The Key to the Bronte Works Part 17

There are many definitions of genius: may I define it as a message?

Charlotte Bronte had a message. Emily had none. _Wuthering Heights_ and all the other works of Charlotte Bronte, prose and verse, had a vital message. Ellis Bell had no message. In a sort of idle, ruminative contemplation Emily Bronte 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 Bronte's description of her as s.h.i.+rley Keeldar in _s.h.i.+rley_, 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 impa.s.sioned or laboured verses; their illogic and incoherence fix it distressfully. Charlotte, to resume her reference to Emily in _s.h.i.+rley_ 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 wors.h.i.+p 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 role 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 Bronte, 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 upon her pieces as the reflections of an uneventful life in the inner sense of vital soul-conflict.

Anne Bronte'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 Bronte's poem "Pa.s.sion,"

but mayhap their low whisperings may waken sadly pleasant memories.

With Currer Bell's poems I deal in various chapters, wherein we perceive their relations.h.i.+p 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 Bronte? 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 compa.s.sionately as one physically weak, an unhappy victim of circ.u.mstances against which he had not the moral force to fight. Nor shall we forget that the Rev. Patrick Bronte, the father, wrote and published verse. His productions were printed in pamphlet form, and have been collected and republished.[91] As literature they are unimportant, but to the curious they may have a sort of interest.

APPENDIX.

MINOR IDENTIFICATIONS OF PERSONS AND PLACES IN THE BRONTe 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 Yorks.h.i.+re moors.

Architectural peculiarities and appointments are ever accretive properties with the novelist of imagination and lat.i.tude. This observation should be kept in mind also in regard to Charlotte Bronte'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 a.s.sociated with "The Rydings," near Birstall. Ferndean Manor has been identified with Wycollar Hall, near Colne. A Bronte 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 _Lancas.h.i.+re Legends_, 1873, though "Wyecoller Hall" is dealt with at length in each work.

"s.h.i.+RLEY."

Gomersall and Birstall, near Batley, Yorks.h.i.+re, 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 _s.h.i.+rley_ was in the main Haworth Parsonage to Charlotte Bronte. In _The Dictionary of National Biography_ Leslie Stephen says:--"Bronte, ... a strong Churchman and a man of imperious and pa.s.sionate character, ... is partly represented by Mr. Helstone in _s.h.i.+rley_, though a [Rev.] Mr. Roberson ... supplied ... characteristic traits." And Mr. Francis Leyland, who drew much of his information from Nancy Garrs, a Bronte servant, says that the fourth chapter of _s.h.i.+rley_, 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. Bronte. Helstone was a composite character, as also was Mrs. Pryor, to whom, without doubt, Miss Wooler contributed, though Charlotte Bronte once had a grave difference with her. Miss Nussey, who pathetically and wrongly believed herself Caroline Helstone, proclaimed Miss Wooler, her schoolmistress, as the prototype of Mrs. Pryor.

Evidence declares, however, that in many regards this character was also drawn from Tabitha Aykroyd. And we see that Charlotte Bronte, 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 Bronte's husband.

The references in _s.h.i.+rley_, Chapters XII. and XXVII., to Robin Hood's connection with Nunnwood and to the ruins of a nunnery, identify Nunnely in the circ.u.mstances, with Hartshead, near Brighouse and Dewsbury; Nunnely Church with Hartshead Church (Mr. Bronte 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 Bronte 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 a.s.sault was made on the factory of Mr. Cartwright near Dewsbury.

"THE PROFESSOR" AND "VILLETTE."

_The Professor_, Charlotte Bronte 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 Yorks.h.i.+re town, but the scene quickly changes to Brussels. The Heger _pension_ is recognized as the original of the schools in both novels, but in _Villette_ the place Villette occasionally becomes London as Charlotte Bronte knew it on her visits. Mr. George Smith, the Bronte publisher, and his mother, are portrayed as the Brettons. Mr. Smith showed Charlotte Bronte the sights of London: the theatres, picture galleries, churches, etc.; and we have reflected in _Villette_ incidents a.s.sociated with her seeing these places.[93] The reader will find a phase of Currer Bell in Paulina--Miss de Ba.s.sompierre, and a sympathetic phase of Mr. Bronte 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 Ba.s.sompierre, 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 Bronte's husband, in Dr. John Bretton, my previous remarks upon whom observe. It was shortly after the completion of _Villette_ Mr.

Nicholls proposed successfully, but it would seem by the concluding chapters Miss Bronte 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 Bronte in regard to his daughter's marrying a curate. See Chapter x.x.xVII. 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 Bronte'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 Bronte had a.s.sisted 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 Bronte upon a similarity in the leading male characters of _Wildfell Hall_ to Rochester, interest in it is merely dependent upon its a.s.sociation with the greater Bronte works, and the book does not call for sedulous inquiry.

THE HeGER PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE BRONTe IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.

The Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, London, purchased in July 1906, a hitherto unheard of portrait of Charlotte Bronte, painted in water-colours in 1850, and stated to be by M. Heger. 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 Bronte 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 Bronte, the authenticity of which became sensationally attacked. At once I pointed out the importance and significance of the portrait's being signed "Paul Heger," instead of "Constantin Heger"; and other matters. In March 1907, I appended a footnote[95] to my article, "The Lifting of the Bronte Veil," in _The Fortnightly Review_, and on May 16th, 1907, the literary editor of _The Tribune_, Mr. E. G. Hawke, having placed s.p.a.ce at my disposal, I wrote as follows:--

CHARLOTTE BRONTe.

THE HeGER PORTRAIT.

To the Editor of _The Tribune_.

SIR,--As the water-colour drawing by M. Heger is now a valuable property of the nation, and gives a more intimately faithful and characteristic likeness of Charlotte Bronte 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 Heger, 1850" (the accent is correct), and it represents Miss Bronte with curls, and reading _s.h.i.+rley_, 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 Bronte wore colours after the death of her sister.

And below:

This drawing is by P. Heger (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 Heger family at Brussels. The children of the Mme. Heger who refused to see Mrs. Gaskell because of her dislike to Miss Bronte, aver that M. Heger 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 Bronte herself or M. Heger.

(2.) The statement of Mr. Thomas Baylis, a well-connected gentleman.

(3.) Eugene Sue, in his 1851 volume of _Miss Mary ou l'Inst.i.tutrice_, gives, with a clouding of mystery, a lover--Gerard de Morville--drawing a portrait of Miss Mary "d'apres 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 Bronte and the Hegers.[96]

(4.) Miss Bronte, in _s.h.i.+rley_, herself presents M. Heger--Louis Gerard 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 Bronte 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. Upon the other hand, it is discovered to be utterly impossible for any one but Charlotte Bronte or M. Heger to have inspired the inscriptions, whosoever wrote them.

SIGNIFICANT PIECES OF EVIDENCE.