Chapter VI: The Love-Letters of a Romantic1

Taking up the study of Charlotte's letters written to M. Heger after her return to Haworth, and reading them in the light of what we know of the circumstances and emotions that have formed the feelings, and decided the tone and attitude of the writer, what do we find to be the sentiment they reveal to us?

Is it the 'enthusiasm for a great man,' and the desire (for the sake of vanity, or of amusement) to keep up a correspondence with him?

Or is it the intellectual need of this teacher's instructions and advice, as a means of mental improvement?

Or is it the want of a companion to exchange ideas with, who is a brighter and more cultivated being than the Nusseys, Taylors, Woolers, and the others?

Or is it the pleasure of having a man friend, in the case of a woman who is neither pretty, nor young, nor silly, enough to indulge in an ordinary flirtation?

Or is it none amongst these several forms of desire, or want, that seeks its own good?

Is it love?--a love so exalted, so passionate, so personal, so distinct from any other instinct or interest, physical, social or intellectual, that this sentiment stands out, in the order of human feelings, as honourable not only to the heart that feels it, but to human nature: so that brought into touch with it, one's own heart is uplifted above the common world, and gladdened '_by the sense_,' as Byron said,[2] '_of the existence of Love in its most extended and sublime capacity and of our own participation of its good and of its glory._[3]

My contention is that it _is_ this romantic Love that reveals itself in Charlotte's letters to M. Heger. And for this reason, I agree with Mr. Clement Shorter that they put her upon a higher pedestal than ever. For to have a heart capable of this great and glorious, albeit often tragical, romantic Love, that 'seeketh not its own,' and compared with which all other sorts of love, that _do_ seek their own, are as sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal is, _independently of deeds or works_, greatly to serve mankind. For it is to stand as a witness, amongst the meannesses of mortal and worldly things, to the existence of Something personal and immortal in the soul and heart of man, helping him '_to gild his dross thereby_.'[4] Something sovereign, that, quite independently of forms of belief, or fashions of opinion, '_rules by every school, till love and longing die_.' Something indestructible, confined to no epoch, ancient, mediæval or modern, but, '_that was, or yet the lights were set, a whisper in the void; that will be sung in planets young when this is clean destroyed_.' In other words, I esteem human nature honoured in Charlotte Brontë, and Charlotte Brontë honoured in these Letters, _because they are love-letters of a rare and wonderful sort amongst the most beautiful, although they are the most sad ever written_. If they were _not_ love-letters, but expressed the enthusiasm of a woman wanting comradeship with a great man, I should esteem them discreditable to any hero-worshipper. Because one should not pester one's hero with letters, nor conceive the conceit of comradeship with an object of worship. And it is not true that Charlotte's letters to Thackeray, George Henry Lewes and other men of letters after she became famous, had the same character as these love-letters written to M. Heger before her name was known; because in her letters to different celebrated writers, Charlotte talked about books or the criticism of books. But to M. Heger she throws open the secret chamber of her heart: she pours out its treasures of passionate feelings (as pure as they were passionate) at the feet of the man she loves; all she asks for from him in return is not to reprove her, nor refuse the offering; not to withdraw himself from her life altogether. To let her hear from him sometimes: not to leave her utterly alone, in the darkness, without any knowledge of what good or evil may befall one so dear to her.

Unfortunately we do not possess the first Letters of this correspondence. The four Letters given by Dr. Paul Heger to the British Museum all belong to a period when the Professor, who had answered (one does not know precisely in what way) Charlotte's first epistles, had left off replying to her; and the consistent motive of these four appeals is for some tidings of him, some proof that the 'estrangement from her Master,' to which she says she will never 'voluntarily' consent, has not, in spite of her own unaltered devotion, irrevocably taken place.

'Tell me about anything you like, my Master,' she writes, 'only tell me something! No doubt, to write to a former under-mistress (no, I will not remember my employment as under-mistress, I refuse to recall it), but to write to an old pupil, cannot be, for you, an interesting occupation. I realise this; but for _me_, it is life. Your last letter served to keep me alive, to nourish me during six months. Now I must have another one; and you will give me one. Not because you bear me friendship (you cannot bear me much!), but because you have a compassionate soul, and because you would not condemn any one to slow suffering, simply to spare yourself a few moments of fatigue! To forbid me to write to you, to refuse to reply to me, would be to tear from me the only joy that I have in the world; to deprive me of my last privilege, a privilege which I will never _voluntarily_ renounce. Believe me, my Master! by writing to me, you do a good action--so long as I can believe you are not angry with me, so long as the hope is left me of news of you, I can be tranquil, and not too sad. But when a gloomy and prolonged silence warns me of the estrangement from me of my Master, when from day to day I expect a letter, and when, day after day, comes disappointment, to plunge me in overwhelming grief; and when the sweet and dear consolation of seeing your handwriting, of reading your counsels, fades from me like a vain vision,--then fever attacks me, appetite and sleep fail: I feel that life wastes away.'[5]

This passage is quoted from the Letter dated by Charlotte 18_th November_, without any indication of the year. Mr. Spielmann (who is responsible for the order given the Letters in the _Times_) esteems this one to be the last of the series; that is to say, to have been written ten months after the Letter dated by Charlotte 8 January, supposed by him to belong to the year 1845. With Dr. Paul Heger, I believe, on the contrary, that the Letter of the 18th November is the first of the series: and that it belongs to the year 1844; that is to say, was written ten months after Charlotte's return to England. This opinion seems to me established by the contents of the Letter, and by the account it gives of the conditions of affairs at Haworth, which were those that we find (if we consult Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Brontë_) did prevail in November 1844, but not in November 1845, and still less in November 1846.

My father (she writes) is in good health, but his eyesight
is all but gone; he can no longer either read or write: and
yet the doctors advise waiting some months longer before
attempting any operation. This winter will be for him one
long night. He rarely complains: and I admire his patience.
If Providence has the same calamity in reserve for me, may
it grant me the same patience to endure it. It seems to me,
Monsieur, that what is most bitter in severe physical
afflictions, is that they compel us to share our sufferings
with those who surround us. One can hide the maladies of the
soul; but those that attack the body and enfeeble our
faculties cannot be hidden. My father now allows me to read
to and to write for him. He shows much more confidence in me
than he has ever done before; and this is a great
consolation to me.

Charlotte's account in this Letter of her father's patient resignation and increased confidence in her under the trial, to a man of his independent and somewhat domineering temper, of compulsory reliance on the assistance of a daughter from whom he had exacted complete submission heretofore and from her childhood upwards, is confirmed in Mrs. Gaskell's biography by the testimony of other letters belonging to the first year of her return from Belgium. But by November 1845 Mr. Brontë's philosophy, before his own unmerited misfortune, had been troubled and transformed into acute misery and anxious forebodings by the downfall, both moral and physical, of his favourite amongst his children, Bramwell, the unhappy son--the only one--in this family of gifted daughters, whose perversion seems also to have had something of the irresponsibility of genius about it. Writing on the 4th November 1845 to Ellen Nussey,[6] Charlotte says:--

I hoped to be able to ask you to come to Haworth. It almost
seemed as if Bramwell had a chance of getting employment;
and I waited to know the results of his efforts, in order to
say 'Dear Ellen, come and see us.' But the place is given to
another person. Bramwell still remains at home, and whilst
_he_ is here, _you_ shall not come.'

Here is Mrs. Gaskell's account of Mr. Brontë's experiences in this period, that are not to be reconciled with the account given of his good health and philosophical patience and resignation to dependence upon Charlotte given by her a year earlier:

For the last three years of his life, Bramwell took opium
habitually, by way of stunning conscience: he drank,
moreover, whenever he could get the opportunity.... He slept
in his father's room; and he would sometimes declare that
either he or his father would be dead before the morning!
The trembling sisters, sick with fright, would implore their
father not to expose himself to this danger. But Mr. Brontë
was no timid man; and perhaps he felt that he could possibly
influence his son to some self-restraint more by showing
trust in him than by showing fear. The sisters often
listened for the report of a pistol in the dead of night,
till watchful eye and hearkening ear grew heavy and dull
with the perpetual strain upon their nerves. In the
mornings, young Brontë would saunter out saying, with a
drunkard's incontinence of speech, 'The poor old man and I
have had a terrible night of it; he does his best, the poor
old man, but it's all over with me.'

One may safely affirm that if Charlotte had been writing in November 1845 it would not have been only his patience under the trial of loss of sight that she would have found to admire in her father. In November 1846 Mr. Brontë had successfully undergone the operation for cataract that saved him from blindness: and Charlotte herself, ten months after the overwhelming evidence of her 'master's estrangement,' given in his silence after her Letter of the 8th January, had saved her own soul from the malady she had endured without sharing her sufferings with any one; and was already writing _Jane Eyre_ ... so that the conclusion is surely forced upon us that the Letter of the 18th November belongs to the year 1844, and written ten months after her return to Haworth, 2nd January 1844, and represents the first, and not the last of these four Letters.

It is important to establish this, because one has to read these Letters in their right order before one can understand the story they disclose of the long training in deferred hope, in expectation, crowned with disappointment, in vain pursuit of shadows that eluded her grasp, and of illusions that reveal themselves as forms of self-deceit only in the very hour when they have conquered belief; in other words, of the long training in personal suffering it took to create and fashion the genius of a writer whose magical gift was to be the power of transforming words into feelings.

Carrying through the examination of these documents by the rule that recognises the Letter of the 18th November as written ten months after Charlotte's return to England, we discover in the opening sentence the fact that the last letter Charlotte had received from her Professor must have been in May of this same year; that is to say, four months after the sentimental leave-taking with her Professor, which sent Charlotte home to England with illusions about the extent to which her own passionate grief at their separation was shared by M. Heger. By November these illusions have been dispelled; Charlotte understands perfectly now (although this does not make her any more just to Madame Heger) that the 'grief' of her 'Master,' that she had said she would 'never forget, never mind how long she might live,' was a very short-lived affair on his side; merely the transient regret of a teacher who will miss a favourite pupil from his class.

'_Que ne puis-je avoir pour vous juste autant d'amitié que vous avez pour moi_,' she writes to him, '_ni plus, ni moins? Je serais alors si tranquille, si libre: je pourrais garder le silence pendant six mois sans effort_.'

There is a note of bitterness in this. In what precedes it there is no bitterness, but we have one of the passages in these wonderful letters that seem to me to place them above all the other love-letters preserved in the world, as immortal records of the Romantic Love that honours human nature in the hearts that cherish it.

'The six months of silence are over: we are now at the 18th of November,' she writes:--

I may, then, write to you, without breaking my promise. The
summer and winter have seemed very long to me: in truth, it
has cost me painful efforts to endure up to now the
privation I have imposed upon myself. You, for your part,
cannot understand this! But, Monsieur, try to imagine, for
one moment, that one of your children is a hundred and sixty
leagues away from you; and that you are condemned to remain
for six months, without writing to him; without receiving
any news from him; without hearing anything about him;
without knowing how he is;--well, then you may be able to
understand, perhaps, how hard is such an obligation imposed
upon me.

In connection with the opening phrase, we must recognise in it the confirmation of an assertion made in my article in the _Woman at Home_ published twenty years before these Letters were published, but which had for its authority the information given me by Dr. Paul Heger upon the occasion of a conversation, when he very kindly talked over with me the questions connected with events in his parents' life that, inasmuch as they happened before his birth, he knew as family traditions chiefly--but still as traditions derived from the only authentic sources of information that exist: Dr. Paul Heger's theory was that until Charlotte had left Bruxelles and commenced to write to his father letters in a tone of exaltation that announced an exaggerated attachment, Monsieur Heger himself had never suspected the existence of any such sentiment; and that he, and Madame Heger (?)--were disposed to regard it as an attack of morbid regret for the more animated life she had led in Bruxelles, and the dulness of her home surroundings. And that, acting upon this supposition, they had thought it advisable (and this in Charlotte's own interests chiefly) to let her know that they were both of them distressed and displeased by the tone of her letters; and that if she wished to keep up the correspondence, she must become more reasonable and temperate in her way of expressing herself; and that, as the exchange of letters between busy people became onerous, there must be only two letters every year at intervals of six months. We find Charlotte acknowledging this condition, as one that she had accepted, but that she complained of as a great 'privation': and she then goes on to explain (as only one taught by romantic, that is to say by unselfish, and unsensual, love, that 'does not seek its own,' could explain it) in what this 'privation' consists.

Did any woman, neglected by the man she loves, ever discover a device, at once so passionate, and so poetically pure as Charlotte's, who makes the man who does not love her, but whom she knows is an adoring father, try to realise what she feels, so far away from him, and left without tidings _by asking him to picture what he would feel if separated by a hundred and sixty leagues from his little child, he were left without news of him?_

But now if we consult honestly our own impressions, does this letter reveal that '_it is no cause of grief to Charlotte that M. Heger is married_'? Is it true that _there 'is nothing in it that any enthusiastic woman might not write to a married man with a family who had been her teacher_'?

What the letter does reveal (thus it seems to me at least) is one supreme thing before all others: that the writer of it is past saving, by this time, from the destiny she prophesied for herself ten months ago in Bruxelles. '_My heart will break_,' Charlotte said then: when fate (in the garb of Madame Heger) thrust herself between her and her beloved Professor.

And now, touching and eloquent as it all is, what escape is there from the conclusion that the writer of this letter _must_ break her heart?

What else can happen? Let us recognise her plight. Here one has an entirely honourable, passionately tender, tenderly passionate, very serious woman, her mind dominated (as she says herself) by one tyrannical fixed idea; let us rather say by one tragical passion; and who sees her own life, and her claims upon the man she loves through the medium of this tragical passion: _and who gives her life an impossible purpose; and who makes impossible claims_. They are very small claims, she pleads. And so they are, very small in comparison with what she gives, her whole life's devotion poured out at the feet of her 'Master,' from whom she only asks in return that he will not forbid her worship; that, now and again, he will give her the joy of seeing his handwriting, and of knowing that he is well. But small as these claims are, they are unreasonable:--'_to the last degree "inconvenient" and impossible_,' as Madame would have said,--in the particular case of this 'Master'; a married man and an attached husband with five children, the Director of a Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles who has need to be especially circumspect; and who cannot discreetly, nor even honourably, allow a former under-mistress to address him passionate, romantic love-letters, even every six months. Nor can this loyal husband and self-respecting Catholic and Professor undertake to appear to sanction this indiscretion, by keeping her informed of his health and welfare at regular intervals. So that, building her heart's desires upon false hopes, that, from day to day, wear themselves out in disappointment, and looking for consolation to things necessarily withdrawn; and that she pursues in vain like 'fading visions,'--how is our poor Charlotte to find any escape from the heart-break that is the natural term of the path along which this Love, that has become her destiny, leads her? No way of escape is there for Charlotte: not in heaven above, nor on the earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. For no miracle can give her love a happy ending; say that even a thunderbolt fell from heaven to remove Madame Heger,--it would be extremely unjust--but admit that a murderous miracle be granted--even so, it would not alter the fact that M. Heger is not in love with Charlotte. And no earthly scheme either can bridge the separation--wider than the 160 leagues between Yorkshire and Brussels--that now severs Charlotte, breaking her heart in Yorkshire, from her Master in literature, carrying on, as stormily and triumphantly as when she assisted at them, his lessons in the class-rooms in the Rue d'Isabelle: those memory-haunted class-rooms she will never see again; because although we find her in these Letters speaking of projects of earning money that she may return to Bruxelles, if only to see her professor once again, one knows that there would be Madame to count with; and even Monsieur Heger's obstinate neglect to reply to these appealing Letters does not indicate any answering wish on his side to see his former pupil again. Nor yet does there exist in the waters under the earth any pool of magical power of healing sufficient to soothe these bitter regrets and reproaches; nor any well deep enough to drown rebellious desires and memories: for Charlotte has too splendid a soul to think of suicide; or to quench anguish by drugs. So that one knows that Charlotte's fate is sealed: and that we must follow her through these last steps to the end, with pity and admiration and love for her--but still not with injustice to others. Because no one outside of herself, not Madame Heger, nor Monsieur Heger, is responsible for what has happened, and what is going to happen; but only the Love that has Charlotte's soul in thrall, the Love that 'seeketh not its own,'--romantic, or if it be preferred, Platonic Love; who as the wise woman, Diotima, told Socrates, is 'not a god, but an immortal spirit, who spans the gulf between heaven and earth, carrying to the gods the prayers of men, and to the earth the commands of the gods.' Love, who is 'the child of plenty and of poverty, often, like his mother, without house or home to cover him' (and who consequently is not highly esteemed by respectable householders). Love, the 'instinct of immortality in a mortal creature,' leading him amongst mortal conditions to where Charlotte is being led to,--the grave of hope,--_but not leaving hope there entombed, but raising it, not clogged with the pollution of mortality._

All this, that the wise Diotima related, is a true parable of Charlotte Brontë. And the proof that Diotima was a good psychologist, and had based her opinions upon the study of facts, is found in the assertion that Love, although an immortal spirit, is _not a god_. Because a god sees clearly, and does not make mistakes: whereas Love, as every one knows, is often blind, and never very clear-sighted; and _is_ liable to make mistakes, and to be unjust even: and to attribute his own errors to other people. Thus Charlotte, under the dominion of Love, was unjust, and made mistakes: she attributed to Madame Heger disappointments and misadventures and pangs, that were not of Madame Heger's preparation at all, but were simply the imprudences of this 'Child of plenty and poverty,' who inherits from both parents and is so often extravagant and houseless, and consequently in bad odour with householders and the worshippers of 'convenience,' because 'he has no home to cover him.' Charlotte should not have attributed, for instance, malevolence or jealousy or the cruel pleasure of tantalising and torturing her in Bruxelles to Madame Heger, simply because, as the Directress of a Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles and wife of M. Heger, she did not want to take in Romantic Love as a boarder; nor to permit this 'Child of plenty and poverty' to disorganise the well-balanced domestic and conjugal relationships between herself and M. Heger. In all this Madame Heger was not persecuting Charlotte, but protecting her own rights. And if we examine the circumstances even in the narrative of the scene in the class-room between the Directress and her English teacher, and the scene of the farewell interview between the Professor and his pupil, where the Directress of the Pensionnat is put out of the room because she objects to this sentimental leave-taking, we shall find that recognising the true relationships between these three people, if Madame Heger behaved exactly as Madame Beck is said to have done, then there is not any fault whatever to be found with Madame Heger. Nay, one does not see how she could have been more considerate. Another false impression of Charlotte's--that Madame Heger intercepted her letters, and that M. Heger did not answer because he did not receive them--has no evidence to support it. Nor is this all; there is undeniable proof that the letter we have just considered (_which M. Heger did not answer_) _was_ received by him: and that he was not very much affected by the passionate homage of his worshipper. 'On the edge of this letter he has made some commonplace notes in pencil;--one of them is the name and address of a shoemaker,' Mr. Spielmann tells us.

There is a natural feeling of indignation against this masculine insensibility to a woman's tragical passion, even though one recognises that honour stood in the way of any responsive sentiment. But one must not forget M. Heger's special vocation and his daily occupations and preoccupations. Here you have a Professor of literature in a Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles who spends, week by week, several days in correcting and improving 'compositions' and exercises in 'style' of numberless schoolgirls, full of the eloquent sentimentality that belongs to young writers between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Monsieur Heger had been Charlotte's master in literature, remember: and there is another fact to be realised also, one that upon the authority of my own knowledge of him, in the character of my own Professor, I am allowed to testify to: _he was before all things a born teacher, and one who saw the world as his class-room, and his fellow-creatures in the light of pupils_. Applying this knowledge of him to the criticism of what we know about his relations with Charlotte Brontë, we arrive at entirely different opinions to those formed by people who either see M. Heger through the medium of Charlotte's passion for him and as she painted him in _Villette_; or outside of any personal knowledge of him at all, as he appears to them judged in the light of the impression that he played with Charlotte's feelings: first of all encouraging by sentimental flattery her affection for him, and then, when he found that she had become inconveniently fond of him, behaving with cruel indifference. None of these decisions is based on a correct knowledge of M. Heger, nor of his true behaviour and character. The true M. Heger was not the Paul Emanuel who was _the lover of Lucy Snowe_, because he is very truthfully and admirably painted in the domineering but interesting, terror-striking but captivating, masterful and masterly Professor of literature, so full of talent, and fiery captivating ardour for beautiful thoughts nobly expressed. The real Professor was _not_ tender-hearted; nor very tender in manner; nor even very pleasant and considerate; nor even kind, outside of his professorial character: and he had no sympathy whatever to spare for people who were not his pupils. And his sympathy for his pupils, _as his pupils_, led him to work upon their sympathies, as a way of inducing a frame of mind in them and an emotional state of feeling, rendering them susceptible to literary impressions, and putting them in key with himself, in this very fine enthusiasm of his, not only for enjoying literature himself, but for throwing open to others, and to young votaries especially, the worship of beautiful literature--as the record of the best that has been thought and said in the world.

But the very exclusive literary temperament of M. Heger left him rather cold-blooded than particularly warm-hearted, where his pupils' feelings interfered with their good style in writing; or good accent when speaking; or with their sense of the first importance of a warm appreciation of the beauties of literature. If one reversed directly the description of Charlotte Brontë herself, as a writer whose _words became feelings_, one might justly say of M. Heger that for him, feelings were chiefly good with reference to their effects upon words, and the creation of beautiful language--so that Charlotte's love-letters to him would be no more than the '_Devoirs de Style_' of a former pupil sent him for criticism. The shoemaker's address may have been jotted down by accident, when he was running his eye down the page? If the further notes signified by Mr. Spielmann on this page, where poor Charlotte's heart's Secret lay exposed and quivering, had been '_Bon--mais un peu trop d'exaltation--la Ponctuation n'est pas soignée_,' no one who knew M. Heger would blame him for _voluntary_ unkindness. But upon this matter no more must be said at present: we have to return to Charlotte, and her Letters.

The second in the order in which I am studying them (that seems to me unmistakably indicated by the context) would have been written--if we take the year 1845 as the date--eight, instead of six, months after the one, dated November, that refers to a preceding letter in the May of the same year--when Charlotte would have accepted the obligation laid upon her not to write again for six months. This Letter, dated 24th July, indicates by the opening sentence, not that she is writing outside of the appointed time, but _outside of her turn_: that is to say, it shows that M. Heger had not answered her November Letter; that she had waited for his reply, but could not wait longer, and so wrote a second letter, before M. Heger's reply to the first. The custom shows us that poor Charlotte is uneasily conscious that her former one in November may have given offence. She apologises for it, as we shall see; and works hard to write with cheerfulness in a more temperate tone:--

Ah, Monsieur! I know I once wrote you a letter that was not
a reasonable one, because my heart was choked with grief;
but I will not do it again! I will try not to be selfish;
although I cannot but feel your letters the greatest
happiness I know. I will wait patiently to receive one,
until it pleases you, and it is convenient to write one. At
the same time, I may write you a little letter from time to
time; you authorised me to do that.

The effort she is putting upon herself in this Letter is evident. She has become reasonable; she does not reproach him for not writing, but only asks him to remember how much she desires it. She tells him of her plans, as she was recommended to do, instead of dwelling on her feelings. She humours and flatters his vanity and taste by her acknowledgment of all she owes him; and of her unfailing gratitude and wish to dedicate a book to him--she even sends a message to Madame!--

_Please present to Madame the assurance of my esteem_. I
fear that Maria, Louise and Claire will have forgotten me.
Prospère and Victorine never knew me, but I remember all
five of them, and especially Louise. There was so much
character, so much naïveté expressed in her little face.
Farewell, Monsieur--Your grateful pupil,

C. Brontë.

_July_ 24.--I have not begged you to write to me soon,
because I am afraid of troubling you, but you are too kind
to forget how much I desire it. Yes! I do desire it so much.
But that is enough. After all, do as you like, Monsieur, for
if I received a letter from you and I thought you wrote it
out of pity, it would hurt me very much.... Oh I shall
certainly see you some day. It must come to pass. Because as
soon as I earn any money, I shall go to Bruxelles--and I
shall see you again, if only for a moment.

It is all of no avail! No answer does M. Heger vouchsafe. October comes round, and she writes again. This time she imagines that she has found a means of making her Letter reach its destination. In other words, she is convinced, or tries to be convinced, that it is all Madame Heger's fault again; she it is who will not allow her husband to receive Charlotte's Letters.

_October_ 24.--Monsieur--I am quite joyous to-day. A thing
that has not often happened during the last two years.[7]
The reason is that a gentleman amongst my friends is
passing through Bruxelles, and he has offered to take charge
of a letter for you, and to give this same letter into your
hands; or else his sister will do this, so that I shall be
quite certain that you receive it.

Now comes the final blow to this faithful worshipper. Up to this hour, she has hoped and waited, waited and hoped. But all this time there has been the suspicion of Madame Heger--that has kept alive in her the belief in M. Heger's friendship, who (perhaps?) writes, although his letters never arrive: who (perhaps?) never receives her letters, although whenever she dares, and even in defiance of the terms laid down for her, she writes him letters where the vibration of her passionate attachment is felt. Now, however, he _has_ received her letter placed in his own hand. Had he written she would now have held in her turn the talisman of the beloved handwriting her eyes were weary with waiting to see again. But he remained obdurate and silent.

Mr. Taylor has returned (she writes): I asked him if he had
no letter for me. 'No: nothing.' Be patient, I told myself:
soon his sister will return. Miss Taylor came back: 'I have
nothing for you from Monsieur Heger,' she said; 'neither
letter, nor any message.'

Understanding only too well what this meant, I told myself
just what I should have told any one else in the same
circumstances: Resign yourself to what you cannot alter, and
before all things do not grieve for a misfortune that you
have not deserved. I would not allow myself to weep nor
complain. But when one refuses to oneself the right to tears
and lamentations in certain cases, one is a tyrant; and
natural faculties revolt; so that one buys outward calm at
the price of an inner conflict that cannot be subdued.

Neither by day, nor by night can I find rest nor peace: even
if I sleep, I have tormenting dreams, where I see you,
always severe, gloomy, angry with me. Forgive me, Monsieur,
if I am driven to take the course of writing to you once
more. How can I endure my life, if I am forbidden to make
any effort to alleviate my sufferings?

She continues in this piteous strain. She pleads with him not to reprove her again as she has been reproved before, for exaggeration, morbidness, sentimentality. She tells him all this may be true--she is not going to defend herself--but the case is as she states it. She _cannot_ resign herself to the loss of her master's friendship without one last effort to preserve it.

I submit to all the reproaches you may make against me; if
my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall
remain without hope; if he keeps a little for me (never mind
though it be _very_ little) I shall have some motive for
living, for working.

Monsieur (she continues), the poor do not need much to keep
them alive; they ask only for the crumbs that fall from the
rich man's table, but if these crumbs are refused them,
_then_ they die of hunger! For me too, I make no claim
either to great affection from those I love; I should hardly
know how to understand an exclusive and perfect friendship,
I have so little experience of it! But once upon a time, at
Bruxelles, when I was your pupil, you _did_ show me a little
interest: and just this small amount of interest you gave me
then, I hold to and I care for and prize, as I hold to and
care for life itself....

... I will not re-read this letter, I must send it as it is
written. And yet I know, by some secret instinct, that
certain absolutely reasonable and cool-headed people reading
it through will say:--'She appears to have gone mad.' By
way of revenge on such judges, all I would wish them is that
they too might endure, _for one day only_, the sufferings I
have borne for eight months--then, one would see, if they
too did not 'appear to have gone mad.'

One endures in silence whilst one has his strength to do it.
But when this strength fails one, one speaks without
weighing one's words. I wish Monsieur all happiness and
prosperity.

Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, 8_th January_.

The Letter obtained no answer. And thus the end was reached. We now know where in Charlotte Brontë's life lay her experiences that formed her genius and made her the great Romantic--whose quality was that she saw all events and personages through the medium of one passion--the passion of a predestined tragical and unrequited love.

END OF PART I.

[1] I have to thank Mr. Clement Shorter, who has purchased the copyright of Charlotte Brontë's manuscripts, for his generous permission to quote from these letters freely for the purposes of my criticism.--(F.M.)

[2] _Childe Harold_, note 9 to canto iii.

[3] The author of _Childe Harold_ adds on this note as a comment upon what he has said of 'Love' as the inspiration of the greatest of all Romantics, J.-J. Rousseau:--

'His love was passion's essence--as a tree
On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
Thus, and enamour'd, were in him the same.
But his was not the love of living dame,
Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,
But of Ideal beauty, which became
In him existence and o'erflowing teems
Along his burning page, distemper'd tho' it seems.

This breathed itself to life in Julie, this
Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;
This hallow'd too the memorable kiss
Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet,
From hers, who but with friendship his would meet:
But to that gentle touch, thro' brain and breast
Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat;
In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest
Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.'

[4] Rudyard Kipling.

[5] See Letter, 18 Nov. I am giving my own translation from the French of Charlotte's Letters in these extracts, not certainly on account of any dissatisfaction with Mr. Spielmann's English versions of them, but in order to avoid the risk of any infringement of Mr. Spielmann's copyright in his Introduction.

[6] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life, p._ 290.

[7] Charlotte had been a year and ten months in England in October 1845. This phrase, however, proves that the Letter belongs to this year and not to 1844, and consequently that the Letter that follows it, January 8, is 1846.

PART II

SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE

REAL MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER

THIS SECOND PART IS

DEDICATED TO

MY BROTHER

THE LATE ABBÉ AUSTIN RICHARDSON

WHO DIED SUDDENLY, 20TH AUG. 1913

Dearest, before you went away
And left me here behind you,
How often would you talk to me,
And I, too, would remind you
Of stories in this book retold,
That for us two could ne'er grow old;
Of scenes that we could live through yet,
Just you and I,--and not forget:
And now I feel, since you are gone,
I wrote this book for you alone.