Chapter IV: Conclusion: 228 (2)

Those who turn to Mrs. Gaskell's "Life" will find one of the sentences in this letter quoted, but without the burst of laughter over "all that rodomontade" at the end which shows that Charlotte's interest in politics was not unmingled with the happy levity of youth. Still more striking as an illustration of her true character, with its infinite variety of moods, its sudden transitions from grave to gay, is the letter I now quote:

Last Saturday afternoon, being in one of my sentimental humours, I
sat down and wrote to you such a note as I ought to have written
to none but M----, who is nearly as mad as myself; to-day, when I
glanced it over, it occurred to me that Ellen's calm eye would
look at this with scorn, so I determined to concoct some
production more fit for the inspection of common sense. I will not
tell you all I think and feel about you, Ellen. I will preserve
unbroken that reserve which alone enables me to maintain a decent
character for judgment; but for that I should long ago have been
set down by all who know me as a Frenchified fool. You have been
very kind to me of late, and gentle; and you have spared me those
little sallies of ridicule which, owing to my miserable and
wretched touchiness of character, used formerly to make me wince
as if I had been touched with a hot iron; things that nobody else
cares for enter into my mind and rankle there like venom. I know
these feelings are absurd, and therefore I try to hide them; but
they only sting the deeper for concealment, and I'm an idiot.
Ellen, I wish I could live with you always, I begin to cling to
you more fondly than ever I did. If we had but a cottage and a
competency of our own, I do think we might live and love on till
death, without being dependent on any third person for happiness.

Mrs. Gaskell has made a very partial and imperfect use of this letter, by quoting merely from the words "You have been very kind to me of late," down to "they only sting the deeper for concealment." Thus it will be seen that an importance is given to an evanescent mood which it was far from meriting, and that lighter side to Charlotte's character which was prominent enough to her nearest and dearest friends is entirely concealed from the outer world. Again, I say, we must not blame Mrs. Gaskell. Such sentences as those which she omitted from the letter I have just given are not only entirely inconsistent with that ideal portrait of "Currer Bell" which the world had formed for itself out of the bare materials in existence during the author's lifetime, but are also utterly at variance with Mrs. Gaskell's personal conception of Charlotte Brontë's character, founded upon her brief acquaintance with her during her years of loneliness and fame.

The quick transitions which marked her moods in converse with her friends may be traced all through her letters to Miss N----. The quotations I have already made show how suddenly on the same page she passes from gaiety to sadness; and so her letters, dealing as they do with an endless variety of topics, reflect only the mood of the writer at the moment that she penned them, and it is only by reading and studying the whole, not by selecting those which reflect a particular phase of her character, that we can complete the portrait we would fain produce.

Here are some extracts from letters which are not to be found in the "Life," and which illustrate what I have said. They were all written between the beginning of 1832 and the end of 1835:

Tell M---- I hope she will derive benefit from the perusal of
Cobbett's lucubrations; but I beg she will on no account burden
her memory with passages to be repeated for my edification, lest I
should not fully appreciate either her kindness or their merit,
since that worthy personage and his principles, whether private or
political, are no great favourites of mine.

I am really very much obliged to you--she writes in September,
1832--for your well-filled and _very_ interesting letter. It
forms a striking contrast to my brief meagre epistles; but I know
you will excuse the utter dearth of news visible in them when you
consider the situation in which I am placed, quite out of the
reach of all intelligence except what I obtain through the medium
of the newspapers, and I believe you would not find much to
interest you in a political discussion, or a summary of the
accidents of the week.... I am sorry, very sorry, that Miss ----
has turned out to be so different from what you thought her; but,
my dearest Ellen, you must never expect perfection in this world;
and I know your naturally confiding and affectionate disposition
has led you to imagine that Miss ---- was almost faultless.... I
think, dearest Ellen, our friendship is destined to form an
exception to the general rule regarding school friendships. At
least I know that absence has not in the least abated the sisterly
affection which I feel towards you.

Your last letter revealed a state of mind which promised much. As I
read it, I could not help wishing that my own feelings more nearly
resembled yours; but unhappily all the good thoughts that enter
_my_ mind evaporate almost before I have had time to ascertain
their existence. Every right resolution which I form is so
transient, so fragile, and so easily broken, that I sometimes fear
I shall never be what I ought.

I write a hasty line to assure you we shall be happy to see you on
the day you mention. As you are now acquainted with the
neighbourhood and its total want of society, and with our plain,
monotonous mode of life, I do not fear so much as I used to do,
that you will be disappointed with the dulness and sameness of
your visit. One thing, however, will make the daily routine more
unvaried than ever. Branwell, who used to enliven us, is to leave
us in a few days, and enter the situation of a private tutor in
the neighbourhood of U----. How he will like to settle remains yet
to be seen. At present he is full of hope and resolution. I, who
know his variable nature and his strong turn for active life, dare
not be too sanguine. We are as busy as possible in preparing for
his departure, and shirt-making and collar-stitching fully occupy
our time.

April, 1835.

The election! the election! that cry has rung even among our
lonely hills like the blast of a trumpet. How has it been round
the populous neighbourhood of B----? Under what banner have your
brothers ranged themselves? the Blue or the Yellow? Use your
influence with them; entreat them, if it be necessary on your
knees, to stand by their country and religion in this day of
danger!... Stuart Wortley, the son of the most patriotic patrician
Yorkshire owns, must be elected the representative of his native
province. Lord Morpeth was at Haworth last week, and I saw him. My
opinion of his lordship is recorded in a letter I wrote yesterday
to Mary. It is not worth writing over again, so I will not trouble
you with it here.

Even these brief extracts will show that Charlotte Brontë's life at this time was not a morbid one. These years between 1832 and 1835 must be counted among the happiest of her life--of all the lives of the little household at Haworth, in fact. The young people were accustomed to their father's coldness and eccentricity, and to their aunt's dainty distaste for all Northern customs and Northern people, themselves included. Shy they were and peculiar, alike in their modes of life and their modes of thought; but there was a wholesome, healthy happiness about all of them that gave promise of peaceful lives hereafter. Some literary efforts of a humble kind brightened their hopes at this time. Charlotte had written some juvenile poems (not now worth reprinting), and she sought the opinion of Southey upon them. The poet laureate gave her a kindly and considerate answer, which did not encourage her to persevere in these efforts; nor was an attempt by Branwell to secure the patronage of Wordsworth for some productions of his own more successful. Had anybody ventured into the wilds of Haworth parish at this new year of 1835, and made acquaintance with the parson's family, it is easy to say upon whom the attention of the stranger would have been riveted. Branwell Brontë, of whom casual mention is made in one of the foregoing letters, was the hope and pride of the little household. All who knew him at this time bear testimony to his remarkable talents, his striking graces. Small in stature like Charlotte herself, he was endowed with a rare personal beauty. But it was in his intellectual gifts that his chief charm was found. Even his father's dull parishioners recognised the fire of genius in the lad; and any one who cares to go to Haworth now and inquire into the story of the Brontës, will find that the most vivid reminiscences, the fondest memories of the older people in the village, centre in this hapless youth. Ambitious and clever, he seemed destined to play a considerable part in the world. His conversational powers were remarkable; he gave promise of more than ordinary ability as an artist, and he had even as a boy written verses of no common power. Among other accomplishments, more curious than useful, of which he could boast, was the ability to write two letters simultaneously. It is but a small trait in the history of this remarkable family, yet it deserves to be noticed, that its least successful member excelled Napoleon himself in one respect. The great conqueror could dictate half-a-dozen letters concurrently to his secretaries. Branwell Brontë could do more than this. With a pen in each hand, he could write two different letters at the same moment.

Charlotte was Branwell's senior by one year. In 1835, when in her nineteenth year, she was by no means the unattractive person she has been represented as being. There is a little caricature sketched by herself lying before me as I write. In it all the more awkward of her physical points are ingeniously exaggerated. The prominent forehead bulges out in an aggressive manner, suggestive of hydrocephalus, the nose, "tip-tilted like the petal of a flower," and the mouth are made unnecessarily large; whilst the little figure is clumsy and ungainly. But though she could never pretend to beauty, she had redeeming features, her eyes, hair, and massive forehead all being attractive points. Emily, who was two years her junior, had, like Charlotte, a bad complexion; but she was tall and well-formed, whilst her eyes were of remarkable beauty. All through her life her temperament was more than merely peculiar. She inherited not a little of her father's eccentricity, untempered by her father's _savoir faire_. Her aversion to strangers has been already mentioned. When the curates, who formed the only society of Haworth, found their way to the parsonage, she avoided them as though they had brought the pestilence in their train. On the rare occasions when she went out into the world, she would sit absolutely silent in the company of those who were unfamiliar to her. So intense was this reserve that even in her own family, where alone she was at ease, something like dread was mingled with the affection felt towards her. On one occasion, whilst Charlotte's friend was visiting the parsonage, Charlotte herself was unable through illness to take any walks with her. To the amazement of the household, Emily volunteered to accompany Miss N---- on a ramble over the moors. They set off together, and the girl threw aside her reserve, and talked with a freedom and vigour which gave evidence of the real strength of her character. Her companion was charmed with her intelligence and geniality. But on returning to the parsonage Charlotte was found awaiting them, and, as soon as she had a chance of doing so, she anxiously put to Miss N---- the question, "How did Emily behave herself?" It was the first time she had ever been known to invite the company of any one outside the narrow limits of the family circle. Her chief delight was to roam on the moors, followed by her dogs, to whom she would whistle in masculine fashion. Her heart, indeed, was given to these dumb creatures of the earth. She never forgave those who ill-treated them, nor trusted those whom they disliked. One is reminded of Shelley's "Sensitive Plant" by some traits of Emily Brontë:

If the flowers had been her own infants, she
Could never have nursed them more tenderly;

and, like the lady of the poem, her tenderness and charity could reach even

----the poor banished insects, whose intent,
Although they did ill, was innocent.

One instance of her remarkable personal courage is related in "Shirley," where she herself is sketched under the character of the heroine. It is her adventure with the mad dog which bit her at the door of the parsonage kitchen whilst she was offering it water. The brave girl took an iron from the fire, where it chanced to be heating, and immediately cauterised the wound on her arm, making a broad, deep scar, which was there until the day of her death. Not until many weeks after did she tell her sisters what had happened. Passionately fond of her home among the hills, and of the rough Yorkshire people among whom she had been reared, she sickened and pined away when absent from Haworth. A strange untamed and untamable character was hers; and none but her two sisters ever seem to have appreciated her remarkable merits, or to have recognised the fine though immature genius which shows itself in every line of the weird story of "Wuthering Heights."

Anne, the youngest of the family, had beauty in addition to her other gifts. Intellectually she was greatly inferior to her sisters; but her mildness and sweetness of temperament won the affections of many who were repelled by the harsher exteriors of Charlotte and Emily.

This was the family which lived happily and quietly among the hills during those years when life with its vicissitudes still lay in the distance. Gay their existence could not be called; but their letters show that it was unquestionably peaceful, happy, and wholesome.

V.

LIFE AS A GOVERNESS.

Moved by the hope of lightening the family expenses and enabling Branwell to get a thorough artistic training at the Royal Academy, Charlotte resolved to go out as a governess. Her first "place" was at her old school at Roehead, where she was with her friend, Miss Wooler, and where she was also very near the home of her confidante, Miss N----. Emily went with her for a time, but she soon sickened and pined for the moors, and after a trial of but a few months she returned to Haworth. A great deal of sympathy has been bestowed upon the Brontës in connection with their lives as governesses; nor am I prepared to say that this sympathy is wholly misplaced. Their reserve, their affection for each other, their ignorance of the world, combined to make "the cup of life as it is mixed for the class termed governesses"--to use Charlotte's own phrase--particularly distasteful to them. But it is a mistake to suppose that they were treated with harshness during their governess life, or that Charlotte, at least, felt her trials to be at all unbearable. It was decidedly unpleasant to sacrifice the independence and the family companionship of Haworth for drudgery and loneliness in the household of a stranger; but it was a duty, and as such it was accepted without repining by two, at least, of the sisters. Emily's peculiar temperament made her quite unfitted for life among strangers; she made many attempts to overcome her reserve, but all were unavailing; and after a brief experience in one or two families in different parts of Yorkshire, she returned to Haworth to reside there permanently as her father's housekeeper. There is no need to dwell upon this episode in the lives of the Brontës. They were living among unfamiliar faces, and had little temptation to display themselves in their true characters, but extracts from a few of Charlotte's letters to her friends will show something of the course of her thought at this time. With the exception of a detached sentence or two these letters will be quite new to the readers of Mrs. Gaskell's "Life:"

I have been waiting for an opportunity of sending a letter to you
as you wished; but as no such opportunity offers itself, I have at
length determined to write to you by post, fearing that if I
delayed any longer you would attribute my tardiness to
indifference. I can scarcely realise the distance that lies between
us, or the length of time which may elapse before we meet again.
Now, Ellen, I have no news to tell you, no changes to communicate.
My life since I saw you last has passed away as monotonously and
unvaryingly as ever--nothing but teach, teach, teach, from morning
till night. The greatest variety I ever have is afforded by a
letter from you, a call from the T----s, or by meeting with a
pleasant new book. The "Life of Oberlin," and Legh Richmond's
"Domestic Portraiture," are the last of this description I have
perused. The latter work strongly attracted and strangely
fascinated my attention. Beg, borrow, or steal it without delay,
and read the "Memoir of Richmond." That short record of a brief and
uneventful life I shall never forget. It is beautiful, not on
account of the language in which it is written, not on account of
the incidents it details, but because of the simple narration it
gives of the life and death of a young, talented, sincere
Christian. Get the book, Ellen (I wish I had it to give you), read
it, and tell me what you think of it. Yesterday I heard that you
had been ill since you were in London. I hope you are better now.
Are you any happier than you were? Try to reconcile your mind to
circumstances, and exert the quiet fortitude of which I know you
are not destitute. Your absence leaves a sort of vacancy in my
feelings which nothing has as yet offered of sufficient interest to
supply. I do not forget ten o'clock. I remember it every night, and
if a sincere petition for your welfare will do you any good you
will be benefited. I know the Bible says: "The prayer of the
_righteous_ availeth much," and I am _not righteous_. Nevertheless
I believe God despises no application that is uttered in sincerity.
My own dear E----, good-bye. I can write no more, for I am called
to a less pleasant avocation.

Dewsbury Moor, Oct. 2, 1836.

I should have written to you a week ago, but my time has of late
been so wholly taken up that till now I have really not had an
opportunity of answering your last letter. I assure you I feel the
kindness of so early a reply to my tardy correspondence. It gave
me a sting of self-reproach.... My sister Emily is gone into a
situation as teacher in a large school of near forty pupils, near
Halifax. I have had one letter from her since her departure. It
gives an appalling account of her duties. Hard labour from six in
the morning till near eleven at night, with only one half-hour of
exercise between. This is slavery. I fear she will never stand it.
It gives me sincere pleasure, my dear Ellen, to learn that you
have at last found a few associates of congenial minds. I cannot
conceive a life more dreary than that passed amidst sights,
sounds, and companions all alien to the nature within us. From the
tenor of your letters it seems that your mind remains fixed as it
ever was, in no wise dazzled by novelty or warped by evil example.
I am thankful for it. I could not help smiling at the paragraphs
which related to ----. There was in them a touch of the genuine
unworldly simplicity which forms part of your character. Ellen,
depend upon it, all people have their dark side. Though some
possess the power of throwing a fair veil over the defects, close
acquaintance slowly removes the screen, and one by one the blots
appear; till at last we see the pattern of perfection all slurred
over with stains which even affection cannot efface.

The affectionate commendations of her friend are constantly accompanied by references of a very different character to herself.

If I like people--she says in one of her letters--it is my nature
to tell them so, and I am not afraid of offering incense to your
vanity. It is from religion that you derive your chief charm, and
may its influence always preserve you as pure, as unassuming, and
as benevolent in thought and deed as you are now. What am I
compared to you? I feel my own utter worthlessness when I make the
comparison. I'm a very coarse, commonplace wretch! I have some
qualities that make me very miserable, some feelings that you can
have no participation in--that few, very few people in the world
can at all understand. I don't pride myself on these
peculiarities. I strive to conceal and suppress them as much as I
can, but they burst out sometimes, and then those who see the
explosion despise me, and I hate myself for days afterwards.

All my notes to you, Ellen, are written in a hurry. I am now
snatching an opportunity. Mr. J---- is here; by his means it will
be transmitted to Miss E----, by her means to X----, by his means
to you. I do not blame you for not coming to see me. I am sure you
have been prevented by sufficient reasons; but I do long to see
you, and I hope I shall be gratified momentarily, at least, ere
long. Next Friday, if all be well, I shall go to G----. On Sunday
I hope I shall at least catch a glimpse of you. Week after week I
have lived on the expectation of your coming. Week after week I
have been disappointed. I have not regretted what I said in my
last note to you. The confession was wrung from me by sympathy and
kindness, such as I can never be sufficiently thankful for. I feel
in a strange state of mind; still gloomy, but not despairing. I
keep trying to do right, checking wrong feelings; repressing wrong
thoughts--but still, every instant I find myself going astray. I
have a constant tendency to scorn people who are far better than I
am. A horror at the idea of becoming one of a certain set--a dread
lest if I made the slightest profession I should sink at once into
Phariseeism, merge wholly in the ranks of the self-righteous. In
writing at this moment I feel an irksome disgust at the idea of
using a single phrase that sounds like religious cant. I abhor
myself; I despise myself. If the doctrine of Calvin be true, I am
already an outcast. You cannot imagine how hard, rebellious, and
intractable all my feelings are. When I begin to study on the
subject I almost grow blasphemous, atheistical in my sentiments.
Don't desert me--don't be horrified at me. You know what I am. I
wish I could see you, my darling. I have lavished the warmest
affections of a very hot, tenacious heart upon you. If you grow
cold it is over.

You will excuse a very brief and meagre answer to your kind note
when I tell you that at the moment it reached me, and that just now
whilst I am scribbling a reply, the whole house is in the bustle of
packing and preparation, for on this day we all _go home_. Your
palliation of my defects is kind and charitable, but I dare not
trust its truth. Few would regard them with so lenient an eye as
you do. Your consolatory admonitions are kind, Ellen; and when I
can read them over in quietness and alone, I trust I shall derive
comfort from them. But just now, in the unsettled, excited state of
mind which I now feel, I cannot enter into the pure scriptural
spirit which they breathe. It would be wrong of me to continue the
subject. My thoughts are distracted and absorbed by other ideas.
You do not mention your visit to Haworth. Have you spoken of it to
the family? Have they agreed to let you come? But I will write when
I get home. Ever since last Friday I have been as busy as I could
be in finishing up the half-year's lessons, which concluded with a
terrible fog in geographical problems (think of explaining that to
Misses ---- and ----!), and subsequently in mending Miss ----'s
clothes. Miss ---- is calling me: something about my _protégée's_
nightcap. Good-bye. We shall meet again ere many days, I trust.

Here it will be seen that the religious struggle was renewed. The woman who was afterwards to be accused of "heathenism" was going through tortures such as Cowper knew in his darkest hours, and, like him, was acquiring faith, humility, and resignation in the midst of the conflict. But such letters as this are only episodical; in general she writes cheerfully, sometimes even merrily.

What would the _Quarterly_ reviewer and the other charitable people, who openly declared their conviction that the author of "Jane Eyre" was an improper person, who had written an improper book, have said had they been told that she had written the following letter on the subject of her first offer of marriage--written it, too, at the time when she was a governess, and in spite of the fact that the offer opened up to her a way of escape from all anxiety as to her future life?

You ask me whether I have received a letter from T----. I have
about a week since. The contents I confess did a little surprise
me; but I kept them to myself, and unless you had questioned me on
the subject I would never have adverted to it. T---- says he is
comfortably settled at ----, and that his health is much improved.
He then intimates that in due time he will want a wife, and
frankly asks me to be that wife. Altogether the letter is written
without cant or flattery, and in common-sense style which does
credit to his judgment. Now there were in this proposal some
things that might have proved a strong temptation. I thought if I
were to marry so ---- could live with me, and how happy I should
be. But again I asked myself two questions: Do I love T---- as
much as a woman ought to love her husband? Am I the person best
qualified to make him happy? Alas! my conscience answered "No" to
both these questions. I felt that though I esteemed T----, though
I had a kindly leaning towards him, because he is an amiable,
well-disposed man, yet I had not and never could have that intense
attachment which would make me willing to die for him--and if ever
I marry it must be in that light of adoration that I will regard
my husband. Ten to one I shall never have the chance again; but
_n'importe_. Moreover, I was aware he knew so little of me he could
hardly be conscious to whom he was writing. Why, it would startle
him to see me in my natural home character. He would think I was a
wild, romantic enthusiast indeed. I could not sit all day long
making a grave face before my husband. I would laugh and satirise,
and say whatever came into my head first; and if he were a clever
man and loved me, the whole world weighed in the balance against
his smallest wish would be light as air. Could I, knowing my mind
to be such as that, conscientiously say that I would take a grave,
quiet young man like T----? No; it would have been deceiving him,
and deception of that sort is beneath me. So I wrote a long letter
back in which I expressed my refusal as gently as I could, and also
candidly avowed my reasons for that refusal. I described to him,
too, the sort of character I thought would suit him for a wife.

The girl who could thus calmly decline a more than merely "eligible" offer, and thus honestly state her reasons for doing so to the friend she trusted, was strangely different from the author of "Jane Eyre" pictured by the critics and the public. Perhaps the full cost of the refusal related in the foregoing letter is only made clear when it is brought into contrast with such a confession as the following, made very soon afterwards:

I am miserable when I allow myself to dwell on the necessity of
spending my life as a governess. The chief requisite for that
station seems to me to be the power of taking things easily when
they come, and of making oneself comfortable and at home wherever
one may chance to be--qualities in which all our family are
singularly deficient. I know I cannot live with a person like Mrs.
----; but I hope all women are not like her, and my motto is "Try
again."

How thoroughly at all times she could sympathise alike with the joys and sorrows of others, is proved by many letters extending over the whole period of her life. The following is neither the earliest nor the most characteristic of those utterances of a tender and heartfelt sympathy with her special friend, which are to be found in her correspondence, but as Mrs. Gaskell has not made use of it, I may quote it here:

1838.

We were at breakfast when your note reached me, and I consequently
write in great hurry. Your trials seem to thicken. I trust God
will either remove them or give you strength to bear them. If I
could but come to you and offer you all the little assistance
either my head or hands could afford! But that is impossible. I
scarcely dare offer to comfort you about ---- lest my consolation
should seem like mockery. I know that in cases of sickness
strangers cannot measure what relations feel. One thing, however, I
need not remind _you_ of. You will have repeated it over and over
to yourself before now: God does all for the best; and even should
the worst happen, and Death seem finally to destroy hope, remember
that this will be but a practical test of the strong faith and calm
devotion which have marked you a Christian so long. I would hope,
however, that the time for this test is not yet come, that your
brother may recover, and all be well. It grieves me to hear that
your own health is so indifferent. Once more I wish I were with
you to lighten at least by sympathy the burden that seems so
unsparingly laid upon you. Let me thank you for remembering me in
the midst of such hurry and affliction. We are all apt to grow
selfish in distress. This, so far as I have found, is not your
case. _When_ shall I see you again? The uncertainty in which the
answer to that question must be involved gives me a bitter feeling.
Through all changes, through all chances, I trust I shall love you
as I do now. We can pray for each other and think of each other.
Distance is no bar to recollection. You have promised to write to
me, and I do not doubt that you will keep your word. Give my love
to M---- and your mother. Take with you my blessing and affection,
and all the warmest wishes of a warm heart for your welfare.

From one of her situations as governess in a private family (she had long since left the kind shelter of Miss Wooler's house) she writes in 1841 a series of letters showing how little she relished the "cup of life as it is mixed for the class termed governesses."

It is twelve o'clock at night; but I must just write you a word
before I go to bed. If you think I'm going to refuse your
invitation, or if you sent it me with that idea, you're mistaken.
As soon as I had read your shabby little note, I gathered up my
spirits directly, walked on the impulse of the moment into Mrs.
----'s presence, popped the question, and for two minutes received
no answer. "Will she refuse me when I work so hard for her?"
thought I. "Ye--e--es," drawled madam in a reluctant, cold tone.
"Thank you, madam!" said I with extreme cordiality, and was
marching from the room when she recalled me with "You'd better go
on Saturday afternoon, then, when the children have holiday, and
if you return in time for them to have all their lessons on Monday
morning, I don't see that much will be lost." You _are_ a
genuine Turk, thought I; but again I assented, and so the bargain
was struck. Saturday after next, then, is the day appointed. I'll
come, God knows, with a thankful and joyful heart, glad of a day's
reprieve from labour. If you don't send the gig I'll walk. I am
coming to taste the pleasure of liberty; a bit of pleasant
congenial talk, and a sight of two or three faces I like. God
bless you! I want to see you again. Huzza for Saturday afternoon
after next! Good-night, my lass!

During the last three weeks that hideous operation called "a
thorough clean" has been going on in the house. It is now nearly
completed, for which I thank my stars, as during its progress I
have fulfilled the double character of nurse and governess, while
the nurse has been transmuted into cook and housemaid. That nurse,
by-the-bye, is the prettiest lass you ever saw.... I was beginning
to think Mrs. ---- a good sort of body in spite of her bouncing
and toasting, her bad grammar and worse orthography; but I have
had experience of one little trait in her character which condemns
her a long way with me. After treating a person on the most
familiar terms of equality for a long time, if any little thing
goes wrong, she does not scruple to give way to anger in a very
coarse, unladylike manner, though in justice no blame could be
attached where she ascribed it all. I think passion is the true
test of vulgarity or refinement. This place looks exquisitely
beautiful just now. The grounds are certainly lovely, and all as
green as an emerald. I wish you would just come and look at it.

VI.

THE TURNING-POINT.

The "storm and stress" period of Charlotte Brontë's life was not what the world believes it to have been. Like the rest of our race, she had to fight her own battle in the wilderness, not with one devil, but with many; and it was this sharp contest with the temptations which crowd the threshold of an opening life which made her what she was. The world believes that it was under the parsonage roof that the author of "Jane Eyre" gathered up the precious experiences which were afterwards turned to such good account. Mrs. Gaskell, who was carried away by her honest womanly horror of hardened vice, gives us to understand that the tragic turning-point in the history of the sisters was connected with the disgrace and ruin of their brother. We are even asked to believe that but for the folly of a single woman, whom it is probable that Charlotte never saw, "Currer Bell" would never have taken up her pen, and no halo of glory would have settled on the scarred and rugged brows of prosaic Haworth.

It is not so. There may be disappointment among those who have been nurtured on the traditions of the Brontë romance when they find that the reality is different from what they supposed it to be; some shallow judges may even assume that Charlotte herself loses in moral stature when it is shown that it was not her horror at her brother's fall which drove her to find relief in literary speech. But the truth must be told; and for my part I see nothing in that truth which affects, even in an infinitesimal degree, the fame and the honour of the woman of whom I write.

It was Charlotte's visit to Brussels, then, first as pupil and afterwards as teacher in the school of Madame Héger, which was the turning-point in her life, which changed its currents, and gave to it a new purpose and a new meaning. Up to the moment of that visit she had been the simple, kindly, truthful Yorkshire girl, endowed with strange faculties, carried away at times by burning impulses, moved often by emotions the nature of which she could not fathom, but always hemmed in by her narrow experiences, her limited knowledge of life and the world. Until she went to Belgium, her sorest troubles had been associated with her dislike to the society of strangers, her heaviest burden had been the necessity under which she lay of tasting that "cup of life as it is mixed for governesses" which she detested so heartily. Under the belief that they could qualify themselves to keep a school of their own if they had once mastered the delicacies of the French and German languages, she and Emily set off for this sojourn in Brussels.

One may be forgiven for speculating as to her future lot had she accepted the offer of marriage she received in her early governess days, and settled down as the faithful wife of a sober English gentleman. In that case "Shirley" perhaps might have been written, but "Jane Eyre" and "Villette" never. She learnt much during her two years' sojourn in the Belgian capital; but the greatest of all the lessons she mastered whilst there was that self-knowledge the taste of which is so bitter to the mouth, though so wholesome to the life. Mrs. Gaskell has made such ample use of the letters she penned during the long months which she spent as an exile from England, that there is comparatively little left to cull from them. Everybody knows the outward circumstances of her story at this time. For a brief period she had the company of Emily; and the two sisters, working together with the unremitting zeal of those who have learned that time is money, were happy and hopeful, enjoying the novel sights of the gay foreign capital, gathering fresh experiences every day, and looking forward to the moment when they would return to familiar Haworth, and realise the dream of their lives by opening a school of their own within the walls of the parsonage. But then Emily left, and Charlotte, after a brief holiday at home, returned alone. Years after, writing to her friend, she speaks of her return in these words: "I returned to Brussels after aunt's death against my conscience, prompted by what then seemed an irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish folly by a total withdrawal for more than two years of happiness and peace of mind." Why did she thus go back "against her conscience?" Her friends declared that her future husband dwelt somewhere within sound of the chimes of St. Gudule, and that she insisted upon returning to Brussels because she was about to be married there. We know now how different was the reality. The husband who awaited her was even then about to begin his long apprenticeship of love at Haworth. Yet none the less had her spirit, if not her heart, been captured and held captive in the Belgian city. It is not in her letters that we find the truth regarding her life at this time. The truth indeed is there, but not all the truth. "In catalepsy and dread trance," says Lucy Snowe, "I studiously held the quick of my nature.... It is on the surface only the common gaze will fall." The secrets of her inner life could not be trusted to paper, even though the lines were intended for no eyes but those of her friend and confidante. There are some things, as we know well, that the heart hides as by instinct, and which even frank and open natures only reveal under compulsion. Writing to her friend from Brussels in October, 1843, she says: "I have much to say, Ellen; many little odd things, queer and puzzling enough, which I do not like to trust to a letter, but which one day, perhaps, or rather one evening, if ever we should find ourselves again by the fireside at Haworth, or at B----, with our feet on the fender, curling our hair, I may communicate to you." One of the hardest features of the last year she spent at Brussels was the necessity she was under of locking all the deepest emotions of her life within her own breast, of preserving the calm and even cold exterior, which should tell nothing to the common gaze, above the troubled, fevered heart that beat within.

When do you think I shall see you?--she cries to her friend within
a few days of her final return to Haworth--I have, of course, much
to tell you, and I dare say you have much also to tell me--things
which we should neither of us wish to commit to paper.... I do not
know whether you feel as I do, but there are times now when it
appears to me as if all my ideas and feelings, except a few
friendships and affections, are changed from what they used to be.
Something in me which used to be enthusiasm is tamed down and
broken. I have fewer illusions. What I wish for now is active
exertion--a stake in life. Haworth seems such a lonely, quiet
spot, buried away from the world. I no longer regard myself as
young; indeed, I shall soon be twenty-eight, and it seems as if I
ought to be working and braving the rough realities of the world,
as other people do. It is, however, my duty to restrain this
feeling at present, and I will endeavour to do so.

Yes; she was "disillusioned" now, and she had brought back from Brussels a heart which could never be quite so light, a spirit which could never again soar so buoyantly, as in those earlier years when the tree of knowledge was still untasted, and the mystery of life still unrevealed. This stay in Belgium was, as I have said, the turning-point in Charlotte Brontë's career, and its true history and meaning is to be found, not in her "Life" and letters, but in "Villette," the master-work of her mind, and the revelation of the most vivid passages in her own heart's history. "I said I disliked Lucy Snowe," is a remark which Mrs. Gaskell innocently repeats in her memoir of Charlotte Brontë. One need not be surprised at it. Lucy Snowe was never meant to be liked--by everybody; but none the less is Lucy Snowe the truest picture we possess of the real Charlotte Brontë; whilst not a few of the fortunes which befell this strange heroine are literal transcripts from the life of her creator. One little incident in "Villette"--Lucy's impulsive visit to a Roman Catholic confessor--is taken direct from Charlotte's own experience. During one of the long lonely holidays in the foreign school, when her mind was restless and disturbed, her heart heavy, her nerves jarred and jangled, she fled from the great empty schoolrooms to seek peace in the street; and she found, not peace perhaps, but sympathy at least, in the counsels of a priest, seated at the Confessional in a church into which she wandered, who took pity on the little heretic, and soothed her troubled spirit without attempting to enmesh it in the folds of Romanism. It was from experiences such as these, with a chastened heart and a nature tamed down, though by no means broken, that she returned to familiar Haworth, to face "the rough realities of the world."

Rough, indeed, those realities were in her case. Her brother, once the hope of the family, had now become its burden and its curse; and from that moment he was to be the prodigal for whom no fatted calf would ever be killed. Her father was fast losing his eyesight; she and her sisters were getting on in life, and "something must be done." Charlotte had returned home, but her heart was still in Brussels, and the wings of her spirit began to beat impatiently against the cage in which she found herself imprisoned. It was only the old story. She had gone out into the world, had tasted strange joys, and drunk deep of waters the very bitterness of which seemed to endear them to her. Returning to Haworth she went back a new woman, with tastes and hopes which it was hard to reconcile with the monotony of life in the parsonage which had once satisfied her completely.

"If I _could_ leave home I should not be at Haworth," she says soon after her return. "I know life is passing away, and I am doing nothing, earning nothing; a very bitter knowledge it is at moments, but I see no way out of the mist." And then, almost for the first time in her life, something like a cry of despair goes up from her lips: "Probably, when I am free to leave home, I shall neither be able to find place nor employment. Perhaps, too, I shall be quite past the prime of life, my faculties will be wasted, and my few acquirements in a great measure forgotten. These ideas sting me keenly sometimes; but whenever I consult my conscience, it affirms that I am doing right in staying at home, and bitter are its upbraidings when I yield to an eager desire for release."

But this outburst of personal feeling was exceptional, and was uttered in one ear only. Within the walls of her home Charlotte again became the house-mother, busying herself with homely cares, and ever watching for some opportunity of carrying her plan of school-keeping into execution. Nor did she allow either the troubles at home, or that weight at her own heart which she bore in secrecy, to render her spirit morbid and melancholy. Not a few who have read Mrs. Gaskell's work labour under the belief that this was the effect that Charlotte Brontë's trials had upon her. As a matter of fact, however, she was far too strong, brave, cheerful--one had almost said manly--to give way to any such selfish repinings. She never was one of those sickly souls who go about "glooming over the woes of existence, and how unworthy God's universe is to have so distinguished a resident." Even when her own sorrows were deepest, and her lot seemed hardest, she found a lively pleasure in discussing the characters and lots of others, and expended as much pains and time in analysing the inner lives of her friends as our sham Byrons are wont to expend upon the study of their own feelings and emotions. Indeed, of that self-pity which is so common a characteristic of the young, no trace is to be found in her correspondence. Let the following letter, hitherto unpublished, written at the very time when the household clouds were blackest, speak for her freedom from morbid self-consciousness, as well as for her hearty interest in the well-being of those around her:

You are a very good girl indeed to send me such a long and
interesting letter. In all that account of the young lady and
gentleman in the railway carriage I recognise your faculty for
observation, which is a rarer gift than you imagine. You ought to
be thankful for it. I never yet met with an individual devoid of
observation whose conversation was interesting, nor with one
possessed of that power in whose society I could not manage to
pass a pleasant hour. I was amused with your allusions to
individuals at ----. I have little doubt of the truth of the
report you mention about Mr. Z---- paying assiduous attention to
----. Whether it will ever come to a match is another thing.
_Money_ would decide that point, as it does most others of a
similar nature. You are perfectly right in saying that Mr. Z----
is more influenced by opinion than he himself suspects. I saw his
lordship in a new light last time I was at ----. Sometimes I could
scarcely believe my ears when I heard the stress he laid on
wealth, appearance, family, and all those advantages which are the
idols of the world. His conversation on marriage (and he talked
much about it) differed in no degree from that of any hackneyed
fortune-hunter, except that with his own peculiar and native
audacity he avowed views and principles which more timid
individuals conceal. Of course I raised no argument against
anything he said. I listened, and laughed inwardly to think how
indignant I should have been eight years since if anyone had
accused Z---- of being a worshipper of Mammon and of Interest.
Indeed, I still believe that the Z---- of ten years ago is not the
Z---- of to-day. The world, with its hardness and selfishness, has
utterly changed him. He thinks himself grown wiser than the
wisest. In a worldly sense he is wise. His feelings have gone
through a process of petrifaction which will prevent them from
ever warring against his interest; but Ichabod! all glory of
principle, and much elevation of character are gone! I learnt
another thing. Fear the smooth side of Z----'s tongue more than
the rough side. He has the art of paying peppery little
compliments, which he seems to bring out with a sort of
difficulty, as if he were not used to that kind of thing, and did
it rather against his will than otherwise. These compliments you
feel disposed to value on account of their seeming rarity. Fudge!
They are at any one's disposal, and are confessedly hollow
blarney.

Still more significant, however, is the following letter, showing so kindly and careful an interest in the welfare of the friend to whom it is addressed, even whilst it bears the bitter tidings of a great household sorrow:

July 31, 1845.

I was glad to get your little packet. It was quite a treasure of
interest to me. I think the intelligence about G---- is cheering.
I have read the lines to Miss ----. They are expressive of the
affectionate feelings of his nature, and are poetical, insomuch as
they are true. Faults in expression, rhythm, metre, were of course
to be expected. All you say about Mr. ---- amused me much. Still,
I cannot put out of my mind one fear, viz. that you should think
too much about him. Faulty as he is, and as you know him to be, he
has still certain qualities which might create an interest in your
mind before you were aware. He has the art of impressing ladies by
something involuntary in his look and manner, exciting in them the
notion that he cares for them, while his words and actions are all
careless, inattentive, and quite uncompromising for himself. It is
only men who have seen much of life and of the world, and who are
become in a measure indifferent to female attractions, that
possess this art. So be on your guard. These are not pleasant or
flattering words, but they are the words of one who has known you
long enough to be indifferent about being temporarily disagreeable,
provided she can be permanently useful.

I got home very well. There was a gentleman in the railroad
carriage whom I recognised by his features immediately as a
foreigner and a Frenchman. So sure was I of it that I ventured to
say to him, "_Monsieur est français, n'est-ce pas_?" He gave a
start of surprise, and answered immediately in his own tongue. He
appeared still more astonished and even puzzled when, after a few
minutes' further conversation, I inquired if he had not passed the
greater part of his life in Germany. He said the surmise was
correct. I guessed it from his speaking French with the German
accent.