, as an eclipse between man and the broad sun," so in another sense truly did the contemplation of M. Héger's self-pacification intervene in the time of reaction. The doubtings and agonizing emotions of her equivocal season in Brussels were now precipitated.

Her poems "Gilbert," "Frances," and "Preference" are testimony to her vengeful and retaliative instinct; as are her portrayals of M. Héger as M. Pelet of _The Professor_ and as Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_. But as I show in the next chapter, Charlotte Brontë afterwards regretted her human weakness and her vituperations of the day of the recoil. She began to set forth the story of her ordeal more sanely and proportionately in _Jane Eyre_. As one who soberly rewrites of fact, she recited therein much that she already had given detachedly; and consistently she presented by aid of the frame-work of "plot" from Montagu's _Gleanings in Craven_ which already had given her elemental suggestions for her _Wuthering Heights_, the history of her life in _Jane Eyre_--a work that stands as testimony to Charlotte

**THE RECOIL:** Brontë's love of truth as to her heroic battling in the days of fiercest temptation. A constant yearning to fine a presentation from untruthfulness is the God-given attribute of the artist, and this was responsible for much that is called harsh in Charlotte Brontë's character as a writer: she would not even spare her own physical and nervous imperfections in her self-portrayals. Emily Brontë would have presented Branwell Brontë as viewed through _couleur de rose_, yet Charlotte Brontë immortalized him as Hindley Earnshaw and John Reed--as she saw him: weak, tyrannical, a moral wreck. So she presented M. Héger. She knew his faults--and they were many; but she loved him though she hated them. Her sense of truth and justice, albeit she had lost the rancour of the time of the reaction, determined her in _Jane Eyre_, it is obvious, to show the occultation of her life's happiness by the incidents of her Brussels life.

She would show there had been a day when the barriers between them would have been rashly ignored by him. Thus Rochester is made to sing in _Jane Eyre_, Chap. :-- "I dreamed it would be nameless bliss, As I loved, loved to be; And to this object did I press As blind as eagerly. But wide as pathless[79] was the space That lay, our lives, between, And dangerous as the foamy race Of ocean-surges green. [80] I dangers dared; I hindrance scorned; I omens did defy: Whatever menaced, harassed, warned,[81] I passed impetuous by. On sped my rainbow, fast as light; I flew as in a dream; For glorious rose on my sight That child of Shower and Gleam. Still bright on clouds of suffering dim Shines that soft, solemn joy; Nor care I now, how dense and grim Disasters gather nigh; I care not in this moment sweet, Though all I have rushed o'er Should come on pinion, strong and fleet, Proclaiming vengeance sore." It is clear the impediment of M.

Héger's marriage is suggested in these verses. But undeniable evidence as to Charlotte Brontë's having escaped by flight what she considered a most dangerous temptation, is the fact

**THE RECOIL:** that we find she was influenced to pen these lines, wherein M. Héger (Rochester) is likened to a wild pursuer of a "shower and gleam" nymph who sped before him "fast as light" and "glorious rose on his sight," by Montagu's reference, in _Gleanings in Craven_, to the story of a Craven nymph a satyr pursued yet lost by her being changed into a spring. Says Frederic Montagu:-- "In the _Polyolbion_, published in 1612, is the following passage:-- In all my spacious tract let them (so wise) survey Thy Ribble's rising banks, their worst and let them say; At Giggleswick, where I a fountain can you show, That eight times in a day is said to ebb and flow! And to the Topic Gods by praying to escape, They turned her to a Spring, which as she then did pant, When, wearied with her course, her breath grew wond'rous scant, Even as the fearful Nymph, then thick and short did blow, Now made by them a Spring, so doth she ebb and flow."

This is not all. We know now the truth regarding Charlotte Brontë's Brussels life, and seeing she discovered a pertinence in the state of the Craven Nymph to her own--for it is undeniable Rochester's song was modelled on the lines Montagu quotes--it is likely that what I term the "river" suggestion and the Craven Elf suggestion which resulted in Charlotte Brontë's portraying herself in the rôle of the stream-named Craven elf, Janet Aire or Eyre, had to do with Montagu's mention of this nymph of Craven who escaped a dangerous persecution by becoming a

**THE RECOIL:** spring. It seems, indeed, that if she did not at first utilize the parallel of this narrative in verse with her own experience, she yet in _Wuthering Heights_ was influenced by it, in the days which I call the period of the recoil, to represent her hero Heathcliffe as a ruin-creating, semi-human being. Whether the lines-- "It was a Satyr's chance to see her silver hair Flow loosely at her back as up a cliff she clame," had in the connection to do with the "cliffe" in "that ghoul Heathcliffe's" name a reference to Charlotte Brontë's Preface to _Wuthering Heights_, and her words on the creation of Heathcliffe, in my next chapter, may declare.

It is now impossible not to understand the origin of the Satyr and Nymph passage and its implication in the chapter of _Jane Eyre_ containing Rochester's song, when he says to Jane in the very same chapter:-- "You shall sojourn at Paris, Rome, and Naples: at Florence, Venice, and Vienna: all the ground I've wandered over shall be retrodden by you: wherever I stamped my hoof, your sylph's foot shall step also." CHAPTER XV.

**THE RECOIL:** II. reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position. I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking--fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation. , in relation to herself and "Mrs. Reed," give us an insight into her extraordinary alternations of mood. To inquire deeply into her determining initially to disavow the authorship of _Wuthering Heights_ requires a somewhat ruthless baring of the "fiendish" vindictiveness against M. Héger between the dates of 1844-46, that was a characteristic of the portrayals of him I have mentioned; but it also reveals her active turn to a spirit of repentance for past vindictive feeling, the which she acknowledges to have known.

It seems that it was in a spirit of reproach Charlotte Brontë wrote the vengeful scene between Heathcliffe and Catherine in _Wuthering Heights_, harsh in threat almost as her poem "Gilbert," wherein the man, satisfied with the affections of his wife and children, has banished the remembrance of her of whom he boasted--"She loved me more than life," and who is made to say, before her spirit in the form of a white-clad spectre comes to him:-- "As I am busied now, I could not turn from such pursuit To weep a broken vow." , when Catherine is embraced by Heathcliffe, she says bitterly:-- "I wish I could hold you till we were both dead! I shouldn't care what you suffered. I care nothing for your sufferings. Why shouldn't you suffer? I do! Will you forget me? Will you be happy when I am in the earth? 'That's the grave of

**THE RECOIL:** Catherine Earnshaw. I loved her long ago, and was wretched to lose her; but it is past. I've loved many others since: my children are dearer to me than she was; and at death, I shall not rejoice that I am going to her; I shall be sorry that I must lose them!' Will you say so, Heathcliffe?" "Are you possessed with a devil," he pursued savagely, "to talk in that manner to me when you are dying?" you said I killed you--haunt me then! The murdered _do_ haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts _have_ wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad!" Charlotte Brontë's poems, "Frances,"[82] "Gilbert," and "Preference" (wherein we have literature in allegory preferred to a lover), show there had been to her a season of darkest misery when, to quote _Villette_ concerning herself as Lucy Snowe, "all her life's hope was torn by the roots out of her riven outraged heart."

Whether this was the time when, in the words of herself as Jane Eyre, "faith was blighted, confidence destroyed": a time to her when Mr. Rochester (M. Héger) was not to her "what she had thought him," the reader shall decide. would not say he had betrayed" her. She forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at [her] heart's core. See the phase of M. Pelet in the _The Professor_. Evidence shows it was in her dark season when Charlotte Brontë wrote _Wuthering Heights_, and that she portrayed M. Héger therein with all

**THE RECOIL:** the vindictiveness of a woman with "a riven outraged heart," the wounds in which yet rankled sorely. Whether it is right or advisable to create a being like Heathcliffe I do not know; I scarcely think it is. Even in _Villette_ there were recurrences of the spasmodic spirit of vindictiveness responsible for Charlotte Brontë's harsh portrayal of M. Héger as Heathcliffe, though "at her heart's core she then forgave him." , she refers to M. Paul (M. Héger) antithetically, and all the more significantly, in a comparison of him with Dr.

_Wuthering Heights_, however, containing too humiliating a story of Charlotte Brontë's heart-thrall, her misery and her wild vindictiveness, and also for the reasons stated in the beginning of this chapter--her saving remorse--she seems early to have determined to repudiate her authorship of it; indeed, so largely is she now found to have used the work in _Jane Eyre_, we might say she once had contemplated destroying the manuscript. The subsequent arrangement made in the name of Ellis Bell that the work by the same author should go to Mr. Newby, the

**THE RECOIL:** publisher of _Wuthering Heights_, gave finality to this tragedy of authorship which, but for the discoveries in this, _The Key to the Brontë Works_, would have remained for ever unrevealed, and a reproach to literature--a thing of untruth thickly hidden. Had Charlotte Brontë destroyed _Wuthering Heights_ before its publication she would have saved this sensational disclosure. But she hesitated to destroy the manuscript at once, and as an alternative to identifying herself with its authorship, she sent forth her work under a _nom de guerre_, part of which had been employed by her sister Emily. We well know the difficulties that resulted; the judgment of scholars and thinkers was impugned and their sane pronouncements were pilloried.

_Wuthering Heights_ being published, the work was the world's property; it stood for public purposes, to submit to all criticism and research, and it came neither in Charlotte Brontë's province nor in that of any person to prevent its being subjected to the final inquiry with which the cold light of truth exposes all things. Doubtless Charlotte Brontë perceived this, and regretting the facileness of her pen and the vituperativeness of her mood of that past and hateful night, she set herself, in her subsequent works, to make clear she had overdrawn the bitterness of the relations which one time had existed between herself and M. Héger.

Perhaps she could not expect her retractions would be understood of all men, but it pleased her inmost soul, and having a final sense of justice, and a softening of her heart for her vehement passionateness, she continued in all her works subsequent to her _Wuthering Heights_ to reconstruct this her early version. Thus Charlotte Brontë as Caroline Helstone of _Shirley_ is Catherine Earnshaw of _Wuthering Heights_, with the distinction I mention. Moore is admitted, as I have said, to have been drawn from M. _ Chapter XII. Chapter XXIV. Catherine's illness, and her Caroline's illness, and her doubting the absent lover, doubting the absent lover,

**THE RECOIL:** Heath(cliffe). Mrs. Dean in Moor(e). " asked Caroline of Catherine to Mrs. Dean. "I on Mrs. Pryor, and looked at the brink of the grave! a fever of mental Mr. [Mrs. come when I am senseless, cold, and stiff. What can my departed And farther on, in delirium, as soul feel then? Can it see or though her lover were present:-- know what happens to the clay? me twelve feet deep, and throw Can the dead at all re-visit the church down over me, and I those they leave? Can they come will not rest till you are with in the elements? " ["Heath(cliffe), I only water, fire, lend me a path to wish us never to be parted, and Moor(e)? Does nothing haunt same distress underground," says it?" Catherine, in a further chapter] "I never will." you said I considering--"He'd rather I'd killed you--haunt me then!" And come to him! Find a way haunt him she does. [84] not through that of Caroline Helstone of

**THE RECOIL:** kirkyard. You are slow! Be _Shirley_ she "revisits him she content, you always followed has left." She "goes in the me!" elements," "the wind lends her a path[84] to her lover," and it Mrs. Dean perceived it vain "to is not "for nothing the wind argue against her insanity." passes the casement of

" outside "the lattice." Catherine at last!" blowing out the light. Chapter XIII. Mrs. I feel worst shock of what was where I am: this is Mrs. Pryor denominated as brain fever. " waking. Is there not mounds," replied Mrs. [85] a south wind, and is not the snow gone?" It is in _Shirley_ that Charlotte Brontë gives, inadvertently or purposely, the origin of the title of _Wuthering Heights_, and we see therewith why she came afterwards to choose for her autobiographical-self in _Villette_, the name of Lucy Snowe. We perceive she had been singularly impressed by an old Scottish ballad, entitled, "Puir Mary Lee," and it is important and interesting to note that Dr. Joseph Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_ refers readers to this very same poem in connection with the origin of the northern word "wuthering," in the form of the verb "whudder," or "wuther." And so, in a letter to Mr. W. S.

Williams, of November 6th, 1852, Miss Brontë wrote of Lucy Snowe[86]:-- As to the name of the heroine, I can hardly express what subtlety of thought made me decide on giving her a cold name; but at first I called her 'Lucy Snowe' (spelt with an 'e'), which 'Snowe' I afterwards changed to 'Frost.' Subsequently I rather regretted the change, and wished it 'Snowe' again. If not too late, I should

like the alteration to be made now throughout the MS. A _cold_ name she must have; partly, perhaps on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle--partly on that of the 'fitness of things,' for she has about her an external coldness. Thus we understand Charlotte Brontë was anxious that her autobiographical-self in _Villette_ should be called Snowe. While, in mentioning the matter to her publishers, she endeavoured to show a superficial and commonplace reason for her singular choice, the truth underlies her words wherein she says she "can hardly express what subtlety of thought" made her decide on "a cold name."

The subtlety of thought that dictated the choice of the "cold name" Snowe had, we shall see, a connection with the old Scottish ballad, "Puir Mary Lee," which evidence shows was responsible at the dark season to which I have referred for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the title of _Wuthering Heights_--for her identifying her own bitterness with that of "Puir Mary Lee." [As Lucy Snowe, Charlotte Brontë writes in _Villette_ in perfect sympathy with this: "If I feel, may I never express? she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. --that old Scotch ballad, written I know not in what generation nor by what hand. those of a deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl. Anguish has driven her from the ingle-nook

she hates these, but 'waur' she hates 'Robin-a-Ree!' ance I lived happily by yon bonny burn-- The warld was in love wi' me; But now I maun sit 'neath the cauld drift and mourn, And curse black Robin-a-Ree! "Then whudder awa' thou bitter biting blast, And sough through the scrunty tree, And smoor me up in the snaw fu' fast And ne'er let the sun me see! "Oh, never melt awa' thou wreath o' snaw, That's sae kind in graving me; But hide me frae the scorn and guffaw O' villains like Robin-a-Ree!" Thus internal evidence proves that the name of _Wuthering Heights_ for the abode of the "deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl," Catherine Earnshaw, was primarily chosen by Charlotte Brontë because of its special appeal to her own mood at a given period, in relation to the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee," and proves that the choice of the name of Snowe for her "cold and altered" autobiographical self in _Villette_ was dictated by its connection therewith.

* * * * * "The very wildness of my sorrow Tells me I yet have innate force; My track of life has been too narrow, Effort shall trace a broader course." have liked to marry her, and that I _have_ not done so is a proof that I _could_ not." Lucia's (Miss Brontë's) "faculty" was literature: the physiognomy was obviously an obfuscation. It is significant that Charlotte Brontë again took "Lucia," for the Christian name of Lucia or Lucy Snowe. See my references to Hunsden as a phase of M. Héger.

was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate. now spread waste, wild, and white as pine forests in wintry Norway. I looked at my love: that feeling which was my master's--which he had created; it shivered in my heart like a suffering child in a cold cradle; sickness and anguish had seized it; it could not seek Mr. Rochester's arms--it could not derive warmth from his breast. Oh, never more could it turn to him; for faith was blighted--confidence destroyed! Mr. That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, 'the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire; I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me.'

The inclusion in _Shirley_ of the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee" and the remarks anent it were apparently digressive, but they are followed by the "subtle" disclaimer:-- But what has been said in the last page or two is not germane to Caroline Helstone's feelings, or to the state of things between her and Robert Moore. Robert had done her no wrong; he had told

her no lie; it was she that was to blame, if any one was; what bitterness her mind distilled should and would be poured on her own head. Indeed, there is evidence of a reconciliation between M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë, this being most marked in _Jane Eyre_ and _Shirley_. , of Caroline and her lover that:-- The air was now dark with snow; an Iceland blast was driving it wildly. This pair neither heard the long "wuthering" rush, nor saw the white burden it drifted; each seemed conscious but of one thing--the presence of the other. After the close of 1850, Charlotte Brontë resolved into the mood which was an earlier characteristic; and the choice of the name of Snowe for herself and the extraordinary tenacity with which she held to the name, having it re-inscribed in _Villette_ by the printers though she had herself changed it, show she had returned somewhat to that state in regard to her affection for M.

Héger responsible for the passionateness of her _Wuthering Heights_. [88] Dobell's supposition that she wrote the book had no connection whatsoever with my discovering Charlotte Brontë was the author of _Wuthering Heights_; neither had the fact that Miss Rigby--Lady Eastlake--in _The Quarterly Review_, spoke of _Wuthering Heights_ as "purporting to be written by Ellis Bell" but having "a decided family likeness to _Jane Eyre_," and with still more point, identified

"Catherine and Heathcliffe of _Wuthering Heights_ as Jane and Rochester of _Jane Eyre_ in their native state." For I early found I must credit only the internal evidence of the Brontë works as my interpretative guide. Having written "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" nothing could prevent my discovery of that novel's kinship with _Wuthering Heights_; and so far back as August 29, 1902, I penned in a private letter enclosed with the proof sheets of my article to Mr. Harold Hodge, the editor of _The Saturday Review_, a confession that I was finding a strong kinship between the two novels. I owe to my persistent consciousness of this close kinship the fact that I finally discovered the amazing secrets of _Wuthering Heights_, and was enabled to state publicly in my _Fortnightly Review_ article of March 1907, Charlotte Brontë and none other wrote _Wuthering Heights_.

It was then I turned with interest to the remarks of Sydney Dobell, the author of _Balder_, and "a notable figure in the history of English thought" as he has been named, whose review of Charlotte Brontë's works had resulted in her being acclaimed a leading author and a genius. the frame of mind in which she sat down to write her first [_Wuthering Heights_]. only further evidence of the same producing qualities to which _Wuthering Heights_ bears testimony. Charlotte Brontë warmly thanked him and protested. With eager honesty he again and again begged her to visit him and discuss the authorship of _Wuthering Heights_. Could Sidney Dobell but have been told the secret tragedy of Currer Bell's life and the bitterness of her cup, how he

would have shrunk from inflicting her with an intrusive personal inquiry. _Wuthering Heights_ was wrought near the furnace of Charlotte Brontë's fiery ordeal, and gives at its intensest that which glows through her other works, finally to flash up and smoulder out in _Villette_. By reason of its clear portrayal of woman when she is very woman _Wuthering Heights_ towers above all common literary artistry, one of the finest novels in the world, an abiding monument to the vital genius of Charlotte Brontë. After her return from Brussels her life was a long human conflict, with vain regrets, vindictive recriminations, and luring memories opposing heroic commandings in the name of right and virtue. All honour to her that she fought to win! Had Charlotte Brontë and M.

Héger been characterless individuals of the common type who, knowing nothing of self-sacrifice and nobleness of life, yield to the call of immediate and unlicensed impulse, we could never have had these most vital representations, these most poignant revelations of the Martyrdom of Virtue--the works of our immortal Currer Bell. Her vehicle of confession--her dialect, was what men have termed fiction. But her heart was satisfied that truth has its ultimate appeal; and in the way of those sententious writers of old who garbed in an attractive vesture veritable and momentous records which would be preserved because they entertained, she gave the history of her life in a series of dramas we call the Brontë novels. For sixty years these have been read only as the creations of a brain that spun interesting fiction!

Now, by aid of _The Key to the Brontë Works_, it is revealed they are more than this, and we discover the real greatness of Currer Bell and the high rank of her genius. Like that which creates the noblest and most enduring of the world's literature, the genius of Charlotte Brontë truthfully preserves the past, while it will intimately appeal to and have a salient lesson and an inspiring message for any one

so ever who shall read, be it here and now, or in the time to come. CHAPTER XVI. THE BRONTË POEMS. Charlotte Brontë loved her sisters Emily and Anne, but in her introduction to the poetical selections from their literary remains she says little concerning their verse, preferring to give of each sister a kind of short biographical memoir. In dealing with Emily she dwelt poetically on the features of the Yorkshire moors, and thus extended to Emily's verses that atmosphere and charm which she (Charlotte) had fixed in _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_; and in writing on Anne she complained her verse gave evidence of a too melancholy religious feeling. The eldest surviving child in the Brontë family, after the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, it was Charlotte Brontë who would first set the ideal of literary composition before the Brontë children.

To her initial impulse, therefore, owe we the literary compositions that came from the pens of Emily, Anne, and Branwell. Evidence of this truth is the fact that Emily, Anne, and Branwell, in their writing, never got "right away," as the hunting phrase has it. There are many definitions of genius: may I define it as a message? Charlotte Brontë had a message. _Wuthering Heights_ and all the other works of Charlotte Brontë, prose and verse, had a vital message. Ellis Bell had no message. In a sort of idle, ruminative contemplation Emily Brontë constructed verse unburdened with purpose--verse that became involved at the moment it should have soared. , wherein we are told Emily saw visions, as it were, "faster than Thought can effect his combinations." We feel something of the clouded chaos of her moment of writing in her more impassioned or laboured verses; their illogic and incoherence fix it distressfully.

it instantly quickens to flame." And with her verse, so long as it was unburdened, indolent, it ran smoothly and pleasantly along with the simplicity of the _insouciant_; but confronted with magnitude the imagination flamed, reason and logic were involved, and there was an end of art. In her excited combativeness she hit out rashly. Thus in her last verses, considered her masterpiece, she says the "thousand creeds" which move men's hearts were "vain" to "waken doubt" in her creed, blind to the fact that truth and worship finally converge to one point, howsoever diverse their starting-places. The very unbeliever is a witness to man's innate seeking for truth and right: he is a non-believer in this or that because he conceives truth to be remote from it. He seeks truth albeit he is a wide wanderer. In "The Old Stoic" we have a "stoic" in Emily's rôle of bold challenger of chimera.

"Courage to endure" and "a chainless soul" are what this old stoic would ask for! The poet was ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that a true stoic, according to the rule of Epictetus, seeks to be not other than he is, and is content wheresoever he be, whatsoever his lot. The words of this poem are those of a bold neophyte, and they are interesting chiefly because we see advanced in them the hypothesis of punishment common to Emily's chimera-creating imagination. To repeat: so long as her mood was calm her verse ran pleasantly and smoothly along. But the saying tells us, "The good seaman is known in bad weather"; and so with the poet. Life is not a placid lake: the lethal lightnings play, and faith and happiness are threatened continually and on the whole horizon.

Charlotte Brontë, with memory of her own life-storm which has left us her _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and her other great prose works, wrote her introduction to Emily's poems in the spirit of one who looked on her pieces as the reflections of an uneventful life in the inner sense of vital soul-conflict. Anne Brontë's gentle poems, like Emily's, will appeal particularly to such readers as have sympathetic temperaments; they will not call to the human heart like the clarion notes of Charlotte Brontë's poem "Passion,"

but mayhap their low whisperings may waken sadly pleasant memories. With Currer Bell's poems I deal in various chapters, wherein we perceive their relationship to _Wuthering Heights_ and her other books which resulted from the harsh rigours of her tempest-bestormed night. And shall we not say a word for Branwell Brontë? He too wrote verse.[90] He was not a genius in the sense of my definition, but his verse is such as might appear in a member of a family a generation or a degree of kin removed from the genius of the house. Him we must remember compassionately as one physically weak, an unhappy victim of circumstances against which he had not the moral force to fight. Nor shall we forget that the Rev. Patrick Brontë, the father, wrote and published verse. His productions were printed in pamphlet form, and have been collected and republished.[91] As literature they are unimportant, but to the curious they may have a sort of interest.

**APPENDIX:** MINOR IDENTIFICATIONS OF PERSONS AND PLACES IN THE BRONTË WORKS. "WUTHERING HEIGHTS." There is not satisfactory evidence to enable the identification of the originals of Wuthering Heights the abode, and Thrushcross Grange. Similar homesteads are found anywhere near the Yorkshire moors. Architectural peculiarities and appointments are ever accretive properties with the novelist of imagination and latitude. This observation should be kept in mind also in regard to Charlotte Brontë's other works. See my remarks on page 57. "JANE EYRE." The interior of Thornfield Hall, as I mention on page 35, has been identified with that of "Norton Conyers," near Ripon; externally it has been associated with "The Rydings," near Birstall. Ferndean Manor has been identified with Wycollar Hall, near Colne.

A Brontë biographer says this place was set on fire by a mad woman,[92] but the story finds no mention in _The Annals of Colne_, 1878, or in _Lancashire Legends_, 1873, though "Wyecoller Hall" is dealt with at length in each work. "SHIRLEY." Gomersall and Birstall, near Batley, Yorkshire, contribute to the background of this story. "Field Head" has been identified with Oakwell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion. Evidence shows that intimately the Rectory in _Shirley_ was in the main Haworth Parsonage to Charlotte Brontë. is partly represented by Mr. ] Mr. characteristic traits." And Mr. Francis Leyland, who drew much of his information from Nancy Garrs, a Brontë servant, says that the fourth chapter of _Shirley_, wherein Charlotte speaks of the grossly untrue reports of Mr. , for his wife, is a defence really of Mr. Brontë. Helstone was a composite character, as also was Mrs.

Pryor, to whom, without doubt, Miss Wooler contributed, though Charlotte Brontë once had a grave difference with her. Miss Nussey, who pathetically and wrongly believed herself Caroline Helstone, proclaimed

**APPENDIX:** Miss Wooler, her schoolmistress, as the prototype of Mrs. Pryor. Evidence declares, however, that in many regards this character was also drawn from Tabitha Aykroyd. And we see that Charlotte Brontë, years before, in her _Wuthering Heights_, had given an ecclesiastical name--that of Dean--to her portrayal of the one woman who alone ever took up the part of mother for her--Tabitha Aykroyd. Nevertheless Mrs. Pryor was in the main a composite character, largely at the service of "story" requirements. Sometimes she is Tabitha, sometimes Miss Wooler; elsewhile she is neither. Mr. Macarthey is said to represent the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who became Charlotte Brontë's husband. , to Robin Hood's connection with Nunnwood and to the ruins of a nunnery, identify Nunnely in the circumstances, with Hartshead, near Brighouse and Dewsbury; Nunnely Church with Hartshead Church (Mr.

Brontë was once vicar here), and the Priory with Kirklees Hall or Priory--Kirklees Park, as we may see by turning to Dr. Whitaker's _Loidis and Elmete_, pages 306-9 (1816), wherein we find mention of Robin Hood and an old Cistercian nunnery in connection with Kirklees, appropriately now the residence of Sir George J. , one of the founders of the Harleian Society. Whinbury has been identified with Dewsbury; but I do not know that it has been remarked the name Dewsbury may have suggested to Charlotte Brontë the dewberry, bramble, or blackberry, thus leading her to adopt "whinberry" and, finally, Whinbury. The attack on Hollow's Mill is said to have been founded on an attempt in 1812, when an assault was made on the factory of Mr. Cartwright near Dewsbury. " _The Professor_, Charlotte Brontë offered to Messrs. Aylott & Jones in April 1846, was not published till after her death.

It is related to _Villette_ in something of the way, though not so verbally and intimately, that _Wuthering Heights_ is to _Jane Eyre_. The early chapters deal vaguely with a West Riding of Yorkshire town, but the

scene quickly changes to Brussels. The Héger _pension_ is recognized as the original of the schools in both novels, but in _Villette_ the place Villette occasionally becomes London as Charlotte Brontë knew it on her visits. Mr. George Smith, the Brontë publisher, and his mother, are portrayed as the Brettons. Mr. [93] The reader will find a phase of Currer Bell in Paulina--Miss de Bassompierre, and a sympathetic phase of Mr. Brontë in her father, for after the deaths of Emily, Anne, and Branwell, Charlotte and her father were brought closer to each other. And like Mr. "[94] Towards the close of _Villette_ we may find a phase of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, Charlotte Brontë's husband, in Dr. John Bretton, my previous remarks on whom observe. It was shortly after the completion of _Villette_ Mr. Nicholls proposed successfully, but it would seem by the concluding chapters Miss Brontë expected this.

The picture of the disappointment of the old father that his popular daughter would marry a plain character in life suggests to us the disappointment of the Rev. Patrick Brontë in regard to his daughter's marrying a curate. See Chapter XXXVII. Paulina, of course, is the feminine of Paul; and the original of M. Paul of this work we now well know. See footnote on page 120. The chronological sequences in Charlotte Brontë's novels are seldom carefully ordered: this should be remembered in reference to her record of events in her own life. " _Agnes Grey_ contains simple and natural portrayals of governess life in the eighteen-forties; and the following _Wildfell Hall_, we may conjecture, is built from evolved incidents founded on hearsay and experience. Whether Miss Brontë had assisted Anne or not, it is certain _Wildfell Hall_ has something in common with Currer Bell's novels.

The books connected with the name of Acton Bell, however, are not important

as literature in the higher sense of the word; and though a member of Messrs. Smith & Elder remarked to Miss Brontë on a similarity in the leading male characters of _Wildfell Hall_ to Rochester, interest in it is merely dependent on its association with the greater Brontë works, and the book does not call for sedulous inquiry. THE HÉGER PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY. The Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, London, purchased in July 1906, a hitherto unheard of portrait of Charlotte Brontë, painted in water-colours in 1850, and stated to be by M. Héger. A reproduction of the portrait was given in _The Cornhill Magazine_ for October 1906, Mr. Reginald J. , of Messrs. , the Brontë publishers, having to do with its discovery. In the early autumn of 1906, Mr.

, Surveyor of the King's Pictures and Works of Art, then Director of the National Portrait Gallery, was busily corresponding with me in regard to this portrait of Charlotte Brontë, the authenticity of which became sensationally attacked. At once I pointed out the importance and significance of the portrait's being signed "Paul Héger," instead of "Constantin Héger"; and other matters. In March 1907, I appended a footnote[95] to my article, "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil," in _The Fortnightly Review_, and on May 16th, 1907, the literary editor of _The Tribune_, Mr. E. G. Hawke, having placed space at my disposal, I wrote as follows:-- CHARLOTTE BRONTË. THE HÉGER PORTRAIT. To the Editor of _The Tribune_. SIR,--As the water-colour drawing by M.

Héger is now a valuable property of the nation, and gives a more intimately faithful and characteristic likeness of Charlotte Brontë than the Richmond portrait of "Currer Bell," now also hung in the National Portrait Gallery, kindly permit me publicly to present some of the many interesting facts connected with it. The portrait is signed "Paul Héger, 1850" (the accent is correct), and it represents Miss Brontë with curls, and reading _Shirley_, on one leaf of which is a heart transfixed with an arrow. The dress that she wears is light green, and on the back of the drawing is inscribed:

The Wearin' of the Green; First since Emily's death; that being the first occasion on which Miss Brontë wore colours after the death of her sister. And below: This drawing is by P. Hegér (accent thus), done from life in 1850. The pose was suggested first by a sketch done by her brother Branwell many years previous. The Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery acquired the portrait from a lady whose family obtained it nigh on forty years ago from Mr. Thomas Baylis, a personal friend of Lord Lytton. Mr. Baylis stated that he himself had acquired the portrait from the Héger family at Brussels. The children of the Mme. Héger who refused to see Mrs. Gaskell because of her dislike to Miss Brontë, aver that M. Héger never drew or painted. The statement, however, is directly opposed by indisputable evidence: (1.)

The portrait is authentic, and was drawn from life in 1850, and the inscriptions that it bears it is proved could have been inspired by none other than Charlotte Brontë herself or M. Héger. (2.) The statement of Mr. Thomas Baylis, a well-connected gentleman. (3.) Eugène Sue, in his 1851 volume of _Miss Mary ou l'Institutrice_, gives, with a clouding of mystery, a lover--Gérard de Morville--drawing a portrait of Miss Mary "d'après nature;" and M. [96] (4.) Miss Brontë, in _Shirley_, herself presents M. [97] The authenticity of the inscriptions is not involved in the question as to whether Charlotte Brontë would use careless spelling, for, if she had written them, couching them in the third person, it is clear that she had not desired to be known as the writer. On the other hand, it is discovered to be utterly impossible for any one but Charlotte Brontë or M. Héger to have inspired the inscriptions, whosoever wrote them.

**SIGNIFICANT PIECES OF EVIDENCE:** I find that M. Héger was Paul to none but Charlotte Brontë in 1850, and that before the publication, two years ago, of _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, by Mr. Clement Shorter, who, for reasons which he should explain, calls M. Constantin Gilles Romain Héger "M. , and in _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_: beneath the portrait of M. Héger, facing page 198, and bearing the inscription:--M. Paul Héger: The Hero of _Villette_ and _The Professor_; and on page 161 of that work] no reference in print had been made to M. Héger but as Constantin. The Hégers state that M. Héger was not called Paul, and that Dr. Paul Héger, his son, was the first member of the family named Paul.

A native of Haworth[98] who lived from 1830 till after the death of Charlotte Brontë in 1855, "within twenty yards of the Haworth Parsonage," her home, has pronounced the Héger portrait of Miss Brontë to be a correct likeness and "just like her." He says that it reminds him of her as he knew her and as she was in her younger days, and he pointed out to me particularly that he had seen her with her hair as in the Héger likeness, "scores of times before she went away"--this giving the clue to the reference in the inscription to a pose in a portrait by Branwell "many years previous" to 1850; and I have seen a reproduction of a sketch by Branwell wherein the Brontë sisters have curls. Moreover, I find that Miss Brontë really liked curls and disliked the other styles, though she conformed to the fashion.

I also find that the paper on which the Héger portrait of Miss Brontë was drawn was that used in 1850 by the house where she was a guest in London in the early June of 1850, at the very time to

within a day when, as there is indisputable evidence--despite assertions that she "never under any circumstances during the later period of her life wore a green dress"--Charlotte Brontë was wearing a light green dress. That was "the first occasion on which Miss Brontë wore colours," as the inscription tells us, and fact substantiates, after she had concluded the remarkably long mourning period for her sisters, which began with "the death of Emily" and did not end till twelve months after the death of Anne, who died on May 28th, 1849. (Signed) J. MALHAM-DEMBLEBY. Scarr Hill, Eccleshill, Bradford, May 16th, 1907. [99] Since it was published Mrs. Gaskell's daughters, who well knew Miss Brontë, have declared themselves fully satisfied as to the authenticity of the Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë and the faithfulness of the likeness. The testimony of Lady Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, also supports this portrait.

See my further references to my correspondence with her ladyship herewith. As regards the green dress, apart from the indisputable external evidence I referred to in the printed letter, I believe Charlotte Brontë speaks of it in _Villette_, though therein it is for obfuscation's sake (necessary indeed, since _Villette_ was published only a short time after her London visit) made "pink" and "flounceless." we find M. Paul saying--and it is interesting thus to have connected with the green dress a character whose prototype was M. of _Villette_ we undoubtedly have a real glimpse of incidents connected with the wearing of the green dress; and it should be remembered that Mrs. Bretton and Dr. John Graham Bretton in this chapter represent Mrs. Smith, and her son Mr. George Smith, the publisher, whose guest Charlotte Brontë was in 1850, when she first wore the green dress:-- One morning, Mrs. show her my dresses; which I did, without a word.

She returned presently with a dressmaker. She had me measured. "I mean," said she, "to follow my own taste, and to have my own way in this little matter." Two days after came home--a pink [green] dress! evening." I knew it not. It knew not me. I had not proved it. But wear it she did; and when Graham [Mr. George Smith] stood in the doorway looking at her, she tells us her uneasy aspiration was:-- "I _do_ hope he will not think I have been decking myself out to draw attention." Clearly Charlotte Brontë wished posterity to learn how it came about she was garbed in "light fabric and bright tint," because the green dress was a page in her life's history. In a green dress she sat down to dine, as Mr. Thackeray's daughter, Lady Ritchie has written me she well remembers, when Charlotte Brontë dined at Thackeray's house on June 12, 1850--not the event of the distinguished party, when Carlyle, Miss Perry, Mrs.

Procter, and others were present, though Lady Ritchie had once confounded the two in writing on the subject[101]. Mr. Thackeray's daughter was a young girl at the time to which she referred, but she has made clear to me she saw Miss Brontë three times; that the chief occasion was when Charlotte Brontë wore the light green dress. This, to quote her ladyship's words to me, was "not Mrs. Brookfield's party, when neither my sister and I nor our governess dined--though we came down in the evening. The second occasion was just casually at my father's lecture-room, when she did not speak to me, and the third, finally, at the Brookfield evening party, which seems to have been such a solemn affair[102]." These facts fix the wearing of the light green dress by Miss Brontë as June 12, 1850. Lady Ritchie tells me that "It was at an early family dinner by daylight with Charlotte Brontë, my father, Mr. George Smith,

my sister and our governess, that I remember sitting next Miss Brontë at dinner and gazing at her _sleeve_ and mittens. Her dress was of some texture like one I had had myself, which I suppose impressed it on me, and it had a little moss or coral pattern in green on a white ground. I only remember the sleeve, the straight look, and the smooth Victorian bandeaux of hair. I am sure she was _differently_ dressed at the Brookfield evening party." [103] And this was when Miss Brontë sat in a light green dress at the Thackeray dinner-table. The Richmond portrait of Charlotte Brontë being now also in the National Portrait Gallery, I may remark that Mrs. Mr. it looked good and lifelike." Charlotte Brontë herself said her father thought the portrait looked older than she.

In view of the new interest now attaching to Tabitha Aykroyd and Charlotte, it is instructive to find the latter telling us Tabitha "maintains that it is not like," and also, that Tabitha thought it "too old looking." Then she apologized for the old servant in a sentence that pathetically recalls Mrs. "[104] We discover, therefore, that in the main there was really dissatisfaction at the "old looking" presentation, and we see Charlotte Brontë from the beginning must have wished she had had her hair arrangement in that portrait as was common to her at home and in her younger days. Hence do we get a further insight into the origin of the different pose in the more characteristic and intimately faithful Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë.

**INDEX:** **INTRODUCTION TO THE SPECIAL KEY INDEX:** I stated in a letter to _The Academy_, August 1st, 1908, that "were it possible by application of a cipher code to discover the words 'Emily Brontë' in every sentence of _Wuthering Heights_, I could not even then say any one wrote the book but Charlotte Brontë." If people write before they think, then importance can be attached to clerical testimony and external associations to the disadvantage of internal and literal evidence. _Wuthering Heights_, we now see, is Charlotte Brontë, and it matters not what amanuensis dealt with the relation--what sequence of complications resulted from her first day of handing over the work to her sister, and of conspiring to conceal her authorship.

Had not my own two sisters died, I might have been tempted to make them novelists: out of my bottom drawer I could have provided them with a novel each and one for a "follow-on," and yet have left myself some maturer works in hand. But _my_ sisters would have had to copy out the manuscripts for the printers from my first drafts, and in every way possible to merit and to establish association with the books as authors. And how indignant we would have been--nay, alarmed, had there been a "Newby arrangement," at some daring critic, like Lady Eastlake and Sydney Dobell, imputing they were the work of one mind! Would we not have appealed to clerical testimony? With a more practised hand Charlotte Brontë in her days of fame corrected and edited _Wuthering Heights_. Emily was dead. Well might Charlotte say the labour left her "prostrate and entombed." --what a history!

It is obvious to all who consider carefully the letter Charlotte Brontë penned Wordsworth, to which I refer in the footnote on page 17 of _The Key to the Brontë Works_, that she wrote her books rapidly; and a review of the fact that the Brontë school project was renounced in favour of literary projects suggests Currer Bell in 1845-46

**INDEX:** revealed to her sisters the advantages of having a bottom drawer. Let any reader use what I have termed the Key Index to the works of Charlotte Brontë, and it will be perceived quite easily that _Wuthering Heights_ is irrefutably at one with Currer Bell and all her other books--that the works of Charlotte Brontë are all related to each other, to Charlotte Brontë, and to the facts and people of her life as seen and known by herself. The reader of a given Brontë work will glance down the list in the Key Index under the heading of the particular book in hand to find these very important and intensely interesting connections, now first shown to exist:--

**THE KEY INDEX:** TO THE LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

, 38, 40-1, 43-53, 77, 94-5, 147-8, 160, 168 ---- M. , 16, 17, 34, 56, 87, 89, 91-3, 96-103, 106, 111, 120-1, 128-9, 134-154, 157 ---- Madame Héger, 106-7, 117 ---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9 ---- Rev. , 17, 18, 40, 138, 146, 153, 156, 169 ---- M. , 25-31, 38-9, 48-51, 53, 55

, 40, 43-53, 77-8, 94-5, 105, 128, 168 ---- M. , 14, 82-9, 92-3, 96-107, 111, 120, 126-9, 136-146, 148-154 ---- Madame Héger, 106-7, 112, 117 ---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9 ---- Rev. , 69, 70-2, 79-81 ---- M. , 25-31, 45, 48-51, 72, 74

**SHIRLEY:** Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., ix., 41, 43, 69, 75, 81, 83-4, 87-9, 120, 136, 146-153, 156-7, 159, 160, 163 In relation to Tabby Aykroyd, 43, 160 ---- M. Héger, ix., 69, 81, 83-4, 120, 136, 146-153, 163 ---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9; Martha and Mary, 83-4 ---- Rev. Patrick Brontë, 41, 75, 159-161; Mrs. Brontë, 41, 159-161; Emily Brontë, 69, 81, 156-7 ---- Rev. A. B. Nicholls, 160; M. Sue, 163; Miss Wooler, 160 ---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 136 ---- _Wuthering Heights._ See Key Index for that work ---- _Jane Eyre._ " " " ---- _The Professor_, 83-9, 150-3 ---- _Villette_, 41, 86, 89, 136-142, 146-154, 160-1

**THE PROFESSOR:** Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., ix., 16, 18, 53-5, 63, 71, 79, 83-9, 111, 120-9, 138-9, 145, 150-2, 160 In relation to M. Héger, ix., 16, 63, 83-9, 111, 120-9, 138-9, 145, 150-2, 160, 164 ---- Madame Héger, 16, 111, 122-8, 131-3 ---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 83-9 ---- M. Sue, ix., 63, 84, 104, 107, 111, 120-9 ---- Branwell Brontë, 79 ---- Montagu, 63, 71 ---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 63, 71, 128, 139, 151, 158 ---- _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and _Shirley_. See Key Index for those works ---- _Villette_, ix., 86, 107, 111, 126-9, 139, 144-5, 149-151, 160 ---- Charlotte Brontë's Method I., ix., 121, 127-8, 131

**VILLETTE:** Its relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., ix., 41, 47, 86, 89, 92, 97, 103, 107, 111, 118, 126, 128-9, 132-7, 140, 144-5, 148-154, 160-1, 166-7 In relation to M. Héger, ix., 70, 86, 89, 92, 97, 103, 111, 118, 126, 128-9, 132-40, 145, 150-4, 166 ---- Madame Héger, 106, 118, 133 ---- Taylor of Hunsworth, 89 ---- M. Sue, ix., 103-4, 111, 118, 120-9, 130-5 ---- Lady Ritchie, xi., 165-8 ---- Mr. George Smith, 69, 160-1, 166-8; Mrs. Smith, 161, 166-8 ---- Thackeray, 70, 165-8 ---- Rev. Patrick Brontë, 77, 136, 161 ---- Rev. A. B. Nicholls, 69, 86, 161 ---- Charlotte Brontë's _Poems_, 128, 132-7, 140-5, 149-152 ---- _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, _Shirley_, and _The Professor_. See Key Index for those works END OF THE KEY INDEX TO CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S WORKS.

, 25-6, 98-103, and of Key Index to the Brontë Works, 169, 170; gives it Emily, 17, 18, 169; offers it publishers, 17; story of a sad Night, 17; why she disavowed authorship of, 143-6; unable to admit authorship of, 18, 146, 153, 169; preface to, 142, 145; rainy day in her childhood, 37-42; fit of frenzy, 48-51; spectral writing, 42; phantom hag, 42; her childhood reading, 41; Rev. , 169, 170 Brontë, Branwell, and authorship of, 40; as Hindley, 18, 37-40, 52-3, 69; carving knife incident, 39 Brontë, Rev. Patrick, as Mr. Linton, 49, 147, 161 Aykroyd, Tabitha, as Mrs. , in, 16, 17, 34. Also, see Key Index for foregoing names Earnshaw, Catherine, and Heathcliffe, as Jane and Rochester, 93-103, 139 Heathcliffe, as Rochester, 89-92, 138-9, 153; as "that ghoul," 140-6; and Taylor, 83-9; return of the runaway, 93, 97-103; expression of eyes, 90-1; the foundling, 22; origin of name, 22, 142 Hareton, origin of name, 22-3, 60, 64, 66; and M.

, 120-1 Joseph, original of, 23; as Poole of _Jane Eyre_ and Montagu's uncouth servant, 23-8, 30-1 Lockwood as Montagu, 23-32, 57-60, 66; his boy guide, 60, 66 Newby, Mr. Thomas, publisher of, 19, 146, 153, 169 Malham as Gimmerton, and Gimmerden;

**WUTHERING HEIGHTS:** Malhamdale as the valley of Gimmerton, 22-3, 57-68, 71; Glens, 58, 66, 68; Peniston Crags, 22-3, 59, 60, 65-6; Fairy Cave, 22-3, 59-66; Chapel, 22, 66-8, and Briar Chapel of _Shirley_, 41; Kirk in the lonely valley, 22, 64, 66-8; Fair, 22, 66-7; mists, 68; stream, 22, 68; sough, 66-68; Heights, 22, 66-7; Catherine, of, 23, 71 Montagu and, 20; Airton, 22-3; Airton, Robert, 60, 64, 71; Mrs., 60; lonely house of mystery and uncouth servant, 17, 23-32; cuckoo story or foundling "plot," 22-3, 33-4, 87; a night's repose and the candle-bearing bedside apparition, 21-32, 30-2 Brunty foundling controversy, 13; the key chapter, 40; origin of title, 56-7, 148-152; Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the abodes--originals not known, 159; Lady Eastlake and Dobell, 138-9, 153-4 Published later than _Jane Eyre_, 118, 138, 169

, 64, as Agnes Jones (death of), 106-110, and M. Sue, 108-110. "Rivers," origin of suggestion, 23, 71-2, 141-2, Diana and Mary, 70-8, 81-2, St. John as Mr. Brontë, 70-8, 81-2, as Charlotte's Brussels priest, 77, 132, 136-7, not Rev. Mr. -x; "Rydings," "Norton Conyers," and "Thornfield," 35, 159; Wycollar Hall, 159 ---- Rochester (see Key Index for M. , 20, 68, 153 Malham or Gimmerton, background of _Jane Eyre_, 22-3, 58-68; source of river Aire or Ayre, 23, 60-71; Jane of, 22-3, 60-6, 70-2; see Fairy Janet Aire or Eyre of Malham Montagu, and opening of _Jane Eyre_, 21-2;

**JANE EYRE:** lonely house of mystery, and uncouth servant (Grace Poole and Joseph), 17, 23-32 --Jane Eyre's and Lockwood's two dreams in, 28-30 --a night's repose and candle-bearing apparition in, 21, 23-32; origin of plot of insane lady, and of the white veil scene (Shelley), 24, 34-6; insane lady a secondary suggestion; suggests names, Aire or Eyre, Burns, Rivers, Reed, Keeldar, Broughton, Eshton, Georgiana, Helen, Ingram, Lowood, Lynn, Mason, Millcote, Poole, recalling perhaps a Rev. Mr. Pool, and Currer Bell, 21, 23-4

**SHIRLEY:** Brontë, Charlotte, as Shirley Keeldar, 81, 120; as Caroline Helstone (and Catherine Earnshaw), 41, 146-8, 152; her home the Rectory, 159; childhood reading, 41-2; Keeldar, name, 23; Shirley as Emily Brontë, 69, 156- 7. Helstone, Mr., 86; original of, 75, 159-161; name, 41; and Rev. H. Roberson, 86, 159- 160. Héger, M., and the Moores, 89, 146-8; Louis, 163; Robert, 152. Cartwright, Mr., 89, 160. Mr. Macarthey, 160. Mrs. Pryor, 147-8; a composite character, 160; and Mrs. Dean and Tabby, 43; Miss Wooler, 160. Yorke (Taylor), Hiram, 83-4; Matthew, 83; Rose, 83-4; Jessie, death of, 84 Birstall, Batley, 159; "Briarmains," 83; "Field Head," 159; The Red House, Gomersall, 83, 159; Oakwell House, 159. Hartshead, Brighouse, 160; Nunnwood, Nunnerly and church, Robin Hood, Kirklees Park, Priory, 160; Hollows Mill, 160; Whinbury (Dewsbury), 160. Published in 1849

**THE PROFESSOR:** Brontë, Charlotte, as Henri Frances Evans, 71, 122; as Crimsworth, ix., 127-8; Fairy Janet, 63, 71; wailing child apparition, 53-5; Lucia, 86, 151 Héger, M., as Crimsworth, 63, 127, 138; Hunsden, 83-9, 151; origin of name, 84; Pelet, 16, 84, 139, 145 Héger, Madame, as Mdlle. Reuter, 111, 122 Offered to publishers, 17; published, 160

**VILLETTE:** Brontë, Charlotte, as Lucy Snowe, 86, 131, 144, 120, 148-152; origin of name, 22, 56, 149, 151; childhood reading, 41; and Father Confessor, 77, 132, 136-7; as Paulina, 47, 120, and Cathy Linton, 161; Paulina and Mr. Home--Charlotte and Rev. Patrick Brontë, 161; final words in, 129 Bretton, Dr. John, Paulina's lover, 69, 161; as Mr. George Smith and Rev. A. B. Nicholls, 69, 86, 145, 160-1. Mrs. Bretton, 166 Héger, M., as Paul Emanuel, 42, 96-7, 126, 131, 145; his harshness, 85-6; and Thackeray, 70 Héger, Madame, as Madame Beck, 118, 133 Ritchie, Lady, and green dress, xi., 165-8 Villette as London and Brussels, 160-1 Published, 19; inception, 166 _Agnes Grey_ and _Wildfell Hall_, 17, 161.

, Sir Geo. , 160 Aykroyd, Tabby. See Brontë servants Branwell, Maria, of Penzance, marries Patrick Brontë, 75; death of, 14, 159-161 ---- Aunt (Elizabeth), and the Hégers, 113-4; Branwell Brontë her favourite, 37, 78-9; in mourning for, 72-3 ---- Cousin Eliza, 68, 80 Brontë, Annie or Anne (Acton Bell), as understudy to Charlotte, 17, 169; _Gondal Chronicles_, 17; _Agnes Grey_ and _Wildfell Hall_, 17, 161; appearance and life, 70-4, 77-8, 81-2; Poems, 156-8; death of, 161-5 ---- Charlotte, birthplace, 14; birthday, 14, 106; appearance, 118, 131, 165, 168. Childhood: a rainy day, 18, 37-42, 78; curtain incident, 38; Branwell as "tyrant" makes her head ache, 18, 37-42; "volume-hurling," 38-9, 78; Methodist literature, 40-2; writings and Mrs. Gaskell, 14; Tabby, 38, 40-1, 43-51, 168 --her homily, 40 --old songs and fairy tales (Charlotte's love of Scottish ballads), 47, 149, 150; the locked chamber, 48-51; passionateness, 45-6, 48-51,

**GENERAL INDEX:** 116. , 63, 82, 120-2, 131, 138, dejection at, 120-1, 124; M. , 105, as M. Sue's Mdlle. , 15, 16, 154; Branwell, 18, and his aunt, 79; at Haworth Parsonage, 69-82; school project given up, 16, 169. Poems publishing, 17: "Apostasy" and "Regret," 96-7, 133-7; "Frances," 132, 134, 144, 150-1; "Gilbert," 139, 143-4; "The Letter," 105; "Mementos," 150; "Apostasy," 133-7; "Preference," 132; "Passion,"

**GENERAL INDEX:** 157. Her hypochondria, 16, 87-8; "Puir Mary Lee," 45, 149, 150; the storm, 16, 17, 130-154, 157-8; vindictiveness against M. , 168; _Wuthering Heights_ complications (conspires to accredit and sustain Emily as author), 17, 146, 169; her fear of Mr. Newby, 19, 153, 169; limitations of Mrs. Gaskell's _Life_, 15 --disappointment of, 104; last survivor of the young Brontës, 19, 161; Introduction to her sisters' poems, 156-7; Miss Austen, 15; Rev. A. B. ; Greenwood Dyson and, 164. Last days: father and daughter, 161; her resting-place, 19; her Message and high rank of her genius, 16, 155. ; her life contrasted with Charlotte's, 17, 18, 156-7; relations with Branwell, 18, 39, 40, 139; appearance and life, 17, 72-4, 78, 81-2, 156-7; Poems, "Old Stoic," "Last Lines," 157; her literary limitations, 17, 156-7; death of, 161-5. See Key Index of _Shirley_ ---- Maria (Helen Burns), 18, 41, 71. See Key Index; also M.

Sue ---- Patrick Branwell, appearance, 79; artist, 18, 165-6; his verse, 158;

**GENERAL INDEX:** enjoys the hearth, 37-8; a sign of trouble for, 52-3; evil days, 39, 78-9, 158; and Aunt Branwell, 78-9; and M. Sue, 106, 110. As Hindley and John Reed, x., 18, 37-8, 52-3, 69, 78-9, 139. See also Key Index for _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and

---- Rev. Patrick, parents, Hugh Brunty and Alice M'Clory, 13; at Ballynaskeagh and Drumballyroney, 13; at Cambridge, 13, 74-5; Wethersfield, 75, and Mary Burder; Dewsbury, 75; Vicar of Hartshead, 160; marries Maria Branwell, 18, 75, 159-161; Vicar of Thornton, 14; of Haworth, 13; appearance and life, 13, 70-7, 82, 147, 159-161, 167-8; verse, 13, 158; and Mrs. Gaskell's Life, 15. ; as Nelly Dean and Bessie, 43-53, 168; does not understand Charlotte Brontë, 43, 45-6; and old songs, 45-7; also, 72, 77-8, 147-8, 160, 168; her homily, 40; her gift of narrative and fairy tales, 44-5; death of, 19, 96-7. Also see Key Index for _Wuthering Heights_, _Jane Eyre_, and _Shirley_. Brown, Martha, 47, 96, 161; Brown, Tabitha (Mrs. , 167-8 Carlisle, William, 167 Carus-Wilson, Rev. , and M. de Morville, 82, 104-6, 120-9, 132, 163. See Key Index for M.

Héger ---- Madame, 16; her jealousy, 104, 112, 117-8, 122-3, 121-2; appearance of, 106; as Madame de Morville, 106-133.

See Key Index for Madame Héger Hawke, E. , Sir Charles, vii. Kendal, 106; Kendall Institution, 114-7 Kirkby Malham Church, 64, 66-8 Lagrange's Manuscript "Catherine Bell," 104-119 Lambert family, 64 Lucan's "Pharsalia," 14 Lytton, Lord, 163 M'Clory, Alice, 13 Malham, original of Gimmerton of _Wuthering Heights_: home of Catherine Earnshaw, and of Janet Aire of _Jane Eyre_, 22-3, 57-68, 71; source of the Aire or Ayre, 71. , 20, 64; De Ruyter, 20 Montagu, Basil, 20-1 Montagu, Frederic, his _Gleanings in Craven_ provides the Malham background, and the plots of _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_, and Charlotte Brontë's _nom de guerre_, Currer Bell, 20-36, 57-68, 141-2, 145. , Alphonsine, and Gérard, see M. , 162-8; Thomas Baylis, 163; and Richmond portrait, 168 Newby, Thomas, 19, 153, 169 Nicholls, Rev. A. , see Charlotte Brontë; also Key Index for _Villette_ Nussey, Ellen or Nelly, 14, 45, 71, 77, 160, 168; Rev. , Marquis of, xii.

, 86, 160-1, 166-8; Mrs. Smith, 166-7. , 16, 103-129. See Key Index to the Brontë works. Taylor family of Hunsworth, 83-9 (see Key Index); Mary and Martha, 83-4 Thackeray, W. , 34, 167-8. See Key Index, _Villette_ Welch, Catherine Galbraith, xi. , 64 Wooler, Margaret, 18, 160 Yates, W. , 75

, 15, 17-19, 25, 58, 64, 80-2, 104, 108, 146, 154. Importance of its Key Index, 169-171 _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Mrs. Gaskell, 15, 22, 43-4, 52, 72, 83, 118, 123, 149, 161, 168; cause of its sombreness, 82; disappointment, and limitations, of, 15, 104; and Branwell Brontë, 121. Haworth Edition, 14, 17, 85, 121 _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Augustine Birrell, 75 _Brontës: Life and Letters_, Clement K. Shorter, 14, 73, 80, 87 _Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle_, Clement K. Shorter, 17, 135 _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, Clement K. , 22, 77, 147, 159, 164 _Brontë Country_, Dr. Erskine Stuart, 35 _Life of Emily Brontë_, Miss Mary Robinson, 39; character of work, 57 _Brontë Family_, Francis Leyland, 39-40, 158 _Brontës, Fact and Fiction_, Rev. Angus Mackay, 13, 41, 132, 144 _Brontë Homeland_, J. Ramsden, 13 _Brontës in Ireland_, Dr. William Wright, 13 _Charlotte Brontë: Monograph_, Sir T. Wemyss Reid, 14 _Father of the Brontës_, W. W.

Yates, 75 _Rev. Patrick Brontë's Collected Works_, Horsfall Turner, 13, 158 _Thornton and the Brontës_, William Scruton, 161 _Chapters from Some Memories_, Lady Ritchie, 167 _Craven Highlands_, Harry Speight, 60 _Dictionary of National Biography_, Leslie Stephen, 21, 159 _English Dialect Dictionary_, Dr. Joseph Wright, 68, 149 _Gleanings in Craven_, Frederic Montagu, 20-36, 57-68; 141-2, 145; Leeds and Skipton, 20; dedicated to Duke of Devonshire, printed by A. , 20. , and A. G. Jeans, 67 _Memorials of Two Sisters: Susanna and Catherine Winkworth_, 96 _Miss Mary ou L'Institutrice_, Eugène Sue, 82, 84, 105-6, 120, 126-7, 130, 163. See Key Index for M. Sue _Mrs. Brookfield and Her Circle_, 167 _Sydney Dobell's Life and Letters_, 153-4 _Woman's Work in English Fiction_, Clara H. , viii.

**WORKS:** MAGAZINES, ETC. _Academy_, 169 _Cornhill Magazine_, 162 _Dundee Advertiser_, xi. _Fortnightly Review_, xi., 39, 70, 104, 125, 162-3 _Liverpool Post_, 67 _London and Paris Courier_, G. W. MacArthur Reynolds and M. Sue, 105 _London Journal_; _Weekly Times_, 105 _New York Times Saturday Review_, xi. _Outlook_, xi. _Palladium_, 153-4, 169 _Quarterly Review_, 138-9, 153, 169 _Saturday Review_, xi., xii., 20, 68, 153 _Sheffield Independent_, 67 _Spectator_, xi., 125 _Times_, 162, 164 _Tribune_, 162-5

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FOOTNOTES: [1] Clement Shorter in _Charlotte Brontë and her Sisters_, p. [2] Clara H. [3] _The Saturday Review_, September 6, 1902. [5] _The Brontës in Ireland_, by Dr. William Wright, 1893, and _The Brontë Homeland_, by J. Ramsden, 1897, though they conflict, deal interestingly with Patrick Brunty's, or Brontë's, relations. after being a linen weaver secured the post of teacher in the Glascar School, Ballynaskeagh, then that of teacher at Drumballyroney." Eventually he got a scholarship and entered St. John's College, Cambridge, where he graduated and took Holy Orders. His father was a Hugh Brunty, who married a Roman Catholic, Alice McClory, or M'Clory. She is said to have become a Protestant, as was her husband. _The Brontës in Ireland_ has been challenged as presenting many statements impossible of verification.

The assertion that an Irish Brunty foundling story suggested the foundling of _Wuthering Heights_ raised a harsh and voluminous controversy. The Rev. Angus Mackay, in his little brochure _The Brontës--Fact and Fiction_, 1897, controverted Dr. Wright, as did others elsewhere. The matter is summed up succinctly by Mr. Horsfall Turner, the Yorkshire genealogist, in _The Rev. Patrick Brontë's Collected Works_, 1898, where, speaking of the Irish Brontës and the foundling story, he says:--"The only one who could transmit this story was Hugh Brunty, and not one of his descendants ever heard of it before Dr. " [6] The "wild, weird writings" of her childhood, which awed homely Mrs. , of Lucan (Pharsalia, lib. [7] Her correspondence is given in Sir Wemyss Reid's _Monograph on Charlotte Brontë_, in Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Haworth

FOOTNOTES: Edition, and in Mr. [9] Charlotte Brontë, on the other hand, was a most fluent writer of prose. She sent Wordsworth a story in 1840, and spoke of her facility in writing novels. (Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, pages 189-190, Haworth Edition.) , in her printed volume of _Wuthering Heights_; but whether or not she did this at Charlotte Brontë's instigation is of little interest and no importance in view of the literal evidence in _The Key to the Brontë Works_. It may be Emily turned Charlotte's amanuensis; and it would not be difficult to show Anne Brontë also had been Charlotte's understudy. was crowned, Montagu carried the sceptre. [14] Clement Shorter's _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, p. [16] The name of "Helen Burns," that saintly sister of Charlotte Brontë, may have been suggested by the St. [17] _The Brontë Country_, by Dr.

[18] A recognizable idiosyncrasy of Charlotte Brontë's genius is the vivid minuteness with which she paints and records apparently unimportant details and happenings connected with her early childhood.

[21] Angus Mackay, in _The Brontës: Fact and Fiction_ (1897), identifies Miss Brontë with Caroline Helstone. [22] Catherine's diary was written on the margin of a printed sermon by the Rev. Jabes Branderham. Lockwood's "dream" in the connection was evidently a travesty on a sermon of the famous Rev. Jabes Bunting, a Wesleyan Methodist, and the zealousness of his hearers, concerning which preacher stories were possibly gathered by Charlotte Brontë from old Tabitha, who doubtless did occasional service as the old dialect-speaking Joseph. The Rev. Jabes Bunting was on the Halifax Circuit in the eighteen-twenties, and his sermons were printed in pamphlet form. [25] Of course Tabitha Aykroyd was twenty years younger when Charlotte was a child. Thus the early references to the more active Ellen Dean and Bessie in the main imply Tabby in the eighteen-twenties; those to her as the sedate and glum Mrs.

Dean and Hannah, as Tabby in the eighteen-forties. --of which the rainy day incident in the childhood of little Catherine and Jane is so reminiscent--quoted by Mrs. Gaskell in the Brontë _Life_:-- "June the 21st, 1829. "One night, about the time when the cold sleet of November [is] succeeded by the snowstorms and the high, piercing night winds of winter, we were all sitting round the warm, blazing kitchen fire, having just concluded a quarrel with Tabby concerning

the propriety of lighting a candle, from which she came off victorious, no candle having been produced. A long pause succeeded, which was at last broken by Branwell saying, in a lazy manner, 'I don't know what to do.' This was echoed by Emily and Anne. "Tabby: 'Wha ya may go t' bed.' "Charlotte: 'Why are you so glum to-night, Tabby?'" As time progressed Charlotte Brontë viewed more sentimentally the associations of her early childhood. [27] A remarkably recognizable idiosyncrasy of this child-phantom of Charlotte Brontë's brain is the part the little hands of the child play. [31] I have known for many years the wife and children of this Robert Airton. His father was, I believe, parish clerk for Coniston. Mrs. of _The Professor_ Charlotte Brontë practically calls Frances the heroine, "Jane." of _The Professor_), and this sprite was also Jane Eyre--Charlotte Brontë herself. " [33] Mr. Thomas J.

; "I respect him--I pity him, poor murdered king! Yes, his

enemies were the worst: they shed blood they had no right to shed. How dared they kill him!" Montagu of course would know that his own ancestor brought over Charles the Second on the Restoration. Hence his warmth. [35] It is a remarkable coincidence that Malham was the background of my first novel, a work of the substantial number of 160,000 words, which I wrote in my teens. It was published serially in _The Sheffield Independent_ by Mr. Joseph Cooke, beginning in May 1896 and running till September, under the title of _Kalderworth_, a name I had compounded from the Yorkshire river Calder. Afterwards the serial rights were also purchased by Sir Edward Russell and Mr. A. G. Jeans, of _The Liverpool Post_, wherein the story ran serially as _Lawyer Vavasor's Secret_. I did not choose Malham by reason of its being, as it is, the place from which our family of Malham, or Malam, sprung: I had cycled over to the remote village with my father.

I was unaware that October 15 was an especial day at Malham, nevertheless I began my story--_Kalderworth_:-- "On the evening of the 15th of October, in the latter end of the Eighteen Hundred and Eighties, as the sun sank greyly behind the distant skyline of those wild hills that stretch from Malham and away into the North of Yorkshire, a solitary horseman pushed his way over a hard moorland road to a little deserted hamlet, where only one soul lived, and that a hag whose fame had spread as a dabbler in the black art and the mischievous doctrines." I did not know of Montagu's book at the time; and of all the Brontë novels I had only read _Jane Eyre_.

I remember once reflecting--while _Kalderworth_ was being published--that Charlotte Brontë must have called her character Jane Eyre after the river Aire, just as I had called my loosely composite village up in Malhamdale Kalderworth, from the river Calder; and I thought Currer Bell, in her choice of the name "Jane Eyre," had been actuated poetically by the fact of the adjacency of the Yorkshire river Aire, or Ayre, and had changed the "A" in Aire, just as I the "C" in Calder. Nor was it till years later that I knew

" [36] That Gimmerton in _Wuthering Heights_ means "the village of sheep" was admitted years ago. The etymology is very obvious. [39] The Poems prepared for publication in the autumn of 1845 bear evidence of the influence of Montagu's work. It was at this time Montagu's work provided Charlotte Brontë's _nom de guerre_ of Currer Bell. [41] Mr. Augustine Birrell in his _Life of Charlotte Brontë_ (1887), gives a very interesting insight into a love episode of Mr. Brontë, during his first curacy, at Wethersfield, near Braintree, Essex. Mr. Brontë found a home with a Miss Mildred Davy, with whose niece, a "comely damsel of eighteen--a Miss Mary Mildred Davy Burder--with brown curls and blue eyes" he fell in love. A plotting guardian uncle, however, removed Miss Burder and wrongly intercepted all Mr. Brontë's letters. Subsequently Mr. Brontë married Miss Maria Branwell, of Penzance, visiting in Yorkshire, whom he married at St.

Oswald's Church, Guiseley, near Leeds. After the death of his wife, Mr. Brontë offered to marry Miss Burder, but was refused. She became the wife of the Rev. Peter Sibree, of Wethersfield. Mr. W. W. Yates' book, _The Father of the Brontës_, 1897, shows us Mr. Brontë as a curate at Dewsbury. Mr. Yates, who is the originator of the Brontë Society and Museum, rightly associated Mr. Brontë with Mr. [42] For story and other purposes Miss Brontë makes St. John Rivers ask Jane's hand in marriage; and of course as the original of Moor House has been supposed to be at Hathersage in Derbyshire, and it was there the Rev. Henry Nussey lived--Miss Nussey's brother--who had offered to marry

Charlotte Brontë, Mrs. Gaskell's Brontë's _Life_ and a following (including even a recent catalogue of the Brontë Museum, wherein reference is made to Mr. ) have given it forth that Mr. Nussey was the original of St. John Rivers--notwithstanding that Mr. Nussey was a married man when Charlotte was visiting at Hathersage. That Mr. Nussey and St. John Rivers are wholly dissimilar is contended at length in _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, pp. _ [44] In the love relations of Shirley Keeldar, however, we must expect to find phases of circumstances associated with Charlotte Brontë herself. [45] Mr. , on Jane's drawings would seem to show that though M. Héger, the original of this character, was interested in Charlotte Brontë's gift as an artist (and we know she sent M. Héger a drawing of hers as late as August 1845), he spoke of them in disparagement--a fact that alone argues he was her superior in art, and understood drawing.

Indeed, after seeing the various water-colour and other drawings of Charlotte Brontë, some thirty of which, including "a pencil drawing of Louis Philippe of France, drawn by C. Brontë during her stay in Brussels," are numbered with the Brontë relics, I may say we can take it as really the expression of M. Héger concerning her sketches when Mr. Rochester observes of Jane's efforts in drawing:--"You have secured the shadow of your thought, but no more probably. You had not enough of the artist's skill and science to give it being," for this is the truth concerning Charlotte Brontë's efforts of the kind. Nevertheless, I find evidence of a Brussels tradition in the eighteen-fifties that she was clever as a painter, M. Sue giving ability to his Miss Mary in this direction. It is more emphasized in his _feuilleton_ than volume portrayal of this "Institutrice," both of which works we shall see presented phases of Miss Brontë as she was known.

monsieur, trouvez-vous _qu'elle sait un peu dessiner_, MA _Miss Mary_?" , are M. Sue's.

--_Shirley_, Chap. [49] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Haworth edition, p. [51] _The Brontës: Life and Letters_, p. [52] The Moores of _Shirley_ were mainly drawn from M. Héger, and though a Mr. [53] It is sad indeed to find Charlotte Brontë confessed, shortly before her marriage to the Rev Mr. Nicholls, that there was no such sympathy between herself and her prospective husband. See letters of Miss Catherine Winkworth in _Memorials of Two Sisters: Susanna and Catherine Winkworth_ (1908). Miss Winkworth and Miss Brontë discussed the matter personally. Miss Catherine Winkworth wrote of Mr. Nicholls and Charlotte Brontë:--"I am sure she will be really good to him. but I don't know, and don't think that Lily [Mrs. Gaskell] knows." I should say that Mrs.

Ratcliffe of Haworth--Tabitha Brown: her sister, Martha Brown, was one of the Brontë servants--at whose house Tabitha Aykroyd breathed her last, stated to me on February 21st, 1907, that as to Charlotte Brontë's "wedded life, they lived happily together." Often do we discover references to the elective affinities in regard to M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë in Currer Bell's works. Thus we did not need that Rochester should say in the last chapter but one of _Jane Eyre_:--"I am

, that he and Jane were implied. each of you has a comrade to sympathize with.'" powerful flame, fuses you and me in one." M. Héger as M. [56] Mr. G. W. MacArthur Reynolds, the editor of _The London Journal_ issued from _The Weekly Times_ Office, which ran M. Sue's _feuilleton_, was well-known in French literary circles in the eighteen-forties. He founded in Paris _The London and Paris Courier_, and was likely enough a friend of M. Sue. It may be, indeed, there was some sort of understanding between him and Eugène Sue to set before the world an interpretation of _Jane Eyre_, with the extraordinary information come privily to M. Sue. Some time after its publication, Mr. Reynolds stated that "the main incidents in 'Mary Lawson' were founded on actual realities." This we shall find.

It is a remarkable fact in the circumstances that _The London Journal_ for August 1, 1846--a year before _Jane Eyre_ was published, printed on one page the opening instalment of M. Sue's _Martin the Foundling_, and Charlotte Brontë's

poem "The Letter," with a footnote--"From a volume entitled _Poems by Cuvier (sic), Ellis and Acton Bell_; London, Aylott & Jones." The reader may perhaps recognize the original of Mr. [59] Great stress is laid in this _feuilleton_ by M. Sue on the fact that the trouble of this teacher is her dissolute brother. See my footnote on p. [60] See my footnote, p. [61] Mrs. [62] _Wuthering Heights_ with _Agnes Grey_ had been accepted by Mr. Newby, its publisher, before Messrs. [63] This artifice of presenting more than one phase of a character in the same work is equivalent to that practised by the portrait-painter who uses mirror effects to reveal some feature of his subject not in the ordinary line of vision. It was as difficult for M. Sue to present a complete portrait of the successful, fêted Miss Brontë in poor Lagrange as it was for Charlotte Brontë to present a complete portrait of herself in the unhappy Lucy Snowe of _Villette_. So M.

Sue also used the phase of Miss Mary, and Charlotte Brontë that of Paulina--just as she gave us M. Héger as Crimsworth and occasionally as M. Pelet of _The Professor_, and just as she gave us herself in _Shirley_ as Caroline Helstone and again (in regard only to her relations with M. Héger) as Shirley Keeldar. Methods which were responsible for her first portraying herself as the elder Catherine of _Wuthering Heights_ and then as the younger Catherine, in which work M. Héger was portrayed by her often as Heathcliffe and finally as Hareton Earnshaw. With Charlotte Brontë, however, her secondary adaptations as portrayals, perhaps on account of their improvization, frequently give evidence of being unprepared. Thus the childhood of Paulina of _Villette_ is scarcely Charlotte Brontë's;

and Hareton Earnshaw of _Wuthering Heights_, save for the lover and pupil phase, was never M. [64] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Haworth Edition, p. 55. [66] Mrs. de Morville says to his wife:--"Je crois aux bons génies, aux bons anges." "Aux bons anges?" "Miss Mary, par exemple." "Eh bien, Louise?" "N'est-ce pas un bon génie, un bon ange, une bonne magicienne, enfin? " [69] See my references to Charlotte Brontë's poem "Apostasy"; and to St. [70] See M. Paul and Lucy Snowe (M. [71] Mrs. Humphry Ward in her "Introductions" to the Haworth Edition of the Brontë novels instanced this passage as showing Emily Brontë's extravagant love for the moors, inferring she preferred the heath to heaven. But Mrs. Ward in these same "Introductions" even argued that _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ were dissimilar in characterization and style.

"For me the universe is dumb, Stone-deaf, and blank, and wholly blind; Life I must bound, existence sum In the strait limits of one mind; "That mind my own. _ [73] Mentor's advice to Telemachus when tempted and miserable on the

island of Calypso is that given by the spirit of Jane Eyre's mother--"Flee temptation!" looking back." ). Evidently M. ----" [76] See my reference to Catherine of _Wuthering Heights_ and Caroline of _Shirley_, and their crying aloud when ill and delirious for "a way" to the absent lover, pp. [77] See the reproach of the dying Catherine to Heathcliffe I quote in the next chapter. [79] See my footnote on "the trodden way" on p. " [81] "I called myself your brother," says M. Paul to Lucy Snowe, the originals of whom were M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë. I know I think of you--I feel I wish you well--but I must check myself; you are to be feared. [82] Mr. [83] _Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters_, pp. [85] See my remarks on Mrs. [86] Mrs. [89] Of course Mr. Dobell did not know that by the terms of arrangement with Mr.

Newby, the publisher of _Wuthering Heights_, it was virtually impossible for Charlotte Brontë, after the success of _Jane Eyre_, to

admit her authorship of _Wuthering Heights_ publicly. [93] Mrs. [94] The fact that towards the end great affection sprang up between the Rev. Patrick Brontë and his only surviving daughter cannot be too strongly emphasized. A most touching narration of him and the dying Currer Bell, related by Martha Brown, the Brontë servant, and herself the eye-witness, is given by Mr. William Scruton, in _Thornton and The Brontës_, page 133 (1898):--"When Charlotte heard her father coming upstairs to her, she would strain every nerve to give him a pleasing reception. On his entering the room she would greet him with, 'See, papa, I am looking a little better.'" Mr. Home was "papa" to Paulina. Compare the lightsome Paulina with the younger Catherine of _Wuthering Heights_; and Mrs. , with Mrs. [95] The letters in _The Times_ in the close of 1906, and in the early part of 1907, attacking the authenticity of the Héger portrait, were written by Mr.

Shorter. My footnote in _The Fortnightly_ ran:--"In attacking the water-colour portrait of Charlotte Brontë purchased by the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, the discovery of which, signed 'Paul Héger, 1850,' was inimical to Mr. Clement Shorter's contention that Charlotte Brontë had but distantly interested M. Héger, Mr. Shorter said, 'M. Héger certainly did not know even in 1850 that Miss Brontë, his old pupil, and Currer Bell were identical,' and with another asserted M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë never met after 1844. We shall see here, however, that M. Héger knew all Miss Brontë's literary secrets in 1850, and that they must have met after 1844, for M. " [96] In this connection it is of interest to read the remarks of one of the jealous de Morville women on this portrait of the Irish

qui vivra verra. Je garde ce portrait de mademoiselle miss Mary, ça me fera souvent penser à elle--ça m'empêchera de l'oublier. " she afterwards exclaims; "ce n'est pas seulement ton portrait que je perce à coups d'épingle, c'est toi-même!" Which would suggest that a portrait of Charlotte Brontë could have remained at the Héger establishment but at risk of being destroyed. [97] See my footnote on p. [98] Mr. Greenwood Dyson, born in 1830 in the Fold opposite the White Lion Hotel, in the house now a blacksmith's shop. "I was married in 1850," he stated to me, "and was living about twenty yards from Haworth Church when Charlotte Brontë gave a black silk dress to my wife." The Rev. Patrick Brontë signed a testimonial saying he well knew Mr. Dyson as being reliable and trustworthy, as also did the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, Miss Brontë's husband. I have examined the document.

An interesting glimpse of Charlotte Brontë I have not seen in any work is one of Mr. Dyson's reminiscences. He tells me that "there was a draw-well situated in the kitchen of the Rectory from which we boys used to draw water for domestic purposes." He added that often he drew water for Charlotte Brontë or others of the Brontë household before drawing for himself. "In one of the upper windows," he once wrote me, "a board had been placed instead of one of the panes of glass, in the centre of which was bored a hole in which Miss Brontë inserted a telescope to take observations." Perceiving in conversation with him the genuine pleasure the sight of the Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë gave Mr. Dyson, I later forwarded him a large photograph, taken direct from the original Héger drawing of Charlotte Brontë in the National Portrait Gallery.

I print his reply to me written on March 2, 1907:-- "DEAR SIR,--I received the likeness of Charlotte Brontë (which you were kind enough to send me) this morning, for which I should like

to express my appreciation. It really is a very nice portrait. I think it is very much like her. With sincerest thanks, I remain, very truly yours, **J:** MALHAM-DEMBLEBY, Esq. (Signed) G. DYSON." [99] Through the courtesy of Professor Charles J. Holmes, the present Director of the National Portrait Gallery, I am able to print herewith the N.P.G. references to this portrait. NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY TABLET ON PICTURE:-- CHARLOTTE BRONTË (Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls). 1816-1855. Novelist. Author of _Jane Eyre_ and other works. Painted in 1850 by "Paul Héger." Purchased, July 1906.

(1444) NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY CATALOGUE:-- Painted in water-colours in 1850, and stated to be by "Paul" (or Constantin) Héger, after an earlier portrait by her brother Branwell Brontë. NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY ILLUSTRATED CATALOGUE:-- Water-colour drawing stated to be by "Paul" (or Constantin) Héger, after Branwell Brontë.

(1444) I may add that the inverted commas used in regard to M. Héger's name are employed because "Paul" was not his common name. He was an active member of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul, and Charlotte Brontë portrayed him as M. [102] By "Mrs. Brookfield's party" Lady Ritchie means the later distinguished party. In _Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle_, page 305, vol ii. (1905), a first dinner given by Mr. Thackeray for Charlotte Brontë in November 1849, is spoken of by Mrs. Brookfield as not having been a success; and the second great party at which some clever women were present, to meet Miss Brontë in 1851, is mentioned with the fact of the non-success of the 1849 party, on pages 355-6. All this now leaves clear the occasion of the 1850 private family dinner at Mr. [103] Mrs. _ [105] The Roman numerals refer to the Preface.