The Key to the Bronte Works Part 29

[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 Bronte 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 Bronte herself. Read the verses in Chapter XXIII. in the light of my writing on "Eugene Sue and Charlotte Bronte'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 t.i.tle of _Kalderworth_, a name I had compounded from the Yorks.h.i.+re 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, 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 Bronte novels I had only read _Jane Eyre_. I remember once reflecting--while _Kalderworth_ was being published--that Charlotte Bronte 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 Yorks.h.i.+re 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 Bronte had written in _s.h.i.+rley_, 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 circ.u.mstances in which Charlotte Bronte 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 Bronte 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 Bronte'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 Brontes: Life and Letters_.

[41] Mr. Augustine Birrell in his _Life of Charlotte Bronte_ (1887), gives a very interesting insight into a love episode of Mr. Bronte, during his first curacy, at Wethersfield, near Braintree, Ess.e.x. Mr.

Bronte 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. Bronte's letters. Subsequently Mr. Bronte married Miss Maria Branwell, of Penzance, visiting in Yorks.h.i.+re, whom he married at St. Oswald's Church, Guiseley, near Leeds. After the death of his wife, Mr. Bronte 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 Brontes_, 1897, shows us Mr. Bronte as a curate at Dewsbury. Mr. Yates, who is the originator of the Bronte Society and Museum, rightly a.s.sociated Mr. Bronte with Mr. Helstone of _s.h.i.+rley_, supporting his contention by evidence.

[42] For story and other purposes Miss Bronte 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 Derbys.h.i.+re, and it was there the Rev. Henry Nussey lived--Miss Nussey's brother--who had offered to marry Charlotte Bronte, Mrs. Gaskell's Bronte's _Life_ and a following (including even a recent catalogue of the Bronte 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 Bronte and Her Sisters_, pp. 166-170.

[43] _The Brontes: Life and Letters._

[44] In the love relations of s.h.i.+rley Keeldar, however, we must expect to find phases of circ.u.mstances a.s.sociated with Charlotte Bronte herself. Thus s.h.i.+rley 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. Heger, the original of this character, was interested in Charlotte Bronte's gift as an artist (and we know she sent M. Heger 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 Bronte, some thirty of which, including "a pencil drawing of Louis Philippe of France, drawn by C. Bronte during her stay in Brussels," are numbered with the Bronte relics, I may say we can take it as really the expression of M. Heger 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 Bronte'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 "Inst.i.tutrice," both of which works we shall see presented phases of Miss Bronte 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 Bronte and Her Sisters_, page 181.

[47] The James Taylor in the firm of her publishers, who corresponded with Miss Bronte, 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_.--_s.h.i.+rley_, Chap. IX.

[49] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Bronte_, Haworth edition, p. 230.

[50] Note that in both _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ it is a.s.sumed this character made silent reference to "the Deuce"; though he never uttered the name, his words seemed to "express" the sentiment.

[51] _The Brontes: Life and Letters_, p. 340, vol. i.

[52] The Moores of _s.h.i.+rley_ were mainly drawn from M. Heger, 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 Yorks.h.i.+re, or rather, "Taylor"

element, as conceived by Charlotte Bronte, also entered into their composition.

[53] It is sad indeed to find Charlotte Bronte 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 Bronte discussed the matter personally. Miss Catherine Winkworth wrote of Mr. Nicholls and Charlotte Bronte:--"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 Bronte servants--at whose house Tabitha Aykroyd breathed her last, stated to me on February 21st, 1907, that as to Charlotte Bronte's "wedded life, they lived happily together." Often do we discover references to the elective affinities in regard to M. Heger and Charlotte Bronte 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 ... pa.s.sion ... wraps; my existence about you--and kindling in ... powerful flame, fuses you and me in one." M.

Heger 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 Bronte's poems "Regret" and "Apostasy."

[55] I discovered these most remarkable parallelisms by my knowledge and application of Charlotte Bronte'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 Eugene 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 circ.u.mstances 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 Bronte's poem "The Letter," with a footnote--"From a volume ent.i.tled _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 Ma.n.u.script" is not printed in the extant French edition of _Miss Mary_.

[59] Great stress is laid in this _feuilleton_ by M. Sue upon 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 Bronte'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 ma.n.u.script 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, feted Miss Bronte in poor Lagrange as it was for Charlotte Bronte 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 Bronte that of Paulina--just as she gave us M. Heger as Crimsworth and occasionally as M. Pelet of _The Professor_, and just as she gave us herself in _s.h.i.+rley_ as Caroline Helstone and again (in regard only to her relations with M. Heger) as s.h.i.+rley 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. Heger was portrayed by her often as Heathcliffe and finally as Hareton Earnshaw. With Charlotte Bronte, 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 Bronte's; and Hareton Earnshaw of _Wuthering Heights_, save for the lover and pupil phase, was never M. Heger.

[64] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Bronte_, 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 Bronte_.

[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 genies, aux bons anges."

"Aux bons anges?"

"Miss Mary, par exemple."

"Eh bien, Louise?"

"N'est-ce pas un bon genie, un bon ange, une bonne magicienne, enfin? Ne m'a-t-elle pas jete 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 Bronte's poem "Apostasy"; and to St.