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. 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 SAMEWithout 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

AND THE SAMEreading 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

AND THE SAMEforeign 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
warmth of the fire with other fire with other members of the
members of the family. 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 SAMEherself 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. Little (Charlotte Brontë) sees a tyrant
Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) in John Reed (Branwell Brontë).
sees a tyrant in Hindley He tells her that he is the
Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë). He master of the house, or soon
tells her that he is the master will be.
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. He has made her cry
made her cry and her head ached, and her head ached, she says, as
she says, as a result of his a result of his behaviour.
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. But even Bessie
even Nelly Dean (Tabitha (Tabitha Aykroyd) sometimes
Aykroyd) sometimes tasked and tasked and scolded Jane
scolded Catherine (Charlotte (Charlotte Brontë) unreasonably,
Brontë) unreasonably, and and mistrusted her.
mistrusted her.
She even believes that Catherine She even believes that Jane
(Charlotte Brontë) is an actor (Charlotte) is an actor and

AND THE SAMEand feigns in regard to certain feigns in regard to certain fits
fits of frenzy. of frenzy.
On the occasion of one of these On the occasion of one of these
bouts of frenzy, Catherine bouts of frenzy, Jane (Charlotte
(Charlotte Brontë) is in a room, Brontë) is in a room, the door
the door of which has been of which has been locked.
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. The latter enters
enters annoyed, and quite annoyed, and quite
unsympathetic. unsympathetic.
It is suggested Catherine was It is suggested Jane was only
only acting, and Catherine acting, and Jane overhears this.
overhears this. She had desired She finds Bessie (Tabitha
Mrs. Dean (Tabitha Aykroyd) to Aykroyd) at the foot of her bed
bring her a basin of gruel. 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. She
she supposed she must supposed she must immediately
immediately have had a species have had a species of fit.
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 SAMECatherine's (Charlotte's) husband brings word of the
brother, Hindley Earnshaw disgrace of John Reed (Branwell
(Branwell Brontë). He is really Brontë, Charlotte's brother).
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. Thus she believes in the
"twin-soul" or the elective
affinities, and says:--
"It would degrade me to marry "I feel akin to him.... I have
Heathcliffe now; so he shall something in my brain and heart
never know how I love him; and that assimilates me mentally to
that not because he's handsome, him.... I know I must conceal my... but because he's more myself sentiments.... Yet, while I
than I am. Whatever our souls breathe and think, I must love
are made of, his and mine are him."[53]
the same."[53]
However, Heathcliffe and However, Rochester and Jane
Catherine part, Heathcliffe part, Jane running away
running away unexpectedly. unexpectedly.
(Method I., 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 SAMEcome to earth again, on which at Haworth). She is tempted to
the angels flung her out near take to a religious
Heathcliffe's abode, where she life:--"Angels beckoned, and
awoke sobbing for joy: Catherine Heaven rolled together like a
preferred her lover to scroll," but she heard
heaven.[54] Rochester's voice calling,
though he was miles away. Jane
preferred her lover to
heaven.[54]
The two parted lovers, however, The two parted lovers, however,
meet again, and by Charlotte meet again, and by Charlotte
Brontë's Method I., (interchange Brontë's Method I., (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.
THE RETURN OF THE RUNAWAY LOVER THE RETURN OF THE RUNAWAY LOVER
HEATHCLIFFE TO CATHERINE.[55] JANE TO ROCHESTER.[55]
Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre.
Chapter X.
Chapter XXXVII.
On [an]... evening... I was... I came, just ere dark...
coming from the garden.... It the darkness... of dusk
had got dusk,... the moon gathered.... I beheld the
causing... shadows to lurk in house--scarce by this dim light
the corners of... portions of distinguishable.... Entering a
the building. I set my burden on portal fastened by a latch,...
the house steps by the... door I stood.... The windows were
and lingered to rest... my back latticed,... the front door was
to the entrance, when I heard a narrow;... one step led up to
voice behind me say:-- it.... I heard a movement--that
narrow front-door was unclosing,
"... Is that you?" and some shape was about to
issue from the grange.
It was a deep voice, and foreign [Charlotte Brontë's _Wuthering
in sound.... Something stirred Heights_ version of the returned
in the porch; and moving nearer runaway lover, is also staged at
I distinguished a tall man "the grange."] It opened slowly:
dressed in dark clothes, with a figure came out into the
dark face and hair. He leant twilight and stood on the step;
against the side, and held his a man,... he stretched forth
fingers on the latch as if his hand.... Dusk as it was I

AND THE SAMEintending to open for had recognized him--it was my
himself.... A ray fell on his master... Rochester. I stayed
features; the cheeks were my step, almost my breath....
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. I remembered the eyes. hair was still raven-black: nor
were his features altered or
sunk.... But in his countenance
I saw a change: that looked
desperate and brooding--that
reminded me of some wronged and
fettered wild beast or bird,
dangerous to approach in his
sullen woe.... He closed the
door. I now drew near and
knocked: John's wife opened for
me.... She started as if she had
seen a ghost: I calmed her. To
her hurried "Is it really you,
"What!" I cried, uncertain Miss, come at this late
whether to regard him as a hour...?" I answered by taking
worldly visitor, and raised my her hand.
hands in amazement. "What! you
come back? Is it really you? Is "... Tell your master... a
it?" person wishes to speak to him."
"Yes; Heathcliffe," he replied When she returned, I inquired... "where is she?... Is she what he had said.
here? Speak! I want to have one
word with her--your mistress "You are to send in your name
[Catherine]. Go, and say some and business," she replied.
person... desires to see her."
She then proceeded to fill a
"... And you are Heathcliffe. glass of water, and place it on
But altered!" a tray, together with candles.... I could not persuade myself "Is that what he rang for?" I
to proceed. At length I resolved asked.
on making an excuse to ask if... [Catherine] would have the "Yes; he always has candles
candles lighted, and I opened brought in at dusk...."
the door. [She] sat... by a
window whose lattice lay back. "Give the tray to me, I will
carry it in."
"What does he want?" asked
Catherine.... Mary opened the door for
me.... Mr. Rochester turned
"I did not question him," I mechanically.
answered.
"This is you, Mary, is it not?"... Mr. Edgar inquired... who
it was? "Mary is in the kitchen," I
answered.
"Some one mistress does not

AND THE SAMEexpect," I replied. "That "Who is it? What is it? Who
Heathcliffe.... Hush! you must speaks?"
not call him... names.... She'd
be sadly grieved to hear you. "... I came only this evening,"
She was nearly heart-broken when I answered.
he ran off. I guess his return
will make a jubilee to her." "Great God!--what delusion has
come over me? What sweet madness
"Oh,... Heathcliffe's come has seized me?... Oh! I cannot
back--he is," panted Catherine. see.... Whatever--whoever you
"... I'll... secure my guest. are--be perceptible to my touch
I'm afraid the joy is too great or I cannot live!"
to be real!"
I arrested his hand and prisoned
"... Catherine, try to be glad it in both mine.
without being absurd! The whole
household need not witness the "Is that Jane?"
sight of your welcoming a
runaway servant." "... This is her voice," I
added.... "My dear master,... I
I... found Heathcliffe... and am Jane Eyre:... I am come back
ushered him into the presence of to you."
the master and mistress.
"In truth?--in the flesh? My... Now, I was amazed [by] the living Jane?"
transformation of
Heathcliffe;... A half-civilized "You touch me, sir--you hold me.
ferocity lurked yet in the I am not vacant like air, am I?"
depressed brows and eyes full of
black fire, but it was subdued, "... But I cannot be so blest
quite divested of roughness, after all my misery. It is a
though too stern for grace.... dream: such dreams I have
He took a seat opposite had.... But I always woke and
Catherine, who kept her gaze found it an empty mockery; and I
fixed on him, as if she feared was desolate and abandoned."
he would vanish were she to
remove it. He did not raise his... I began... to withdraw
to her often; a quick glance now myself from his arms--but he
and then sufficed; but it eagerly snatched me closer:--
flashed back each time;... the
undisguised delight he drank "No, you must not go. No--I have
from hers.... Catherine... rose touched you, heard you;... my
and seized Heathcliffe's hands very soul demands you.... Who
again, and laughed like one can tell what a dark, hopeless
beside herself. life I have dragged on for
months past?... feeling but a

AND THE SAME"I shall think it a dream ceaseless sorrow, and at times a
to-morrow!" she cried. "I shall very delirium of desire to
not be able to believe that I behold my Jane again. Yes; for
have seen and touched, and her restoration I longed....
spoken to you once more.... Will she not depart as suddenly
Cruel Heathcliffe! You don't as she came? To-morrow... I
deserve this welcome. To be shall find her no more....
absent and silent for three Cruel, cruel deserter! O Jane,
years, and never to think of what did I feel when I
me!" discovered you had fled and left
Thornfield?"
"... I've fought through a
bitter life since I last heard "Jane!... my heart swells
your voice, and you must forgive with gratitude to the beneficent
me, for I struggled only for God of this earth just now.... I
you!" did wrong: I would have sullied
my innocent flower: the
"... The event of this evening," Omnipotent snatched it from me.
said Catherine, "has reconciled I, in my stiff-necked rebellion,
me to God and humanity! I had almost cursed the dispensation:
risen in angry rebellion against instead of bending to the decree
Providence--oh, I've endured I defied it.... Of late, Jane,
very, very bitter misery.... I... I began to experience
can afford to suffer anything remorse, repentance; the wish
hereafter! Should the meanest for reconciliation to my
thing alive slap me on the Maker.... Now I thank God."
cheek, I'd not only turn the
other, but I'd ask pardon for
provoking it.... I'm an angel!"
(Later on in Wuthering Heights
Charlotte Brontë, temporarily
neglecting her use of Method I.,
interchange of the sexes, in
this connection, makes
Heathcliffe say to Catherine:--
"Why did you betray your own
heart, Cathy?... You loved me,
then what right had you to
leave me?... 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.").
The above parallel descriptions, it will be found, agree practically
word for word. I will now give the substance side by side, and let the
reader keep in mind Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the
sexes of characters:--
Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre.

AND THE SAMECatherine and Heathcliffe love Jane and Rochester love each
each other, but Heathcliffe other, but Jane suddenly
suddenly disappears. disappears.
One evening Heathcliffe as One evening Jane as suddenly
suddenly returns. The narrator returns. The narrator of the
of the return of the runaway return of the runaway Jane tells
Heathcliffe tells us that it is us that it is evening, and she
evening, and she is outside the is outside the house, when in
house, when in the dim light she the dim light she distinguishes
distinguishes the figure of a the figure of a man, a stranger
man, a stranger she has not seen she has not seen for some time.
for some time. Dusk as it is, Dusk as it is, she recognizes
she recognizes Heathcliffe. Rochester.
In his countenance, however, In his countenance, however,
there is "a transformation,... there is "a change--that looked
a half-civilized ferocity lurked desperate and brooding--that
yet in his eyes full of black reminded... of... some
fire, but was subdued." fettered wild beast...
dangerous to approach in his
sullen woe."
"What! you come back? Is it "Is it really you, Miss, come at
really you?" cries the servant, this late hour?" cries the
"raising her hands, uncertain servant, "starting as if she had
whether to regard him as a seen a ghost," addressing the
worldly visitor," addressing the runaway Jane.
runaway Heathcliffe.
"I want to have one word with "... Tell your master a person
your mistress," says Heathcliffe wishes to see him," says Jane to
to the servant. "Go and tell her the servant.
some person... desires to see
her."
But there is a difficulty, and But there is a difficulty, and
eventually, to accomplish the eventually, to accomplish the
meeting of the parted lovers, meeting of the parted lovers,
the taking in of the candles is the taking in of the candles is
considered as a pretext. considered as a pretext.
Catherine cries:--"Heathcliffe's Rochester cries:--"... What
come back--he is.... I'm afraid sweet delusion has come over me?
the joy is too great to be What sweet madness has seized
real!" me?"
"I shall think it a dream "I am come back to you," says
to-morrow. I shall not be able Jane.

AND THE SAMEto believe I have seen and
touched and spoken to you once "I have touched you, heard
more," says Catherine to you.... To-morrow I fear I shall
Heathcliffe. And reproachfully find [you] no more," says
he exclaims:-- Rochester to Jane. And
reproachfully he exclaims:--
"I've fought through a bitter
life since last I heard your "Who can tell what a dark,
voice, and you must forgive me, hopeless life I have dragged on
for I struggled only for you." for months past?... feeling...
but... a ceaseless sorrow and
"Cruel Heathcliffe, you don't... a very delirium of desire to
deserve this welcome," says behold my Jane again. Yes; for
Catherine; "to be absent... and her restoration I longed....
never think of me." Cruel, cruel, deserter! O Jane,
what did I feel when I
discovered you had fled from
Thornfield?" says Rochester.
Catherine had risen in angry Rochester had risen in angry
rebellion against God because of rebellion against God because of
the cruel fate that had divided the cruel fate that had divided
her and Heathcliffe; but now him and Jane, but now that she
that he was restored to her, she was restored to him, he was
was reconciled, and was thankful reconciled, and was thankful of
of heart. heart.
-------- --------
And thus, from the rainy day And thus, from the rainy day
incident in Catherine's early incident in Jane's early
childhood to the reconciliation childhood to the reconciliation
of Catherine and Heathcliffe, we of Jane and Rochester, we have
have the main narrative of the the main narrative of the
heroine and hero of Wuthering heroine and hero of Jane Eyre_,
Heights_, obviously written by obviously written by Charlotte
Charlotte Brontë from facts in Brontë from facts in her own
her own life. 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.

MDLLELAGRANGE 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. Sue's serials;[56] the second,
an abridged and altered version for French readers, published in Paris
in March 1851--gave two phases of Charlotte Brontë, something after the
method we see Miss Brontë herself employed in Jane Eyre, wherein she
gave two phases of Tabitha Aykroyd, one in the beginning as Bessie,
another later on as Hannah of the Rivers family.[57]
Indeed it will be found that in this work Eugène Sue also imitated

MDLLECharlotte Brontë's Method I., 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."
This manuscript has been sent by the author for an opinion of its merits
to M. 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

MDLLEbe 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. Lagrange, as
Charlotte Brontë, I find therein the whole Lowood school incidents--the
typhus fever, the hair-cutting incident, the death of the consumptive
Helen Burns, etc., amplified with biographical additions. For instance,
take the hair-cutting incident of Jane Eyre as represented in
"Lagrange's Manuscript"--
The master called out:--

MDLLE"Elizabeth----"... Meanwhile all the Elizabeths in the school must have felt the
claws of the tiger in their necks, for who could tell which of them
it was?...
"Superintendent of the Kendall Institute! you are aware, madam, one
of the rules of this establishment enjoins you to cut short the
hair of every new girl.... And yet what do I see? Six girls with
long hair...."
The last of these had not been a week at the institution. She was a
girl of fourteen, very dark,... with a fine tinge of the Creole in
her face. How well I thought did Isabella Hutchinson, with her
dark, West Indian head, look by the side of the fair Yorkshire
girl, Sophia Leigh, whose pale, straw-coloured locks, looked paler
still by the side of that dark heap of hair, blacker than a raven's
wing...[!]
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.

MDLLEFrequently it follows in parallel to Jane Eyre, but as parody
interspersed with biographical details which must have been intended
chiefly for Charlotte Brontë herself, as scarcely any one else could at
that day have understood the pertinence of the references.[58] Take a
Helen Burns incident whereby M. Sue shows he is aware she was a Brontë
sister, older than Charlotte--Maria Brontë who died of consumption:--
But the inexorable hand... 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. Her voice, at all times so meek and low, dwindled
away to that thin and tiny sound to which we listen as to
something absent--already gone--something that comes from above or
below us--that is not living among us--not breathing as we
breathe--a retreating echo, rather than a living voice--a sigh,
and not a sound.... 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! How often, as our
cheeks lay against each other have I wished that I, too, had been
ill, so that I also might have died, as she was dying, in my
innocence!... One evening,... 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?"
"So it is, but there lies the merit, my dear; wrestle with
temptation and do what is right,... you must not allow my death
to afflict you much, since I rejoice at it.... If you think of me,

MDLLEthink 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. I will place the two side by side:--
Jane Eyre. "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.
That forest dell, where Lowood The Master of the Kendall
lay, was the cradle of... Institution... had... been
fog-bred pestilence, which... very much shocked by the ravages
crept into the Orphan Asylum, of typhus fever, and since the
breathed typhus through [it]... reports of Agnes's health had
and transformed the seminary become serious, had sent several
into a hospital.... One evening times to ascertain how she... Mr. Bates came out, and... was.... "Miss Bell, I am come to
a nurse.... I ran up to her. inquire after our friend, Miss
Jones."
"How is Helen Burns?"
"... Agnes is always calm and
"Very poorly," was the easy-minded.... This is very
answer.... Two hours later... I kind of you."
reached... Miss Temple's room,... I looked in. My eye sought... As I was preparing to lie
Helen, and feared to find down in the room, Agnes called
death.... "Helen!" I whispered to me:--
softly; "are you awake?"
"Catherine, my dear, I feel... I got on to her crib and rather cold to-night; will you
kissed her: her forehead was sleep with me?"
cold, and her cheek both cold
and thin, and so were her hand Of course I complied, and we lay
and wrist, but she smiled as of talking in each other's arms
old. until the sweet dove fell
asleep. Poor Agnes, she was
"Jane,... lie down and cover indeed cold; a strange chill
yourself with the quilt." came through me as I lay by her
side.... I still heard my sister

MDLLEI did so: she put her arm over orphan breathe and pant.... Why
me, and I nestled close to her. did I listen... so greedily?
Why--when the poor thing turned... I clasped my arms closer round once in the night, and
round Helen; she seemed dearer said: "Another kiss,
to me than ever; I felt as if I Catherine!"--why did I feel in
could not let her go; I lay with giving it her, as if a hundred
my face hidden on her neck. steel arrows had gone through my
Presently she said:--"... Don't heart? How long I lay awake and
leave me, Jane; I like to have thinking--wondering at the cold
you near me." emerging from the pure body at
my side, I know not! I must have
"I'll stay with you, dear slept, too; for I remember
Helen; no one shall take me opening my eyes with the first
away."... She kissed me, and I dawn, before the bells rang.
her; and we soon slumbered. When
I awoke it was day; an unusual "Agnes!" said I, softly; "are
movement roused me. you awake?"
A day or two afterwards, I But there was no answer!... I
learned that Miss Temple, on called again--then a third, and
returning to her own room at a fourth time! But still... no
dawn, had found me laid in a reply! Wondering at this
little crib; my face against silence,... I listened for that
Helen Burn's shoulder, my arms hard breathing I knew so well.
round her neck. I was asleep, But nothing--not a sound could I
and Helen was--dead. hear! Alarmed, but unwilling to
trust my fears, I felt for her
hand. Oh, God! it was cold as
ice, and rigid as stone! Wild
with affright,... I started up... and rushed out to call the
Superintendent [Miss Temple]. I
found her preparing to come to
us.... 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. Charlotte Brontë, as Lucy Snowe, in Villette,
Chapter XLI., 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. Sue's feuilleton in another version of
the fortune-telling incident of Jane Eyre:--
"Here," said I, to a brown, sunburnt damsel,... "take this
shilling and tell me when I shall be Empress of Morocco?"
I held out my hand.... The young girl looked at it,... 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."
"But not so much as yours will be.... First, you are without
father or mother?... 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!"
"No; I only want a shillingsworth,... that will do for to-day."
"Mdlle. Lagrange's Manuscript" was bound in blue morocco leather, and
the term "Empress of Morocco" may have a reference to a literary
ambition, as has the "Shakspeare's Day, I declare!" 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. Whatever was the reason she disliked me from
the first. ["I am convinced she does not like me," wrote Charlotte
to Emily of Madame Héger.] I felt intuitively she was my enemy....
Had we been thrown together when I was a child [!] I should
probably have suited her... for at that time I was a little given
to flattery myself. But that was before I had learned how many
better things there are than mere beauty.... Perhaps... I
preferred more solid advantages, because my vanity assured me that
I had them myself, while my personal appearance was insignificant
compared with hers. I was certainly fond of talking of what I
knew, which answered very well with those who knew as much, and
was rather pleasing to those who knew more. [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."
I was not above four years old when my mother died, my father
having gone to his grave two years before.... Oh, it is a sad, sad
thing to be an orphan!... My little head has been cut with more
than one fall, and blood has flowed down my neck. But nobody

MDLLEcared.... It was only Kitty Bell.... There was no loving heart to
take me to itself and soothe me.... I had been taken home by some
relation of my mother,... 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. Burke died, after the manner of
the same incident in Jane Eyre, and the writer takes an opportunity of
inserting the most distinctive feature of Jane Eyre, the light-bearing
apparition, the original of which I have shown Charlotte Brontë found in
Montagu's Gleanings in Craven:--
Suddenly there came a gleam of light through the key-hole,... and
now I could hear a short, heavy tread on the stairs--it was
coming up.... The gleam shot through the key-hole a third time,
with treble radiance. But what had I seen?... Was it a vision? 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. The sight had stunned and levelled me almost like a
blow on the temple.... 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
[? Aunt Branwell] comes to live with them, a "poor, quiet, elderly
spinster who paid a small stipend in order to preserve her independence
and keep up her dignity.... I must not attempt to describe her... 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'.
I will give in parallel columns the arrival of Charlotte Brontë at the
Clergy Daughters' Institute as it is described in "Mademoiselle
Lagrange's Manuscript," and in Jane Eyre the original:--
Jane Eyre. "Kitty Bell, the Orphan."
By the Mademoiselle Lagrange,
By Currer Bell. of Eugène Sue's _Miss Mary ou
L'Institutrice_.
The first days at the The first days at the
Institution. Institution.
The coach door was open and... We got to Kendall House.... I
a servant was standing at it: I had been sitting near my trunk
saw her... by the light of the on the outside of the coach, and
lamps. my legs were numb with cold. I
was quite unable to move, so the
"Is there a little girl called coachman lifted me down along
Jane Eyre here?" she asked. I with my box. The door was open
answered "Yes," and was lifted when the coach stopped; a
out, my trunk was handed down. servant was standing there with
a lamp. "Are you Catherine Bell
we expects down here to-day?"
she asked me.
"My name is Kitty Bell, if you
please," replied I.
The servant led me... into a The girl returned no answer, but
room, with a fire, where she having ushered me into a
left me alone.... I stood and spacious room with a fire in it,
warmed my numbed fingers over she left me there by myself;...
the blaze;... there was no there was no candle. I stood...
candle. warming my numb hands and limbs.
I heard the door open... and I
The door opened, and an saw a face... I never can
individual entered,... 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]. Dear, noble girl! her
[Miss Temple. Her real name was face was rather large, but
Miss Evans], her countenance was accurately oval--just as you see
grave, her bearing erect. them in the fine sacred pictures
of Murillo--those pictures of
grand female beauty.
She considered me attentively Everything in that face was

MDLLEfor a minute or two. great, open, frank, truthlike,... and yet there was a grave... "Are you tired?" she asked,... melancholy overspreading
placing her hand on my shoulder. that regal countenance.... It
was singular to see a woman... "A little, ma'am." acting as the manager of a
benevolent institution and
living apart from the world who
might have shone in any court in
Europe and... perhaps had no
equal on any throne... [!] 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.
Then she set me down... and,
putting her hand on my head,
she asked me:--
"Your name is Catherine Bell, is
it not?"... [Here follows the
"Shakespeare's Day" reference I
have already given.]
I have not... 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. King [Mr.
was a relief to me.... One Brocklehurst] the master or
afternoon (I had... been three registrar.... One morning when I
weeks at Lowood)... I woke up I heard the bells in the
recognized almost instinctively dormitories ringing louder than
that gaunt outline,... it was ever....
Mr. Brocklehurst.
I knew without being told this
After some lines we have the strange man was Mr. King.
hair-cutting incident I have
quoted already from "Lagrange's "Catherine Bell!" called out
Manuscript." This incident comes Miss Ashton.
after and not before Catherine
(Jane) has been commanded to
stand before the class.
On hearing my name I left my
place in the rank, and
advanced....
"So! this is Catherine Bell, is
it?" cried Mr. King. "I have
heard her kind friends at home
speak of Catherine Bell, and... "Fetch that stool," said Mr. they tell me she is a naughty,
Brocklehurst.... "Place the vicious, headstrong child--very
child on it." ungrateful to those for whose
generosity she ought to have so
And I was placed there. much respect and gratitude! Is
this true, Catherine Bell?"
"Miss Temple,... children, it
becomes my duty to warn you that "No, sir; not a word of it."

MDLLEthis girl... is a little
castaway,... this girl is--a "What, child!... Are you a
liar!... Let her stand... on little liar as well as an
that stool." ingrate? Stand here!"
What my sensations were no The passions and feelings of a
language can describe.... I child are only known to
mastered the rising hysteria... children. Grown-up people seem
and took a firm stand on the to have forgotten them.[60] I
stool. stood there with cheeks burning
with shame, indignation, and
anger.... My pride had been
savagely assailed. I did not
want pity. I wanted... 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.
Great God! what emotions there
were raging in my breast! 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. The seed-cake incident of
Chapter VIII.
of Jane Eyre, which
is given at length in "Lagrange's Manuscript," is herewith worked in
again:--
"I don't like Madame Dubois...."
"Why so? she is a very good sort of a woman."
"That may be, but she takes snuff...."
"What is that to you or me, Catherine Bell? Surely it is no
business of ours?"
"Sometimes it is, though.... 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?"
"ALL IN--ALL IN--FOR SCHOOL!" 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

MDLLEimmediately by vomiting. [M. Sue had been a surgeon.]... Oh, how
cruel, how bitter it was to us when we saw the first little coffin
borne out of the school!... And now we began to hear, for the
first time, the dismal word typhus uttered here and there in
whispers through the school.... 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.
Faithful to its model, "Lagrange's Manuscript" brings Isabella the
Creole as the rival of Catherine Bell, and thus of the Creole's husband
Catherine writes:--
Unwittingly, and quite unknown to myself, I became the object of
his admiration--nay, of his marked preference; but I rejected
indignantly the homage of an affection which he had sworn to
another, and which it was his sacred duty to preserve
undefiled.... 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.
With the natural instinct of divination peculiar to female
jealousy, his wife had guessed who was the deity at whose altar
the captain was burning his incense.... 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.
Lagrange ['Madame herself deemed me a regular bas bleu,' says
Lucy Snowe of Madame Beck (Madame Héger) in Villette]... her
character... 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

MDLLEmind, 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? Marriage?--yes, that perpetual
dream of maidens, and a dream which too often ends in an
everlasting nightmare. But the task was not easy, for, it has been
said, beauty had been forgotten by Dame Nature among the few gifts
she had granted her.[61] What the appearance failed in, the mind
should, at any cost, supply [!]. This had become her ruling
desire. Thence the manuscript ['Catherine Bell, The Orphan'] we
have already read had been the first ponderous lucubration of her
fortune-seeking imagination: she had been praised for this first
attempt by her friends, and also by one two distinguished
critics.[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

MDLLEBrontë is openly represented as the Irish governess at the de Morville
establishment.[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. It should be
read in the light of the lines in
Chapter XIX.
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. In the evening Alphonsine, M. de Morville's daughter, who says
many things we know must have issued from M. Héger's lips--(this is in
palpable imitation of Charlotte Brontë's Method I., interchange of the
sexes of characters portrayed from life. For further use of this method
see also the close of
Chapter XII.
and elsewhere in The Professor, and
my writing on Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre)--pays a visit to the
chamber of the Irish governess:--
"Were you not reading?... I see a book on your work-table. May I
look?... The Imitation of Christ!" exclaimed Alphonsine, after
having read the title-page. "Oh! this is a beautiful book, is it
not?"
"Truly beautiful!" answered Mary; "the cover is old, the pages
worn out in many places. You must not wonder at it: from the age I
began to read, I don't think I ever passed three nights without
reading at least one chapter of this admirable work."
The Imitation of Christ in English was a book Charlotte Brontë was
setting much store on when she was but nine years of age.[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. Héger, whom she
instructed in English, requested to hear the work in this English
translation:--
"Pray what chapter were you reading?" continues Alphonsine. "I
should so much like to hear you read it to me: I have occasionally

MDLLEread 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.
"Let your conscience be pure, and surely God will know how to
defend you.... Learn to suffer in silence, without repining, and
you will... receive assistance from Him."
"What a truthful, becalming lesson!" 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. Thus she says to M. de Morville:--
"I am speaking seriously to you of my foolish but most acute
sufferings... tandis que tu restais seul ici avec tes livres. You
never suspected them;... 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."
"Louise! 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? What made me
tolerate that poor Lagrange is that she was as ugly as the seven
cardinal sins.... In fine, I cannot conceal from myself that the
result of all this was that Mdlle. Lagrange gave up her situation
on the plea of ill-health. ["Ah! she was not dismissed," said
Mdlle. Reuter (Madame Héger) in The Professor,
Chapter XVIII.,
when the Professor asked whether Mdlle. Frances Henri[65] (Miss
Brontë) had left voluntarily. "... No need to have recourse to

MDLLEsuch extreme measures, I assure you."] 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.
Héger cost me," said Charlotte Brontë.[66]
Here is M. Sue's version:--
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.
"Partir! but that is impossible! A departure so brusque, si peu
attendu!"
"Pray do not perceive, monsieur," says the Irish governess, "in
this unlooked for departure any want of regard for you;... il a
fallu des raisons graves, very grave, to compel me to such a
resolution."
"Partir!" wailed M. de Morville. "What! 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! Oh! do not say you were unaware of my unhappy love," he

MDLLEcontinues, "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. Ah! the traces of that struggle,
should they not have been too evident to your eyes! What! 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? And those nights without sleep passed in consuming
my tears, exaggerating more the consequences of that fatal
passion!... What! you have divined nothing, read nothing of mes
traits, in my eyes red with tears and sleeplessness? Mon Dieu! mon
Dieu! to have suffered so much... suffered so much, and not to
have even the consolation of saying: She knows that I have
suffered."
The reader of Miss Mary will perceive throughout this scene in the
extant and apparently re-written French volume that M. 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.) As he asks:--
"Is it my fault if in the monotony of my existence est tout à coup
apparue a person whose talents, education, and character have been
appreciated by all and by me.... 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. And my crime, what is it?... 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

MDLLEestablishment, calling it a "véritable prétexte" when the real reason
was Madame's jealousy and its causes. Oh, the bitterness of it! And now
in this light read the carefully worded representation of Mrs Gaskell
that:--
Towards the end of 1843 various reasons conspired... to make her
[Charlotte Brontë] feel that her presence was absolutely and
imperatively required at home, while she was... 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.
Something of the foregoing I gave in my article "The Lifting of the
Brontë Veil" in The Fortnightly Review, and I have to thank the press
generally for their kind acknowledgment of my important discovery. _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. Monsieur protests:--
"Madame," he cries, "... 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.
"That is charming!" 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!"
Her husband protests that she outrages one of the purest characters in
the world, but the governess interrupts by addressing the wife:--
"Madam, suspicions so odious, so senseless, are unable to wound an
honourable soul.... I reply nothing to these words, which you will

MDLLEsoon 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. To this, the governess
retorts:--
"You accuse me, madam, of wishing to win the affections of M. de
Morville, and of desiring to dominate at your house? Here is my
reply."
And her reply is that she is returning to England.
"You go away!" cried Madame de Morville.... "No, no, that is a lie
or a trick!"... Madame... 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. I have said it to M. de Morville, who, par prévision without
doubt, took at once your part against me.... And on whom, then,
will that responsibility fall!... We were all happy and peaceful
before your advent here, and to-day, when you go you leave us dans
le chagrin."
To which Miss Mary retorts:--
"Ah! 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. In
Chapter XX.
of _The
Professor_, published years after M. Sue's work, but written before it,

MDLLEshe gives us the reason for this determination. By her Method I.,
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.
Crimsworth [Miss Brontë] says:--
I could not conceal... that it would not do for me to remain....
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. I was no pope,... in short, if I
stayed, the probability was that, in three months' time, a
practical modern French novel would be in full process of
concoction.... From all this resulted the conclusion that I must
leave,... and that instantly.... The Spirit of Evil... sought to
lead me astray.[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 surrendered to temptation; listened to
passion; made no painful effort--no struggle; but to have sunk
down in the silken snare; fallen asleep on the flowers covering it... to have been now living in France, Mr. Rochester's mistress... I shall never more know the sweet homage given to beauty,
youth, and grace--for never to any one else shall I seem to
possess these charms.... 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

MDLLEme 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. Eugène Sue has given us an
insight into the bitterness of M. 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. Héger in reproach to Charlotte Brontë:--
"Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart,
Cathy?... You loved me--then what right had you to leave me?...
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

MDLLEnature 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 RECOILcompels us to perceive M. Sue often presented by imitation of Charlotte
Brontë's Method I., 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.
"Elle affecter," replies Alphonsine, "... 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."
"Proud! what of? 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."
"Without doubt... 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."
"Que veux-tu... 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."
"Une étrangère!" says Alphonsine, naïvely; "dis donc une amie, une
soeur.... Ainsi, toi... 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."
"Without doubt," replied Madame de Morville, with a forced smile;... "and I,... 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 RECOILshown. But whether he would confess himself to Miss Brontë afterwards is
not certain. The tone of Charlotte Brontë's successive writings suggests
he did not, as do many points of evidence and the reference in
Villette,
Chapter XIX., 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. Sue makes 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. As Charlotte Brontë tells us in
Villette,
Chapter XXXVI.: "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.
The references in her poems to a recognition of growing coldness in a
lover--see "Frances," "Preference," etc., 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 RECOILnecessity 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!
"Then will the bliss of Heaven be won;
Then will Hell shrink away;
As I have seen night's terrors shun
The conquering steps of day.
'Tis my religion thus to love,
My creed thus fixed to be;
Not Death shall shake, nor Priestcraft break
My rock-like constancy!"
And places in the mouth of Catherine of Wuthering Heights,
Chapter
IX., in the same connection:--
"If I were in heaven... I should be extremely miserable.... I

THE RECOILdreamt once... I was there,... heaven did not seem to be my
home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and
the angels were so angry that they flung me out... on the top of
Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.[71]... I cannot
express it; but surely you... have a notion that there is... an
existence of yours beyond you. What were the use of my creation if
I were entirely contained here? My great miseries in this world
have been Heathcliffe's miseries... 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 should not seem a
part of it. [See my remarks on Charlotte Brontë's belief in the
elective affinities, page 96-7.] My love for Heathcliffe resembles
the eternal rocks beneath.... 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. Thus she says:--
"... 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. To quote
my words in The Fortnightly Review:--"We see why Miss Brontë, herself
a Protestant, went to the confessional at Brussels.... 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!"

THE RECOILnote of Fénélon's Les Aventures de Télémaque fresh in our minds, we
see why she wrote of her father-confessor in Villette,
Chapter XV.:--
There was something of Fénelon about that benign old priest; and
whatever... I may think of his Church and creed,... 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. Nicholls who married Miss
Brontë.[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. She
tells us in Villette that she broke off the seduction of visiting this
priest and says:--"The probabilities are that had I visited... at
the... day appointed, I might just now... have been counting my beads
in the cell of a... convent...." 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. John Rivers
in Jane Eyre (
Chapter XXXV.
). 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. John (see
Chapter XXXIV.), may be said to have been in Miss Brontë's mind that
life of religious consecration which in Villette she owns to have been
the likely result of her further listening to the advice of the priest,
to whom she had given "the... 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 RECOILAnd I, methinks, am gone astray
In trackless wastes and lone.
"I fain would rest a little while:
Where can I find a stay,
Till dawn on the hills shall smile,
And show some trodden way?[76]
I come! I come! in haste she said,
'Twas Walter's voice I heard!"
Then up she sprang--but fell back, dead,
His name her latest word.
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. Without respecting
some sorts of affection, there was hardly any sort having a fibre
of root in reality, which I could rely on my force wholly to
withstand."--Charlotte Brontë speaking of her Brussels Fénélon in
Villette,
Chapter XV.
], I say almost--I knew the
difference--for I had felt what it was to be loved; but, like him,
I now... thought only of duty;... I sincerely,... fervently
longed to do what was right.... 'Show me, show me the path!' I
entreated of Heaven.... My heart beat fast and thick.... I heard a
voice somewhere cry 'Jane! Jane! Jane!' nothing more.... I had
heard it--where or whence, for ever impossible to know! And it was... a known, loved, well-remembered voice--that of Edward Fairfax
Rochester.... 'I am coming!' I cried.... 'Wait for me! Oh, I will
come!' I broke from St. John, who would have detained me. It was
my time to assume ascendency. My powers were in play, and in
force. I told him to forbear question or remark.... I mounted to
my chamber... fell on my knees, and prayed in my way--a different
way to St. John's, but effective in its own fashion.... I rose
from the thanksgiving--took a resolve--and lay down... 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 RECOILBrussels 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_. The circumstances were full difficult for the
reviewer; she was irritated and encompassed. 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 RECOILEyre_, 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." And
later, turning on Wuthering Heights she says with a final vehemency,
and most sensationally:--
There can be no interest attached to the writer of _Wuthering
Heights--a novel succeeding Jane Eyre_... and purporting [!] to
be written by Ellis Bell--unless it were for the sake of a more
individual reprobation. For though there is a decided family
likeness between the two [!], yet the aspect of the Jane and
Rochester animals in their native state as Catherine and
Heathcliffe [!], 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 RECOILBrontë'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. XXIV.:--
"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.
And haunted as a robber-path
Through wilderness or wood;
For Might and Right, and Woe and Wrath,
Between our spirits stood.[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 RECOILthat 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!
Who sometime was a Nymph, and in the mountains high
Of Craven, whose blue heads, for caps put on the sky,
Among the Oreads there, and Sylvans, made abode
(It was ere human foot on these hills had trod),
Of all the mountain kind, and since she was most fair;
It was a Satyr's chance to see her silver hair
Flow loosely at her back, as up a cliff she clame,
Her beauties noting well, her features and her frame,
And after her he goes; which when she did espy,
Before him like the wind, the nimble Nymph did fly:
They hurry down the rocks, o'er hill and dale they drive,
To take her he doth strain, t' outstrip him she doth strive,
Like one his kind that knew, and greatly feared....
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 RECOILspring. 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.
A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have
been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused;... the same ridge,
black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have
represented as meetly my subsequent condition when... reflection
had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my
hated and hating position. Something of vengeance I had tasted....
As aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy; its
after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I
had been poisoned.... 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.
These words, written by Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre,
Chapter IV., 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."
Thus in Wuthering Heights,
Chapter XV., 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? Will you say... 'That's the grave of

THE RECOILCatherine 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?" Well might Catherine deem that heaven
would be a land of exile to her, unless with her mortal body she
cast away her mortal character also. [See my footnote in the
foregoing chapter, on Catherine's dream that the angels flung her
out of heaven.] Her present countenance had a wild
vindictiveness....
"Are you possessed with a devil," he pursued savagely, "to talk in
that manner to me when you are dying?"
And later, as though in answer to the apparent threat of the poem
"Gilbert," wherein, as I have said, the spectre of the woman who has
died broken-hearted through the neglect of her married lover haunts him
and drives him mad, Heathcliffe, in the words of that poem, "Wild as one
whom demons seize," cries:--
"Catherine Earnshaw... 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. But in
Villette and Jane Eyre she "would not ascribe vice to him;... 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 RECOILthe vindictiveness of a woman with "a riven outraged heart," the wounds
in which yet rankled sorely. Thus may we understand her saying in her
famous preface to Wuthering Heights:--
Heathcliffe betrays one solitary human feeling, and that is not
his love for Catherine, which is a sentiment fierce and inhuman: a
passion such as might boil and glow in the bad essence of some
evil genius [see my reference to "Robin-a-Ree"; and to the Craven
Satyr, page 142]; a fire that might form the tormented centre--the
ever-suffering soul of a magnate of the infernal world: and by its
quenchless and ceaseless ravage effect the execution of the decree
which dooms him to carry Hell with him... we should say he was a
man's shape animated by demon life.... 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."
In Villette,
Chapter XX., she refers to M. Paul (M. Héger)
antithetically, and all the more significantly, in a comparison of him
with Dr. John Bretton, of whom she says:--
Who could help liking him? He betrayed no weakness which
harassed all your feelings with considerations as to how its
faltering must be propped; from him broke no irritability which
startled calm and quenched mirth; his lips let fall no caustic
that burned to the bone; his eye shot no morose shafts that went
cold, and rusty, and venomed through your heart.
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 RECOILpublisher 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. To
cover Charlotte Brontë's regretful error were to connive against law and
literature. 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.
Héger[83]:--
Wuthering Heights. Shirley.
Chapter XII.
Chapter XXIV.
Catherine's illness, and her Caroline's illness, and her
doubting the absent lover, doubting the absent lover,

THE RECOILHeath(cliffe). Mrs. Dean in Moor(e). Mrs Pryor in
attendance. attendance.
-------- --------
"And I dying!" exclaimed "Am I ill?" asked Caroline of
Catherine to Mrs. Dean. "I on Mrs. Pryor, and looked at
the brink of the grave! My God! herself in the glass;... she
does he know how I'm altered?" felt... her brain in strange
continued she, staring at her activity.... Now followed a hot,
reflection in a mirror.... How parched, restless night... one
dreary to meet death surrounded terrible dream seized her like a
by their cold faces.... Edgar [? tiger... a fever of mental
Mr. Brontë] standing solemnly by excitement, and a languor of
to see it over; then offering long conflict and habitual
prayers of thanks to God for sadness had fanned the flame...
restoring peace to his house, and left a well-lit fire behind
and going back to his books. it....
Tossing about, she increased her
feverish bewilderment of "Oh!" exclaimed Caroline, "God
madness,... then, raising grant me a little comfort before
herself, desired that... [Mrs. I die!... But he [Moor(e)] will
Dean] would open the window. 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?
Can spirits through any medium
"Heath(cliffe)... they may bury communicate with living flesh?
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? Will wind,
me!" ["Heath(cliffe), I only water, fire, lend me a path to
wish us never to be parted, and Moor(e)? Is it for nothing the
should a word of mine distress wind... passes the casement
you hereafter, think I feel the sobbing?... Does nothing haunt
same distress underground," says it?"
Catherine, in a further chapter]
"I never will." She paused and When Catherine dies Heathcliffe
resumed... [Heath(cliffe's)] says:--"Catherine... 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. In the words
then![84] not through that of Caroline Helstone of

THE RECOILkirkyard. 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

sobbing"--she "haunts it" as the wailing phantom that cries as a child [Method II., altering the age of character portrayed], "Let me in--let me in!" outside "the lattice." And Heathcliffe, wrenching open "the lattice," sobs, "Come in!... Cathy, do come.... Catherine at last!" The spectre gives no sign of being; but the snow and wind whirled... through... blowing out the light. Chapter XIII. Mrs. Dean continues:-- Convalescent, Caroline whispers:-- In those two months [Catherine] encountered and conquered the "... I am better now.... I feel worst shock of what was where I am: this is Mrs. Pryor denominated as brain fever. The near me.... I was dreaming.... first time she left the chamber Does the churchyard look... on her pillow [was] a peaceful?... Can you see many handful of golden crocuses; her long weeds and nettles among the eye, long stranger to any gleam graves, or do they look turfy or of pleasure, caught them in flowery?" waking. "I see closed daisy-heads, "These are the earliest flowers gleaming like pearls on some at the Heights!... Is there not mounds," replied Mrs. Pryor.[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." It is in Shirley, Chapter VII., that Charlotte Brontë writes:-- Nature... is an excellent friend, sealing the lips, interdicting utterance, commanding a placid dissimulation; a dissimulation often wearing an easy and gay mien at first, settling down to sorrow and paleness in time, then passing away, and leaving a convenient stoicism, not the less fortifying because half-bitter. [As Lucy Snowe, Charlotte Brontë writes in Villette in perfect sympathy with this: "If I feel, may I never express? I groaned under her (Reason's) bitter sternness... 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. Reason might be right."] Who has read the ballad of 'Puir Mary Lee'?--that old Scotch ballad, written I know not in what generation nor by what hand. Mary had been ill-used--probably in being made to believe that truth which is falsehood; she is not complaining, but she is sitting alone in the snow-storm, and you hear her thoughts... those of a deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl. Anguish has driven her from the ingle-nook

of home, to the white-shrouded and icy hills: crouched under the 'cauld drift,' she recalls every image of horror,... she hates these, but 'waur' she hates 'Robin-a-Ree!' "Oh! 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. In this light glance at Charlotte Brontë's poem "Mementos," and at the following verses from her "Frances":-- "And when thy opening eyes shall see Mementos, on the chamber wall, Of one who has forgotten thee, Shed not the tear of acrid gall. * "Vain as the passing gale, my crying; Though lightning-struck,[87] I must live on; I know, at heart, there is no dying Of love and ruined hope alone. * "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." There is an apparent relationship of this last verse with the remarks in Chapter XXV. of The Professor, on Hunsden's "Lucia," of whom he says:--"I should... 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.

Perceiving, therefore, that Charlotte Brontë had likened herself to the heroine of "Puir Mary Lee," in so far as to be influenced by it to give the title of Wuthering Heights to one of her works, and to take the name of Snowe later for her autobiographical self, we understand why she wrote in Jane Eyre, Chapter XXVI.:-- Jane Eyre, who had been an ardent, expectant woman,... was a cold, solitary girl again: her life was pale; her prospects were desolate. A Christmas frost [see my reference to the name of Lucy Frost] had come at midsummer; a white December storm had whirled over June; ice glazed the ripe apples, drifts crushed the blowing roses; on hayfield and cornfield lay a frozen shroud [see "the snow-storm, the white-shrouded and frosty hills," the "cauld drift," the "whuddering blast," etc., of "Puir Mary Lee" in Shirley], lanes which last night blushed full of flowers to-day were pathless with untrodden snow; and the woods,... now spread waste, wild, and white as pine forests in wintry Norway. My hopes were all dead--struck with a subtle doom.... 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. Rochester was not to me what he had been.... I would not say he had betrayed me: but the attribute of stainless truth was gone from his idea [see "Robin-a-Ree"], and from his presence I must go; that I perceived well.... 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. In connection with the reasons responsible for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the title of Wuthering Heights, it is interesting to note some "subtlety of thought" dictated Charlotte's telling us in Shirley, Chapter XXXIII., 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. And as following the completion of Villette she decided to marry a man she did not really love, I would say her mood was honestly in sympathy with that in which she wrote Wuthering Heights through bitter, adverse circumstances and the warping of destiny, and did not result from Sydney Dobell's advice to her when, having read Shirley and Jane Eyre, and despite her disclaimer in a preface, thinking she was the author of _Wuthering Heights_, he advised her to resume the frame of mind in which she had penned 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. It was in The Palladium of September 1850 Sydney Dobell said:-- That any hand but that which shaped Jane Eyre and Shirley cut out the rougher earlier statues [in Wuthering Heights] we should require more than the evidence of our senses to believe;... the author of Jane Eyre need fear nothing in acknowledging these... immature creations.[89]... When Currer Bell writes her next novel, let her remember... the frame of mind in which she sat down to write her first [Wuthering Heights]. She will never sin so much against consistent drawing as to draw another Heathcliffe.... In Jane Eyre we find... 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. And in all innocence he had asked her to revive the frame of mind in which, to use the words in Jane Eyre, her heart had been "weeping blood"! 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. Emily had none. 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. I believe we have the secret of what I may call Emily's "involved moments" in Charlotte Brontë's description of her as Shirley Keeldar in Shirley, Chapter XXII., 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. Charlotte, to resume her reference to Emily in Shirley above quoted, further tells us that "so long as she is calm, indolence, indulgence, humour, and tenderness possess" her eye; "incense her,...

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.

APPENDIXMINOR 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. In The Dictionary of National Biography Leslie Stephen
says:--"Brontë,... a strong Churchman and a man of imperious and
passionate character,... is partly represented by Mr. Helstone in
Shirley, though a [Rev.] Mr. Roberson... supplied... 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. Helstone's dry-eyed mourning, etc., 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

APPENDIXMiss 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.
The references in Shirley, Chapters XII. and XXVII., 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. Armytage, Bart., 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" AND "VILLETTE."
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. Smith showed Charlotte Brontë the sights of London: the theatres, picture galleries, churches, etc.; and we have reflected in Villette incidents associated with her seeing these places.[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. "Home" de Bassompierre, he had "no more daughters and no son."[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" AND "THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL." 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. Smith, K.C., of Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., the Brontë publishers, having to do with its discovery. In the early autumn of 1906, Mr. Lionel Cust, M.V.O., 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. Sue's feuilleton, as I showed in The Fortnightly Review for March, identifies Miss Mary and the de Morvilles as phases of Charlotte Brontë and the Hégers.[96] (4.) Miss Brontë, in Shirley, herself presents M. Héger--Louis Gérard Moore--as an artist, and refers to past drawing episodes.[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 EVIDENCEI 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. Paul Héger," [Throughout that writer's correspondence in _The
Times, etc., 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. The publication of this letter ended the controversy.[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." In Chapter XXVIII. we find M. Paul saying--and it is interesting thus to have connected with the green dress a character whose prototype was M. Héger--that: "Pink or scarlet, yellow or crimson, pea-green or sky-blue, [the dress] was all one."[100] As I stated to Lady Ritchie in 1907, I believe that in Chapter XX. 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. Bretton... desired me to... show her my dresses; which I did, without a word.

"That will do," said she.... "You must have a new one."... 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! "That is not for me," I said hurriedly, feeling that I would... as soon clothe myself in the costume of a Chinese lady of rank.... "You will wear it this... evening." I thought I should not; I thought no human force should avail to put me into it.... 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." On June 12, 1850, Charlotte Brontë wrote to her friend, Miss Nussey, from the Smiths' in London, saying:-- Thackeray made a call.... If all be well, I am to dine at his house this evening.[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. Gaskell herself says of this portrait:--"Those best acquainted with the original were least satisfied with the resemblance.... Mr. Brontë thought... 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. Dean and Bessie of "Catherine's" and "Jane's" childhood--"Doubtless she confuses her recollections of me as I was in childhood, with present impressions."[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.

INDEXINTRODUCTION 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. But inspiration, thought, and fact denote in questions of
authorship, and therefore that is author of a work whose thoughts and
words are expressed and inmost life revealed therein. _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 memories had it recalled!--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

INDEXrevealed 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 INDEXTO THE LIFE AND WORKS OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

WUTHERING HEIGHTSIts relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii.-xi.[105], 16-19, 32-3,
37-53, 55-7, 69, 78-9, 83, 85-103, 106, 108-112, 114-8, 120-1,
126-9, 130-155, 156-8, 160-1, 168
In relation to Branwell Brontë, x., 18, 37-40, 52-3, 78-9, 93-5, 139
---- Tabby Aykroyd, x., 38, 40-1, 43-53, 77, 94-5, 147-8, 160, 168
---- M. Héger, viii., xi., 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. Patrick Brontë, 49, 147;
the younger Cathy's father, 161
---- Maria Brontë, 37
---- Emily Brontë, viii., 17, 18, 40, 138, 146, 153, 156, 169
---- M. Sue, ix., 103-4, 106-112, 114, 121, 128, 132-142
---- Charlotte Brontë's Poems, 56, 97, 128, 132-7, 139, 140-5,
150-1, 157-8
---- Montagu, x., 17, 20-35, 55, 57-68, 71, 141-5
---- Jane Eyre, vii., viii., x., 18, 20, 22-56, 58-68, 71-2, 79, 83,
85-103, 106, 108-112, 114-119, 121, 128-9, 134-146, 151-4, 157,
168
---- Shirley, ix., 18-9, 41, 43, 55-6, 83, 85-9, 136, 146-153, 160-1
---- The Professor, ix., x., 53-6, 78-9, 84-9, 121, 127-9, 138-9,
145, 151
---- Villette, ix., 92, 96-7, 103, 111, 121, 128-9, 136-8, 143-5,
148-154, 161
---- Charlotte Brontë's Method I., viii.-x., 23-4, 25-31, 38, 40, 47,
97-103
---- ---- Method II., viii., 25-31, 38-9, 48-51, 53, 55

JANE EYREIts relation to Charlotte Brontë's life, vii., viii., x.,[105] 15, 18,
21-2, 30, 37-56, 69-119, 121-154, 157, 168
In relation to Branwell Brontë, x., xi., 18, 37-40, 52-3, 78-9, 93-5,
106, 139
---- Tabby Aykroyd, x., 40, 43-53, 77-8, 94-5, 105, 128, 168
---- M. Héger, x., 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. Patrick Brontë, xi., 70-2, 74-7, 81-2, 128, 136
---- Maria Brontë, xi., 24, 70-1, 80-1, 106, 108-110
---- Anne Brontë, xi., 70-4, 77-8, 81-2;
Elizabeth Brontë, xi., 72, 81, 106-7
---- Emily Brontë, xi., 70-4, 78, 81
---- Aunt Branwell, xi., 70-3, 77-81
---- Cousin Eliza Branwell, xi., 69, 70-2, 79-81
---- M. Sue, ix., x., 82-3, 103-121, 126-9, 135
---- Charlotte Brontë's Poems, 97, 128, 135-8, 140-5, 150-1, 157-8
---- Montagu, x., 20-36, 60-8, 71-2, 140-5
---- Wuthering Heights, same as opposite
---- Shirley, 81, 83-9, 136, 147-153
---- The Professor, 79, 83-9, 111, 127-9, 139-142, 145, 151
---- Villette, 42, 86, 89, 92, 103, 118-9, 126, 128-9, 132-154
---- Charlotte Brontë's Method I., x., 23-4, 25-31, 97-103, 105
---- ---- Method II., 25-31, 45, 48-51, 72, 74

SHIRLEYIts 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 PROFESSORIts 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

VILLETTEIts 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.

WUTHERING HEIGHTSBrontë, Charlotte, her life:--37-53, 93-103, 138-9, 153, 169;
Frances and Catherine, 133-4;
throughout the work of, 18, 40;
drawn by her from Montagu, 22-36, 57-68, 141-2;
Tale of a Foundling, 33;
Alembert, 65;
as the younger Catherine, viii., 46, 161;
as the two Cathys, 16, 17, 34, 106-118, 161;
Authoritative evidence of her Methods I. and II.:--viii., 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. Jabez Bunting, 41;
her cold, wailing child apparition, 28-30, 52-6;
cloven tree, 96-7;
and Heathcliffe's hypochondria, 16, 55-6, 87-8, 144;
Isabella's rival, 106, 117-8;
as Catherine of Malham, 23, 57-68;
her mood in writing, 150-3;
fears publisher, 18-9, 153, 169
Brontë, Emily,
unimportance of her corrected copy of, and implication, 17, 169,
170;
purporting to be by, 18, 138, 153, 169;
Wuthering Heights, no internal evidence of, viii., 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. Dean, 43-51, 59, 69, 72, 78, 81, 160, 168;
her old songs, 46-7;
her fairy tales, 44-5;
as Joseph, 38, 40, 47-8
Héger, M., 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. Héger, viii.-x., 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 HEIGHTSMalhamdale 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

JANE EYREBrontë, Charlotte,
her life, 37-53, 69-103, 106-119, 123-155, 168, 169-170;
her second work based on Montagu, 23-36, 60-6, 68-72, 140-2;
Rivers family, 23, 69-82;
Burns, Helen, 23-4, 69-71, 80,
and Charles I., 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. Nussey, 77;
Hannah, and Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd), 40, 43-53, 69-73, 78, 81,
fairy tales and old songs, 44-7;
Reed, name (and Keeldar), 23, 81;
aunt, 38, 70-1;
John (and Hindley), 37-40, 52-3, 71, 79, 113;
Eliza and Georgiana, 69, 79-82;
Severn Julia, 23, 81, 107;
Lowood school, 18, 21-2;
fever, etc., at, 106-110, 117;
Miss Temple of, 81, 110-1;
Brocklehurst, 21, 81, 115;
Morton (Haworth), Moor House, 70-82, 105;
Charlotte as Jane Eyre and Catherine Earnshaw (also see Key Index),
37-42, 93-103, 150-2;
rainy day in her childhood, 37-42;
fit of frenzy, 48-51;
spectral writing, 42;
phantom hag, 42;
cold, wailing child apparition, 28-30, 52-6, 151;
cloven tree, 96-7;
the Sidgwicks, 78;
Gateshead Hall, 37-9, 45;
her Thornfield, 72, 127-8;
as Jane Eyre and Lucia Snowe, 148-152;
as Jane Eyre, and Crimsworth of The Professor, ix.-x., 127-8;
as Janet Aire or Jane Eyre of Malham, 22-3, 60-6, 70-2, 142;
"Jane," a secondary adaptation, 71;
Fairy Janet, Queen of the Malhamdale Elves, 23, 60-4;
no views on lunacy, 34-6;
Rochester's song, 140-2;
the miraculous voice, 136-7;
nymph and satyr, 141-2;
missionary life and priest, 136-7;
the runaway, 93, 97-103, 129;
hen-killing figure in Wuthering Heights and, ix.-x;
"Rydings," "Norton Conyers," and "Thornfield," 35, 159;
Wycollar Hall, 159
---- Rochester (see Key Index for M. Héger and the Taylors), x., 14,
145, and Wildfell Hall, 161;
Jane Eyre the surpassing of all Brontë biographies, 82;
"Key to Jane Eyre" The, xi., 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 EYRElonely 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

SHIRLEYBrontë, 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 PROFESSORBrontë, 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

VILLETTEBrontë, 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.

GENERAL INDEXAire, or Ayre, Malham, source of the, 23, 60-1, 71
Armytage, Bart., Sir Geo. J., 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 INDEX116. Elfish imagination, 23; schools, 14, 16, 18, 21-2, 81, 104, 106-117 --Clergy Daughters' School, 18, 21-2, 81, 106-117, Roe Head, 14, 16, 83, Héger pension, 16, 18, 72, 104; drawings, 82; her life from childhood to womanhood, 93-103; no psychical reciprocity with friends, 14; Wordsworth and her facility in writing novels, 17, 169; at Brussels (the Hégers), teacher and pupil, viii.-x., 63, 82, 120-2, 131, 138, dejection at, 120-1, 124; M. Héger, viii.-xi., 14-17, 93, 96-107, 111-2, 120-154, 162-8, and her literary secrets, 104, 162; Madame Héger, 16, 104-7, 111-2, 117-9, 122-7, 133, forbids corresponding, 16; Charlotte as Mdlle., 105, as M. Sue's Mdlle. Lagrange and Miss Mary, ix., 82, 103-132, 163; Imitation of Christ, ix., 121-2; her priest, 77, 132-8; departure from Brussels, 16, 127; flight from temptation, 105, 141-2, 122-9, 151-2; the fiery ordeal, 154; parting with the Hégers, 122-132; origin of her works, vii., 15, 20-36, 138; Montagu, see Key Index for Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre; Alembert, 64-5; Currer Bell, 17, 21-2; perpetuates drama of her life, vii., 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 INDEX157. Her hypochondria, 16, 87-8; "Puir Mary Lee," 45, 149, 150; the storm, 16, 17, 130-154, 157-8; vindictiveness against M. Héger, 16, 17, 143-6, 152; Ghoul and Satyr notion, 140-6; Héger and her heroes (see also the Taylors, 83-9), 83-92; heaven undesired by lover, 97, 133-4, 139; elective affinities, cloven tree, and "twin-soul," 96-7, 147-8; supernatural "way" to "twin-soul" lover (and the haunted wind), 55-6, 136-7, 140, 147-8; eerie signal against lattice, 28-30, 53-6, 147-8; dual portraiture, 69, 70, 77, 83-9, 120, 159, 160, 161; ice-cold wailing child apparition, 28-30, 52-6, 151; her two dreams preface to "bedside apparition," 28-30; name selection method, 22, 68; chronological sequences in her works, 161; character of her correspondence, 14, 15; Héger portrait of, in National Portrait Gallery, xi., 162-8; Richmond Portrait in N.P.G., 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. Nicholls, marriage with, 19, 96-7, 161 --Catherine Winkworth on, 96; Wildfell Hall, 17, 161; at Thackeray's and the Smiths', xi., 166-8; dedicates Jane Eyre to Thackeray, xi.; Greenwood Dyson and,
164. Last days: father and daughter, 161; her resting-place, 19; her Message and high rank of her genius, 16,
155. Also see the Key Index to her works
---- Elizabeth, 18, 71-2, 106-7
---- Emily (Ellis Bell), as understudy to Charlotte, 17, 169;
conspires with her to sustain rôle of author of Wuthering Heights,
17, 138, 146, 169;
no internal evidence of her in Wuthering Heights, viii.;
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 INDEXenjoys 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. Also see Key Index ---- Poems, 156-8; Aylott and Jones, 17, 105, 160 ---- servants: Aykroyd Tabitha, x.; 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. Ratcliffe), and Charlotte Brontë's married life, 96; Garrs, Nancy, and sister, 47, 159 Brookfield, Mrs., 167-8 Carlisle, William, 167 Carus-Wilson, Rev. Mr., 115 Casterton Hall, 23; Clergy Daughters' School, 18, 81, 106, 108-111, 114-117 Cornwall, Barry, 34 Courtney, William Leonard, xi., 104 Cust, Lionel, 162 Devonshire, Duke of, 20 Dewsbury, 14, 83, 160; Hartshead, 81, 160 Dobell, Sydney, 153-4, 169 Dyson, Greenwood, and Charlotte Brontë, 164 Elf, of Craven, The, 60, 141-2 Evans, Miss (Miss Temple), 110, 114 Fairy Cave, The, and Fairy Janet: see Malham Gaskell, Mrs., and M. Héger, 15, 96, 104; Madame Héger, 163; West Indian girl mystery, 108 ---- Misses, 165 Hathersage, 70-1, 77 Haworth, 68, 70, 138, 164; Church, 13, 19, 164; Parsonage, 69, 72-82, 159, 161, 164 Héger, M., as Charlotte Brontë's pupil, viii.-x., 120, 122; original of her chief heroes, 14, 16-17, 83-6, 89-93, 96-7, etc.; not secretive, 111, 162; and Roman Catholic Church, 16, 132, 138; a great and religious personality, 121, 124, 126-9, 132-3, 137-8, 154, 166; Charlotte Brontë's harsh portrayals of, 143-6; facial metamorphoses, 85; the bitterness of his life, 128-9, 130-2; "Paul," 162-6; as 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. G., 163 Hodge, Harold, xi., 153 Holloway, Laura C., 77 Holmes, Professor Charles J., 165 Holroyd, Kt., 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. See Key Index of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre for Malham in Montagu Malham, or Malam, origin of family, 67 Malham and Kalderworth, 67 Malhamdale, enchanted land, 60, 71 Montagu or Mountagu, Admiral, and Charles II., 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. See Montagu in the Key Index for those works Montagu, John, fourth Earl of Sandwich, 20 Morville de, M., Alphonsine, and Gérard, see M. Héger; Madame, see Madame Héger National Portrait Gallery, and Héger Portrait of Charlotte Brontë, xi., 162-8; Thomas Baylis, 163; and Richmond portrait, 168 Newby, Thomas, 19, 153, 169 Nicholls, Rev. A. B., see Charlotte Brontë; also Key Index for Villette Nussey, Ellen or Nelly, 14, 45, 71, 77, 160, 168; Rev. Henry, 77 Procter, Mrs., and Miss Perry, 167 Rigby, Miss (Lady Eastlake), 138-9, 153, 169 Ripon, K.G., Marquis of, xii. Ritchie, Lady, xi., 165-8 Shorter, Clement K., viii., 22, 77, 83, 147, 162, 164 Smith, George, xi., 86, 160-1, 166-8; Mrs. Smith, 166-7. See Key Index for Villette; Reginald John, K.C., 162; Smith Elder & Co., 161-2, 168 Sue, Eugène, ix., 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. M., xi., 34, 167-8. See Key Index, Villette Welch, Catherine Galbraith, xi. West Indian Girl, mystery of, 106-8, 112 Winkworth, Catherine, 96 Wise, Thomas J., 64 Wooler, Margaret, 18, 160 Yates, W. W., 75

WORKSKey to the Brontë Works, John Malham-Dembleby:--
Its place and importance, vii.-xii., 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. Shorter, viii., 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. Pickard, published by
Simpkin, Marshall & Co., 20. Also see under Wuthering Heights
and Jane Eyre, for Malham and Montagu, and Key Index to those
works
Kalderworth, or Lawyer Vavasor's Secret, John Malham-Dembleby,
Malham background of, 67;
when written, and origin of title, 67;
published by Joseph Cooke, Sir Edward Russell, Kt., 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. Whitmore, A.M., viii.

WORKSMAGAZINES, 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. 236; 1905.
[2] Clara H. Whitmore, A.M., in Woman's Work in English Fiction; 1910.
[3] The Saturday Review, September 6, 1902. A correspondence followed.
[4] The Fortnightly Review, March 1907.
[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.
"Patrick... 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. Of
this marriage there were ten children, the eldest being Charlotte
Brontë's father, who early took to "larnin'," to quote the Irish
hearsay. 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. Wright's book was issued, not even the vaguest tradition."
[6] The "wild, weird writings" of her childhood, which awed homely Mrs.
Gaskell, were merely badly, or I may say, childishly, assimilated
fragments from English adaptations found in Dryden, Rowe, etc., of Lucan
(Pharsalia, lib. 1, 73), and of other ancient writers.
[7] Her correspondence is given in Sir Wemyss Reid's _Monograph on
Charlotte Brontë, in Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë_, Haworth

FOOTNOTESEdition, and in Mr. Clement Shorter's The Brontës: Life and Letters,
1908.
[8] Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle, by Clement Shorter.
[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.) It is said Emily corrected misprints, etc.,
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.
See my remarks on Wildfell Hall in Appendix.
[10] See my remarks, page 39.
[11] When King Charles II. was crowned, Montagu carried the sceptre. A
historian states that the Admiral--who, I may say, had been a great
friend of Richard Cromwell--perished in the sea-fight with De Ruyter,
because he would not leave his ship by a piece of obstinate courage,
provoked by a reflection that he took care more of himself than of the
king's honour.
[12] For Basil Montagu see Dictionary of National Biography.
[13] On the other side of the same page Montagu concluded the narration
of his "A Night's Repose," with which I deal later.
[14] Clement Shorter's Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters, p. 164.
[15] See my observations on the name of Lucy Snowe.
[16] The name of "Helen Burns," that saintly sister of Charlotte Brontë,
may have been suggested by the St. Helen's Well which Montagu states was
near Miss Currer's home, Eshton Hall.
[17] The Brontë Country, by Dr. Erskine Stuart.
[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.

(See footnote on page 41.) [19] See footnote page 47. [20] Emily Brontë, Miss Mary Robinson; 1883. [21] Angus Mackay, in The Brontës: Fact and Fiction (1897), identifies Miss Brontë with Caroline Helstone. Charlotte Brontë's mother was a native of Penzance, near Helston. [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. Note the extract I have given from Villette on Lucy Snowe's having read as a child certain Wesleyan Methodist tracts. [23] "Lee" may have been suggested by the name of the heroine of "Puir Mary Lee," a Scottish ballad, which I find influenced Charlotte Brontë greatly when she began to write Wuthering Heights. [24] Called Nelly or Ellen Dean, perhaps because of Charlotte Brontë's affection for her friend Nelly or Ellen Nussey. [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. We see Tabby quite in the caricature of Joseph in Charlotte's half-humorous references to her in the diary-like descriptions of the Brontë kitchen fireside life of her childhood in 1829, etc.--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. Whenever Tabby was "Joseph" of Wuthering Heights Charlotte humorously caricatured her. [26] See footnote on page 37. [27] A remarkably recognizable idiosyncrasy of this child-phantom of Charlotte Brontë's brain is the part the little hands of the child play. In Charlotte Brontë's child-phantom of Wuthering Heights, Chapter III., the hand of the child takes a principal part, as in her above two versions. [28] See note on "the hand" of Charlotte Brontë's child-phantom, page 53. [29] See the chapters on "The Recoil" for the origin of the title of Wuthering Heights, and of the name Lucy Snowe; also my remarks on Charlotte Brontë's poem "Apostasy." [30] "The breeze was sweet with scent of heath and rush,... the hills shut us quite in; for the glen towards its head wound to their very core."--Jane Eyre, Chapter XXXIV. [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. Airton once told me that when she first met her husband he was playing a violin in the entrance of a cave, under a crag in Malhamdale. [32] It will be observed that in Chapter XXIII. of The Professor Charlotte Brontë practically calls Frances the heroine, "Jane." Of course she is the elf Janet (see Chapter XXV. of The Professor), and this sprite was also Jane Eyre--Charlotte Brontë herself. Read the verses in Chapter XXIII. in the light of my writing on "Eugène Sue and Charlotte Brontë's Brussels Life" and "The Recoil." [33] Mr. Thomas J. Wise has published and edited a valuable edition of this story, 1896. [34] "I like Charles the First," says Helen Burns in Jane Eyre, Chapter VI.; "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. We now understand the origin of the detached fragment in Jane Eyre. [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

Charlotte Brontë had written in Shirley, Chapter XIX., of "Calder or Aire thundering in flood." [36] That Gimmerton in Wuthering Heights means "the village of sheep" was admitted years ago. The etymology is very obvious. We now have the circumstances in which Charlotte Brontë chose the name. [37] See my footnote, page 58. [38] Thus she put her cousin Eliza Branwell under the same roof as herself and Branwell Brontë in Jane Eyre. [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. See my foot-note on Frances of The Professor as the Fairy Jane, page 63. [40] A copy of this will is printed in The Brontës: Life and Letters. [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. Helstone of Shirley, supporting his contention by evidence. [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. Nussey's portrait!) 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. 166-170. [43] The Brontës: Life and Letters. [44] In the love relations of Shirley Keeldar, however, we must expect to find phases of circumstances associated with Charlotte Brontë herself. Thus Shirley Keeldar is at times Currer Bell. [45] Mr. Rochester's remarks in Jane Eyre, Chapter XII., 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. Hence we read, "Eh bien! monsieur, trouvez-vous _qu'elle sait un peu dessiner, MA Miss Mary_?" The italics, etc., are M. Sue's.

[46] Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters, page 181. [47] The James Taylor in the firm of her publishers, who corresponded with Miss Brontë, was not related to this Hunsworth family. [48] See Matthew Yorke, Hiram Yorke's son, a character who has several traits in common with Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights.--Shirley, Chap. IX. [49] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë, Haworth edition, p. 230. [50] Note that in both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre it is assumed this character made silent reference to "the Deuce"; though he never uttered the name, his words seemed to "express" the sentiment. [51] The Brontës: Life and Letters, p. 340, vol. i. [52] The Moores of Shirley were mainly drawn from M. Héger, and though a Mr. Cartwright, supposed to have had foreign blood in his veins, is conjectured to have contributed to their creation because his mill was attacked with rioters, I find that the Yorkshire, or rather, "Taylor" element, as conceived by Charlotte Brontë, also entered into their composition. [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 guess the true love was Paul Emanuel [of Villette] after all... 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

not better than the old lightning-struck chestnut," for we had understood by the touching apostrophe in Jane Eyre, Chapter XXV., that he and Jane were implied. The words were:--"The cloven halves were not broken from each other, for the firm base and strong roots kept them unsundered below;... they might be said to form one tree--a ruin, but an entire ruin. 'You did right to hold fast to each other,' I said, as if the monster splinters were living things;... 'the time of pleasure and love is over with you; but... each of you has a comrade to sympathize with.'" And Rochester tells Jane:--"You are my sympathy--my better self;... a fervent... passion... wraps; my existence about you--and kindling in... powerful flame, fuses you and me in one." M. Héger as M. Paul in Villette strikes the same note we hear in Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre:--"We are alike--there is affinity between us.... Tremble! for where that is the case with mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to entangle." [54] See Charlotte Brontë's poems "Regret" and "Apostasy." [55] I discovered these most remarkable parallelisms by my knowledge and application of Charlotte Brontë's Method I., a fact that finally declares her the author of both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. [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. Rochester in the person to whom the letter is being written. [57] See my footnote, page 120. [58] It may be relative to this fact that "Lagrange's Manuscript" is not printed in the extant French edition of Miss Mary. [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. 24. [60] See my footnote, p. 37. [61] Mrs. Gaskell dwelt much on Charlotte Brontë's plainness in her Life, published seven years after the above. [62] Wuthering Heights with Agnes Grey had been accepted by Mr. Newby, its publisher, before Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. saw the manuscript of Jane Eyre, but Jane Eyre was published first. [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. Héger. [64] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë, Haworth Edition, p. 55. See my reference to Catherine teaching Hareton of Wuthering Heights, in the Preface. [65] Instead of "Swiss" pastor's daughter, read Irish. [66] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. [67] As Rochester calls Jane his beneficent spirit, it is interesting to read that M. 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? Ne m'a-t-elle pas jeté un sort?" [68] See my reference to Charlotte's Preface to Wuthering Heights in the second chapter of "The Recoil." [69] See my references to Charlotte Brontë's poem "Apostasy"; and to St. John Rivers as a phase of Charlotte's Brussels Fénelon. [70] See M. Paul and Lucy Snowe (M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë) in the close of Chapter XXI. of Villette. [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. Catherine's reference herewith in Wuthering Heights, to a "subliminal" existence in a lover and to the notion that the absence or loss of such a love (and hence, limiting of the bounds of existence,) would make the universe a blank, having no sympathy or relation--a stranger, is at one with Charlotte Brontë's further words in her poem, "Frances":-- "Unloved--I love; unwept--I weep;............ Vain is this anguish--fixed and deep;............ "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. Oh! narrow cell; Dark--imageless--a living tomb!" [72] Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle. [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!" "Virtue," argues Mentor, "now calls you back to your country... and forbids you to give up your heart to an unworthy passion.... Fly, fly,... for love is conquered only by flight... in retreat without deliberation, and... looking back." "Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor" (Shirley, Chapter XXVII. ). Evidently M. Sue knew Charlotte Brontë had read this book at Brussels, for he makes play on it in "Lagrange's Manuscript," wherein "Télémaque" is substituted for "Rasselas" in the equivalent scene in Jane Eyre. [74] See chapter on the Yorkshire element in Charlotte Brontë's heroes. [75] "Religion called----Angels beckoned!----" [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. 147-8. [77] See the reproach of the dying Catherine to Heathcliffe I quote in the next chapter. See also Crimsworth's words in the beginning of Chapter XIX. of The Professor. [78] See close of Chapter XXIV. of Jane Eyre. [79] See my footnote on "the trodden way" on p. 136. [80] See my reference to "the barriers" in "Apostasy." [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. My best friends point out danger and whisper caution."--Villette, Chap. xxxvi. [82] Mr. Angus Mackay, in The Brontës: Fact and Fiction, identifies Charlotte Brontë as the original of "Frances" of Charlotte's poem. [83] Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters, pp. 181-3. [84] See pages 136 and 140. [85] See my remarks on Mrs. Pryor in Appendix on Shirley. [86] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. [87] See footnote on page 97. [88] Sydney Dobell: Life and Letters; 1878. [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. See my remarks hereon in Chapter I. [90] For this see Leyland's The Brontë Family. [91] See footnote, page 13. [92] Charlotte Brontë and her Sisters, page 162. [93] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. [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. Home's death, Villette_, chap, xxiv., with Mrs. Helstone's Shirley, chap. iv. [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. Héger could have acquired these secrets only in most intimate conversation with Currer Bell herself: to none other would she have revealed them." [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

governess:--"Patience!... qui vivra verra. Je garde ce portrait de mademoiselle miss Mary, ça me fera souvent penser à elle--ça m'empêchera de l'oublier. Je vais la clouer à quatre épingles sur le papier de ma chambre".... She threatens to stick pins in it.... "Oui, oui, la belle Anglais!" 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. I may observe these mysterious references occur only in the 1851 volume; not in the 1850 feuilleton. [97] See my footnote on p. 82. [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. Paul in her novel, Villette, commenced not later than the close of 1850 or the beginning of 1851. [100] Italics mine. [101] In Chapters from Some Memories, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie. [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. Thackeray's house, when Charlotte Brontë sat next Lady Ritchie in a light green dress. [103] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë. [104] Ibid. [105] The Roman numerals refer to the Preface.