The Secret of Charlotte Bront?

CREATED BY A FALSE CRITICAL METHOD

We live in an epoch when impressionist methods of criticism, admissible, and often illuminative, in the domains of art and of imaginative literature, have invaded the once jealously guarded paths of historical criticism, to the detriment of correct standards of judgment. Leading critics, whose literary accomplishments, powers of persuasive argument, and unquestionable good faith, lend great influence to their decisions, show no sort of hesitation in undertaking to interpret the characters and careers of famous men and women, independently of any examination of evidence, by purely psychological methods. I am not denying that, as literary exercises, some of these impressionist portraits of men and women of genius, seen through the temperament of writers who are, sometimes, endowed with genius themselves, are very interesting. But what has to be remembered (and what is constantly forgotten) is, that if these psychological interpretations of people who once really existed are to be accorded any authority as historical judgments, they must have been preceded by an attentive enquiry, enabling the future interpreter, before he begins to employ psychology, to feel perfectly certain that he has clearly in view the particular Soul he is undertaking to penetrate, with its own special qualities, and placed amongst, and acted upon by, the real circumstances of its earthly career. Where the preliminary precaution of this enquiry, into the true facts that have to be penetrated, and explained, has been neglected, no psychological subtlety, no pathological science, no sympathetic insight, can protect the most accomplished literary impressionist from forming, and fostering, false opinions about the historical personages he is judging from a standpoint of assumptions that do not allow him to exercise the true function of criticism, defined by Matthew Arnold as: 'an impartial endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is.'

In the case of Charlotte Bront?, her first, and, still, classical biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, carried through, now fifty-seven years ago, with great literary skill, and also with historical exactitude, the study of her parentage and youth; of her experiences in England as a governess; of her family trials and losses; of the sudden development of her talent, or rather, of her genius as a writer, that, at one bound, after the publication of her first novel, made her famous throughout England; and soon famous throughout Europe: and that proved her (since Charlotte has been 'dead'-as people use the phrase-more than half a century, and since her books are still living spirits, we may be allowed to affirm this) one of the immortals.

But now whilst all these epochs in Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Bront? were studied by exact historical methods, there was one epoch in her heroine's career that this, elsewhere, conscientious biographer neglected to study at all: in the sense, of subjecting facts and events and personages, belonging to its history, to careful examination. Here, on the contrary, we find that Mrs. Gaskell left exact methods of enquiry behind her; and adopted arbitrary psychological methods, of arguments, and assumptions, where, not only no effort was made to consult the testimony of facts, but where this testimony was ignored, or contradicted, when it stood in the way, of preconceived theories. And this period, thus inadequately, or, rather, thus mischievously, dealt with, happened to be precisely the one where the key must be found to the right interpretations of Charlotte's personality; and of the emotions and experiences she had undergone and that called her genius forth to life: and stamped it with the seal and quality that made her, amongst our great English Novelists, the only representative prose-writer in our literature of the European literary movement that French critics praise, and attack, under the name of le Romantisme.

The period in Charlotte's life that I am speaking of is, of course, the interval of two years (from Feb. 1842 to Jan. 1844) that she spent at Bruxelles, in the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, whose Director and Directress, Monsieur and Madame Heger, are supposed to have been painted in the characters of 'Paul Emanuel' and of 'Madame Beck,' in the famous novel of Villette.

How far that supposition is justified, and to what extent Villette is an autobiographical reminiscence, thinly disguised as a novel, can be now, but has never been up to this date, satisfactorily decided, by an attentive historical enquiry. What is established securely to-day, and cannot be removed from the foundation of documentary evidence that serves as the basis upon which all future theories must rest, is, that it is in this period that Charlotte Bront?-not as an enthusiastic and half-formed school-girl, as some reckless modern impressionist critics, careless of the evidence of facts, would have us believe, but as a woman, profoundly sincere, impassioned, exalted, unstained, and unstainable, who, between twenty-six and twenty-eight years of age, had long left girlish extravagance behind her-underwent experiences and emotions, that were not transient feelings, nor sensational excitements. But they were transforming and formative spiritual influences-causing, no doubt, bitter anguish, and intolerable regrets, that 'broke her heart,' in the sense that they destroyed personal hope or belief in happiness, and even the personal capacity for happiness: yet that from this grave of buried hope, called her genius forth to life; and stamped and sealed it, with its special quality and gift:-the gift that made her a 'Romantic.' So that at this hour one has not to deplore any longer, for Charlotte's sake, this tragical sentiment, of predestined, hopeless, and unrequited love, that broke her heart, but that gave her immortality. For, whilst the broken heart is healed now, or, at any rate, has slept in peace for more than half a century, the genius, born from its sorrow, is still a living spirit; and will probably continue to live on, from age to age, whilst the English tongue endures.

At the present hour all this can be positively affirmed. But even before the final settlement, for every critic who respects historical evidence, of the now incontrovertible fact, Mrs. Gaskell's method of dealing with this momentous period could not satisfy an attentive student who compared her account with Charlotte's correspondence: and also with eloquent impassioned passages in Villette and the Professor, where the authoress is plainly painting emotions and impressions she has herself undergone. And the effect that was left upon thoughtful readers of the Life of Charlotte Bront?' was that the biographer was, not negligently, but deliberately, altering the true significance, by underrating the importance, of Charlotte's experiences in Bruxelles, and of her relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger.

This biographer's theory was (and the doctrine has been vehemently defended by a certain clique of devotees of Charlotte Bront? down to the present day) that Charlotte obtained, certainly, great intellectual stimulus, as well as literary culture, from the lessons of M. Heger, as an accomplished Professor; but that, outside of these influences, her relationships with M. Heger were of an entirely ordinary and tranquil character, and that she carried back with her to Haworth, after her two years' residence in Bruxelles, no other sentiments than those of the grateful regard and esteem a good pupil necessarily retains for a Professor whose lessons she has turned to excellent account.

How far Mrs. Gaskell did believe, or was able to make herself believe, what she professed, it is difficult to determine now. My own opinion is she did not believe it; but that she esteemed it a duty to respect the secret that had not been confided to her: and to pass by in silence, and with averted eyes, the place where, forsaken by hope, Charlotte had fought out bravely and all alone this battle, with a hopeless passion (that, after all, when it comes across any woman's path, she must fight out alone, because nowhere, outside of her own soul, is there any help), and then, having won her battle, had gone on, leaving her broken heart buried in that silent, secret place, to face her altered destiny. And to write stories as a method of salvation from despair. But to return, now and again, to visit that silent, secret grave: and to gather the magical flowers that grew there, and breathe their bitter, sweet perfume. And to take large handfuls of these flowers home with her, and, in the air saturated with the bitter-sweet perfume of these magical flowers, to write her stories. So that the stories themselves come to us, not like other stories, but steeped in this strange perfume thrilled through with the magical life belonging to flowers of remembrance, gathered from the grave of a tragical romance. And this explains why the stories are themselves romantic: and why, as Harriet Martineau complained, Villette, especially, has this quality, which, to the authoress of Illustrations in Political Economy, appeared a defect, that 'all events and personages are regarded through the medium of one passion only-the passion of unrequited love.'

To return to Mrs. Gaskell and her criticism of Charlotte Bront?. The question of whether she, like Harriet Martineau, committed a critical blunder, as a result of studying Charlotte's character and genius by wrong methods, or whether out of loyalty she endeavoured to cover in her friend's life the secret romance that Charlotte herself never revealed, does not need to trouble us much, because the answer does not greatly matter. However laudatory Mrs. Gaskell's motive may have been, the fact remains, that, as a result of her endeavour rather to turn attention away from, than to examine, the true circumstances of Charlotte's relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger, an inadequate, or else a false, criticism was inaugurated by her influence of the most popular in Europe of our distinguished women novelists, and who, outside of England, is judged by right standards as a 'Romantic,' but who, in her own country, has been criticised from 1857 down to 1913, in the light of one of two contradictory impressions-both of which we now know were historical mistakes.

The first of these impressions is that Charlotte Bront? has painted, not only her own emotions, but her own actual experiences, in Villette; and that Lucy Snowe, Paul Emanuel, and Madame Beck, are pseudonyms, under which we ought to recognise Charlotte herself, and the Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle.

The second, and almost equally mischievous impression is that no romantic nor tragical sentiment whatever characterises the relationships between Charlotte Bront? and her Bruxelles Professor in literature; and that she derived her inspirations as a writer solely from the drab dreariness and the desolation of disease and death, of her life in the shadow of Haworth churchyard. It is impossible from the standpoint of either of these impressions to form right opinions about Charlotte Bront?, either as a distinguished personality, or as a writer of genius, whose place in English literature is that amongst our prose writers she is the representative 'Romantic' who counts with George Sand; but differs from her, as an English and not a French exponent of the sentiment of romantic love.

Judged both as a distinguished personality and as a writer of genius from the standpoint of the impression that Villette is an autobiographical story, Charlotte Bront? suffers injustice, both as a woman of fine character, and as an imaginative painter of emotions rather than an observer of events, or a critic of manners. Accepted as a realistic picture of her own adventures in Brussels, the book does not testify to her accuracy or skill in portraiture, from the purely literary point of view. And from the moral and personal standpoint, she remains convicted (if she be held to be telling her own story) of the baseness of a half-confession;-and of a dishonourable and a successful, not a romantic and tragical, love for a married man. And of the treacherous wrong done a sister-woman, who threw open her home to her, when she was a friendless alien in a foreign city. And, if this were so, this traitress would have further aggravated the dishonest betrayal of her protectress, by holding up the woman she had wronged to the world's detestation, either as the contemptible and scheming Mlle. Zora?de Reuter, of the Professor:-or the less contemptible but more hateful Madame Beck, in Villette.

If, then, Charlotte did mean, or even suppose, that others could be induced to believe that she meant, to paint her own relationships to Monsieur and Madame Heger in the story, she would stand convicted, not only as a woman of bad character, but as one who had a wicked and vindictive heart.

Nor yet does the second impression, patronised by devotees of Charlotte Bront? (who seem to imagine that the revelation of an entirely innocent and indeed beautiful, though tragical, romantic attachment in the life of this romantic writer, is the disclosure of a sin), help us to find any solution of the 'problem' as psychological critics present it to us, of the 'dissonance' between her personality and dull existence, and her literary distinction, as our chief English Romantic, and the authoress of those amazing masterpieces Jane Eyre and Villette. What a contrast, in effect, between the characteristics of these masterpieces and the characteristics of her circumstances at Haworth and of the circle of her familiar acquaintances! The characteristics of Charlotte's books are-emotional force, the exaltation of passion over all the commonplace proprieties, the low-toned feelings, the semi-educated pedantries that are the characteristics of the people who surround Charlotte; who are her correspondents and her friends; and whose mediocrity weighs on the poor original woman's spirit (and even on her literary style) like lead:-so that the letters she writes to them are, really, nearly as dull as the letters they write to her; and one finds it hard to believe that some of the letters, to Ellen Nussey, for instance, come from the same pen that wrote Villette: or even that wrote from Bruxelles some of her letters to Emily.

And again, if we leave out of account the tragical romantic sentiment for M. Heger, how are we to solve the problem as these psychologists present it to us, and that states itself in this conviction: that the creator of 'Rochester' and 'Paul Emanuel' found her own romance, only at forty years of age, in her marriage with the Rev. A.B. Nicholls, an event she announces thus:-'I trust the demands of both feeling and duty will be in some measure reconciled by the step in contemplation'; adding on to this the following description of the future bridegroom: 'Mr Nicholls is a kind, considerate fellow: with all his masculine faults, he enters into my wishes about having the thing done quietly'?

From the standpoint of the impression that the romance in Charlotte's life, was the marriage she speaks of as 'the thing,' that she wishes 'may be done quietly,'-and that the highest pitch of personal emotion she attained to, is expressed by her in the temperate confidence that by 'the step in contemplation'-'the demands of both feeling and duty may in some measure be reconciled,' (-only in some measure? Poor Charlotte!-But she died within a year)-from this standpoint, I say, one really cannot solve the problem of the 'dissonance' between Charlotte's personality and her books.

But there is one conclusion we are bound to reach. The influences of Haworth, no doubt-the drab dreariness of everything; and then the desolation after Bramwell's death, and Emily's death, and Anne's death-and the father threatened with blindness-and also the mediocrity of all those dull, dull people, who represented her familiar friends and correspondents, so satisfied with themselves, all of them; so dissatisfied with life, and who saw it through the medium not of a romantic tragical sentiment, not of one great passion, but through the medium of small grievances of superior nursery governesses: the sort of people who dislike children, and want overdriven mothers to be always occupied with their governesses' sentiments, instead of with the baby who is cutting its teeth. No doubt the influences of Haworth and of Charlotte Bront?'s 'Circle' there, before she became famous, did help to plant in her the immense depression and fatigue of a spirit that had known the stress of great emotions, and could bear no more,-expressed in the letter announcing her decision to marry one of the curates she had laughed at in Shirley-who with all his masculine faults,' she says, 'is a kind, considerate fellow,' who doesn't expect her to pretend she thinks this marriage ('the thing')-a Festival. Well, but the conclusion we must form is this, that if it be at Haworth, and after 1846, that we must find the causes of the depression that brought about Charlotte's marriage with Mr. Nicholl, it is not here that we must seek the 'Secret of Charlotte Bront?';-the romance that broke her heart, true-but made her an immortal, whose claim to live for ever is based upon no moderate well-balanced sentiment, where 'the demands of both feeling and duty will be in some measure reconciled'-but upon passionate emotions, compelling expression, and forming a new language almost; as M. Jules Lema?tre has said 'introducing new ways of feeling, and as it were a new vibration into literature.'

And in the place where the romance in Charlotte's life is found must we seek, also, the source of this power of emotion: creating powers of expression to which much more accomplished literary artists than Charlotte (Jane Austen and Mrs. Gaskell, for instance) never reached; and to an intimate knowledge of moods and ecstasies and raptures, that rule and torture and exalt human souls, that much more subtle and scientific psychologists than herself (George Eliot, for instance, and Mrs. Humphry Ward) never discovered.

The supreme gift of the authoress of Villette and Jane Eyre, as a painter of emotions, an interpreter of intimate moods, a witness in the cause of ideal sentiments, an incessant rebel against vulgarity and common worldliness, and the stupid tyranny of custom, an upholder of the sovereignty of romance, cannot be weighed against, nor judged by, the same standards as the accomplished literary gift of such finished artists as the authors of Pride and Prejudice and Cranford, such subtle students of character as the authors of Middlemarch and Robert Elsmere, such vigorous fighters for intellectual and moral ends as are represented by the author of the Illustrations upon Political Economy, and the Atkinson Letters. And it is because, as a result of judging her genius and her personality from the standpoint of false impressions, Charlotte Bront? has not been recognised in England as a painter of personal emotions, a Romantic in short, but has been judged as the advocate of a general doctrine-(one very agreeable to the convictions of the average man, but especially exasperating to the aspirations and principles of the superior woman)-I mean, the doctrine that to obtain the love of a man whom she feels to be, and rejoices to recognise as, her 'Master,'-is the supreme desire and dream of every truly feminine heart; it is because, I say, of this mistake, that Charlotte has become the idol of a class of critics least qualified perhaps to appreciate the merits of a romantic rebel against conventional domesticity; whilst amongst more naturally sympathetic judges, the peculiar perfume and power of these novels, steeped in and saturated with the passionate essence of a personal romance, has not been recognised either for what it really is,-the 'magic' of Charlotte Bront?; the special quality in her work that gives it originality and distinction; but this very quality-'the personal note' that makes her our only English Romantic Novelist, has been signalised by many sincere admirers of her books as a defect!

I have already mentioned the judgment passed upon Villette by an admirable woman of letters, Charlotte Bront?'s personal friend, and a critic whose good faith, and honest desire to serve the interests of this sister-authoress with whom she found fault it is quite impossible to doubt.

When Villette appeared, Charlotte Bront? had been for some little time on very friendly terms with Harriet Martineau: and she did not fear to incur the risk-always a perilous one to friendship-of asking Harriet to tell her, quite frankly, what she thought of her book. Harriet responded with perfect frankness to the invitation; and the almost inevitable result followed. The event wrecked their friendship. And no one was to blame: Harriet Martineau, without disguise, but without malice, said what she thought was true. But neither was Charlotte in the wrong, for she felt herself unjustly judged; and her feeling was right, because Harriet used false standards.

'As for the matter which you so desire to know,' wrote the frank Harriet; 'I have but one thing to say: but it is not a small one. I do not like the love-either the kind or the degree of it-and its prevalence in the book, and effect on the action of it, help to explain the passages in the reviews which you consulted me about, and seem to afford some foundation for the criticism they afford.'

Charlotte was deeply offended: 'I protest against this passage,' she wrote; 'I know what love is as I understand it, and if man or woman should be ashamed of feeling such love, then there is nothing right, noble, faithful, truthful, unselfish in this earth, as I comprehend rectitude, nobleness, fidelity, truth and disinterestedness.'

Here spoke the Romantic. But Harriet Martineau was not a Romantic but an Intellectual, and she judged Charlotte's books and her genius through her own temperament, and by intellectual standards. She followed up the private rebuke to her friend for making too much of love, in a review of Villette, contributed to the Daily News.

'All the female characters,' she wrote, 'in all their thoughts and lives, are full of one thing, or are regarded in the light of that one thought, love! It begins with the child of six years old, of the opening (a charming picture), and closes with it at the last page. And so dominant is this idea, so incessant is the writer's tendency to describe the need of being loved, that the heroine, who tells her own story, leaves the reader at last under the uncomfortable impression of her having either entertained a double love, or allowed one to supersede another, without notification of the transition. It is not thus in real life. There are substantial, heartfelt interests for women of all ages, and, under ordinary circumstances, quite apart from love; there is an absence of introspection, an unconsciousness, a repose, in women's lives, unless under peculiarly unfortunate circumstances, of which we find no admission in this book; and to the absence of it may be attributed some of the criticism which the book will meet with from readers who are no prudes, but whose reason and taste will regret the assumption that events and characters are to be regarded through the medium of one passion only.'

The critical blunder in this judgment is that here the authoress of the Illustrations in Political Economy and of the Atkinson Letters sees the authoress of Villette through her own temperament, as an intellectual like herself:-a humane sociologist, and a philosophical freethinker, whose literary purpose is to use her talent as a writer in the service of her ideas and principles. Judging Villette and its authoress from this point of view and by these standards, Harriet Martineau decides that because 'all events and characters in Villette are regarded through the medium of one passion, love,' therefore the literary motive and purpose of the authoress must have been to deny-or at any rate to ignore-that 'there are substantial heartfelt interests for women of all ages, and in ordinary circumstances, quite apart from love.'

The mistake lay in assuming that Charlotte Bront? was an intellectual, instead of an imaginative genius; and that her literary purpose was to affirm, or deny, or ignore deliberately, any principle; or in any way to make her genius the servant of her intellect; whereas her intelligence was so coloured by her imagination, so subservient to her genius, that if one were to measure her by intellectual standards-with Harriet Martineau, for instance-she would remain as vastly Harriet's inferior in enthusiasm of humanity, in practical benevolence and warm interest in social reform, and in emancipations from prejudice and insularity and bigotry, as she was Harriet's superior in power of passionate feeling, in wealth of imagination, and in superb gift of expression. But any such comparison would be out of place. Let us admit that Charlotte's thoughts and aspirations, as we find them scattered through her writings, express the ordinary vigorous prejudices of an English gentlewoman of her period, brought up under the influences of a father who was a good sort of Tory clergyman; that her attitude of condescension toward, rather than of sympathy with, the 'common people,' regarded as the 'lower orders,' who should be kindly treated of course, but kept in their place, and taught to 'order themselves lowly and reverently to their betters,' indicates a defective humanitarianism; that her almost rabid patriotism-her conviction that not to be English is a misfortune, and a stamp of inferiority that weighs heavily as an impediment to nobility and virtue, upon every member of every other foreign race, is distinctly narrow; and that her staunch and straitened protestantism, leaves her as far away as the 'idolatrous priests' she denounced, from any claim to enlightened tolerance.

Yet this lack of any particular height or breadth or distinction in Charlotte Bront?'s social, political, critical, or even religious views, does not in any way detract from the height, depth and distinction of her powers of noble emotion and splendid expression; nor from the rare gift of translating words into feelings that quicken her readers' sensibility to a finer perception of the ideal beauty that lies at the heart of common things.

Here is the gift by which we have to judge, or, to speak more becomingly, for which we have to praise and thank, our only English 'Romantic' novelist, who stands in rank with George Sand, and who has been studied in comparison with her by Swinburne. And we have to praise, and thank our Charlotte all the more, because she has a national as well as a personal note: and brings to this European literary movement the characteristic qualities of imagination and sentiment that belong to our English literary temperament, and that do us honour, as a romantic people who are romantic in our own, and nobody else's way.

But now if we want to appreciate the 'magic' of Charlotte Bront? as a Romantic we must not look for the sources of her inspiration at Haworth; nor in the circle of dull people, to whom she wrote, brilliant writer as she was, dull letters, because their mediocrity weighed upon her spirit like lead.

Twenty years ago, now, I attempted (but was not especially successful in the task) to establish upon the personal knowledge that my own residence as a pupil in the historical Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, at Bruxelles gave me of the facts of Charlotte Bront?'s relationships to Monsieur and Madame Heger, right impressions about the experiences and emotions she underwent between 1842 and 1846, and that supply the key and clue to the right interpretation of her genius. Every opinion I then ventured to state, not upon the authority of any special power of divination or of psychological insight of my own, but solely upon the authority of this personal knowledge of Monsieur and Madame Heger in my early girlhood, and also of the information I owed to the friendship and kind assistance given me, in my endeavour to rectify false judgments, by the Heger family, has quite recently, not only been confirmed, but established upon entirely incontrovertible evidence, by the generous gift made to English readers throughout the world of the key needed to unlock once and for ever the tragical but romantic 'Secret' of Charlotte Bront?.

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