The Key to the Brontë Works: The Key to Charlotte Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights,' 'Jane Eyre,' and her other 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. Pelet in The Professor, she writes:-- His face was pale, his cheeks were sunk, and his eyes hollow; his features... had a French turn,... the degree of harshness softened by... a melancholy, almost suffering expression of countenance; his physiognomy was fine et spirituelle. This "melancholy almost suffering expression of countenance" she thus described was evidently once a marked characteristic of M. Héger's physiognomy. A reference to it occurs in M. Sue's Miss Mary, in the French and "adapted" version, where we find M. de Morville, whom I identify as a phase of M. Héger, sitting in a reverie:--... l'expression de légère souffrance habituelle à sa physionomie, d'ailleurs si ouverte, s'est compliquée d'une sorte de contrainte lorsqu'il se trouve au milieu de sa famille. Seul, et ne subissant pas cette contrainte... M. de Morville semble profondément attristé. Thus, of Yorke Hunsden in The Professor, we read:-- His general bearing intimated complete... satisfaction,... yet, at times, an indescribable shade passed like an eclipse over his countenance, and seemed to me like the sign of a sudden and strong inward doubt of himself,... an energetic discontent,... perhaps... it might only be a bilious caprice.

And again of Hunsden, in the same vein:-- I discerned... there would be contrasts between his inward and outward man; contentions too.... Perhaps in these incompatibilities of the "physique" with the "morale" lay the secret of that fitful gloom; he would but could not, and the athletic mind scowled scorn on its more fragile companion,... his features... character had set a stamp on... expression re-cast them at her pleasure, and strange metamorphoses she wrote, giving him now the mien of a morose bull, and anon, that of an... arch girl. Regarding these facial metamorphoses Charlotte Brontë wrote similarly concerning M. Héger.[49] I remark that M. Héger's harshness evidently had impressed Charlotte Brontë considerably at first, and thus reflects her thoughts on this point in the introduction of the phases she gives of him in her books. So we read of Yorke Hunsden, of Heathcliffe, and of Rochester:-- The Professor. Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre. I said to myself "his Heathcliffe's "walk There was something rough freedom pleases in" expressed the in the forced, stiff me not at all."... sentiment "Go to bow, in the There was something the Deuce."[50]... impatient, yet formal in Mr. Hunsden's I think that tone which seemed... point-blank mode of circumstance to express: "What the speech which rather determined me Deuce is it to me pleased me than to accept the whether Miss Eyre be otherwise, because it invitation; I felt there or not?[50] At set me at my ease. interested in a this moment I am not I continued the man who seemed disposed to accost conversation with more exaggeratedly her." I sat down, a degree of reserved than quite disembarrassed. interest.... myself. A reception of Hunsden's manner now finished politeness bordered on the would probably have impertinent, still confused me,... but his manner did not harsh caprice laid me offend me in the under no slightest--it only obligation.... piqued my curiosity; Besides, the I wanted him to go eccentricity of the on. proceeding was piquant. I felt interested to see how he would go on. We read of Rochester:--"The frown, the roughness of the stranger

set me at my ease"; and in Villette, we read of M. Héger as M. Paul:--"Once... I held him harsh and strange,... the darkness, the manner displeased me. Now... I preferred him before all humanity," which explains why Charlotte Brontë wrote of Rochester:--"The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish," and explains why she admits to the piquancy in exploiting the possibilities of Heathcliffe's startling harshness. And again, as further evidence of the influence of M. Héger over her Yorkshire Hunsden, we find this character in the close of _The Professor_ implicated with a mysterious "Lucia," whom he would have married but could not, which Lucia we discover to have meant really the original of the Lucy Snowe of Villette--Charlotte Brontë herself. It is obvious that while Currer Bell, for "story" and other purposes, made use of a composite method in presenting a portrait, she drew from characters who possessed much in common: as with the composite character of the Rev. Mr. Helstone, meant for her father, a clergyman, but presenting also a phase of another clergyman, the Rev. Hammond Roberson; and as with Dr. John Bretton, a composite character drawn from the two Scotsmen, Mr. Smith her publisher, and the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, who subsequently became her husband. Doubtless, characteristics in the Taylors were similar to some of M. Héger's. Perhaps the fact that they spoke French and sojourned on the Continent, accentuated to her these characteristics. In a letter, Miss Brontë described all the Taylors as "Republicans." And so of Yorke Hunsden in The Professor, Chap. XXIV., we read, "republican, lord-hater, as he was, Hunsden was proud of his old ----shire blood... and family standing." Thus, in Shirley, Chap. IV., in which work that character appears stripped of the Héger element, as Mr. Yorke, we read of the latter:-- Kings and nobles and priests... were to him an abomination.... The want of... benevolence made him very impatient of... all faults which grated on his strong, shrewd nature: it left no check to his... sarcasm. As he was not merciful, he would sometimes

wound... without... caring how deep he thrust.... Mr. Yorke's family was the first and oldest in the district. Viâ Yorke Hunsden of The Professor and Mr. Yorke of Shirley the reader has returned to a character who typified more than any other of Charlotte Brontë's Yorkshire-Héger portrayals the merciless, strong and shrewd-natured Taylor--Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights. But the Yorkshire element in Heathcliffe was a caricature and an exaggeration for the purposes of the "cuckoo story," resulting from the tale Montagu tells of a foundling; and the emphasis laid 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. If reference be made to a letter written by Charlotte Brontë in 1846, the year when she offered Wuthering Heights to a publisher, it will be found she mentioned that one of the Taylors had--like Heathcliffe--suffered in the teens of years from hypochondria, "a most dreadful doom," Charlotte called it, and related she herself had endured it for a year.[51] Having herself suffered thus, there was a temptation--at what I elsewhere call the dark season of Charlotte Brontë's inner life, at the season of the recoil--to present in her work Wuthering Heights the Yorkshire-Héger with the hypochondria of her Yorkshire model, and let his demon be the original of her Catherine Earnshaw--be herself. To this temptation Charlotte Brontë gave no opposition, much to her regret later. Herewith we have the origin of Heathcliffe's miserable hypochondria and monomania--his digging for Catherine in the grave till his spade scraped the coffin, in Wuthering Heights, Chap. XXIX., and

his saying because his "preternatural horror" always haunted, but never abided with him:-- "She showed herself,... a devil to me! And, since then... I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! Infernal--keeping my nerves at such a stretch that, if they had not resembled catgut, they would long ago have relaxed.... It racked me! I've groaned aloud.... It was a strange way of killing! not by inches, but by fractions of hairbreadths,... through eighteen years!" Mr. Heathcliffe paused,... his hair wet with perspiration,... the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject. In the light of the foregoing, therefore, we may understand the truth of Charlotte Brontë's narration in The Professor, Chap. XXIII.:-- My nerves... jarred... A horror of great darkness fell on me; I felt my chamber invaded by one I had known formerly,... I was... a prey to hypochondria. She had been... my guest... before... for a year.... I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom and holding me with arms of bone. What tales she would tell me at such hours!... How she would discourse to me of her own country--the grave.... I was glad when... I could... sit... freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon. Both by reason of Mrs. Gaskell's suspicion that she had drawn from them in the portrayals of the heroes of her first books and by reason of the undeniable evidence of her works, we must accept the Taylors as the originals of most that was "Yorkshire" in Charlotte Brontë's Yorke Hunsden, Heathcliffe, Rochester, and Yorke, understanding the term in Currer Bell's implication of "independent," "hard," and "open-spoken." But M. Héger contributed what Charlotte Brontë calls in Chap. XXVII. of Villette, in speaking of him as M. Paul Emanuel--"that swart, sallow,

southern darkness which spoke his Spanish blood," and this gave colour to the physiognomy of "the swart, sallow" Heathcliffe and Rochester.[52] In the succeeding chapters I deal more particularly with the relation of Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights, to Rochester of Jane Eyre, and I promise my readers to present therein most important and sensational revelations. CHAPTER X. HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE" ONE AND THE SAME: Without herewith further entering into the question as to the original of the morose and harsh characters who were the heroes of Charlotte Brontë's novels, I will at once show she had drawn from the same model in both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I have given in the foregoing chapter the introduction of Lockwood to Heathcliffe and that of Jane to Rochester side by side. Let us also read the following:-- Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre. Heathcliffe. Rochester. With a stubborn countenance... Most people would have thought Heathcliffe is a dark-skinned Mr. Rochester an ugly man; yet gipsy in aspect, in dress and there was an unconscious pride manners a gentleman;... rather in his port; so much ease in his slovenly, perhaps, yet not demeanour; such a look of looking amiss with his complete indifference to his own negligence, because he has an appearance... that... one erect and handsome figure; and inevitably shared the rather morose. Possibly some indifference, and even in a people might suspect him of a blind sense put faith in his degree of under-bred pride; I confidence.... He was proud, have a sympathetic cord within sardonic;... in my secret soul that tells me it is nothing of I knew his kindness to me was the sort: I know by instinct his balanced by unjust severity to reserve springs from an aversion others. He was moody, too,... to showy displays of feeling--to and when he looked up a morose, manifestations of mutual almost a malignant, scowl kindliness. He'll love and hate blackened his features. equally under one cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I am running on too fast; I bestow my own attributes over liberally on him.

Heathcliffe and Rochester are both black-avised, stubborn of countenance, negligent as to external appearance, moody, proud in carry, and morose. Charlotte Brontë tells us of one that on external judgment "most people would have thought him" possessed of a disqualification, and of the other that "some people might suspect him" of having a disqualification. And in each case a similar offset--the internal reading of the man's character--is brought forth by Charlotte Brontë as Lockwood or Jane:--"A sympathetic cord within" tells the former that Heathcliffe's reserve read as under-bred pride springs from an aversion to "manifestations of mutual kindliness"; and Jane, commenting on Rochester's being proud and sardonic, says, "In my secret heart I knew... his kindliness to me was balanced by unjust severity to others." I find the singular expression indicated by the "hell's light" epithets applied to Heathcliffe's eyes was an expression Charlotte Brontë had apparently noticed in the original of this character. Rochester's eyes in Jane Eyre have "strange gleams," and we are told "his eye had a tawny--nay, a bloody light in its gloom," and so forth. Indeed, Heathcliffe's eyes, which were "clouded windows of hell" with "black-fire in them," are seen in Rochester's clearly enough, and the singular "hell's light" is associated with them at considerable length, in Jane Eyre:-- And as for the vague something--was it a sinister or a sorrowful... expression?--that opened on a careful observer... in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering among volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape. The following description of Heathcliffe could be read as of Rochester, whose "olive cheek" and "deep eyes" Jane describes:-- Wuthering Heights. His cheeks were sallow and half-covered with black whiskers, the brows were lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. His upright carry suggested his having been in the army [M. Héger had fought as a soldier]... His countenance... looked

intelligent. A half-civilized ferocity lurked in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, and his manner was even dignified, though too stern for grace. In view of the general evidence that Heathcliffe, like Rochester, was drawn by Charlotte Brontë from M. Héger, her Brussels friend the professor, it is not surprising that Heathcliffe's was "a deep voice and foreign in sound." Her reference in Wuthering Heights to his Spanish extraction reminds us of M. Paul Emanuel's "jetty hair and Spanish face" in Villette, and of course it is well known M. Paul Emanuel was drawn by Currer Bell from M. Héger. CHAPTER XI. CATHERINE AND HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AS JANE AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE." We have already seen Catherine in Wuthering Heights represented Charlotte Brontë as intimately portrayed by herself in the work, and that Heathcliffe was drawn by her from the original of the Rochester of Jane Eyre. So faithfully did Charlotte Brontë tell again in _Jane Eyre_ the history of her life in relation to her family and M. Héger, that she gives the main lines of her biography in both works. I will show them side by side. For the literal parallels when not given in this chapter see the index. My amazing discovery on the return of the runaway Heathcliffe to Catherine and the return of the runaway Jane to Rochester I give literally herewith. Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre. Opening scene: A rainy day in Opening scene: A rainy day in Catherine's (Charlotte Brontë's) Jane's (Charlotte Brontë's) childhood. She is treated childhood. She is treated unkindly by the rest of the unkindly by the rest of the household. It is impossible to household. It is impossible to go out on account of the rain. go out on account of the rain. She had been commanded to keep She had been commanded to keep aloof from the family group. aloof from the family group. This group included in This group included in particular, little Catherine particular, little Jane tells us tells us with bitter feeling, with bitter feeling, John Reed Hindley Earnshaw (Branwell (Branwell Brontë), who Brontë), who luxuriated in the luxuriated in the warmth of the