The Secret of Charlotte Bront?

A FALSE CRI

ercises, 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

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 Eng

s 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

that she spent at Bruxelles, in the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, whose Director and Directress, Monsieur and Madame Heger,

d 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 burie

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 thou

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 w

s 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 st

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, critic

ual experiences, in Villette; and that Lucy Snowe, Paul Emanuel, and Madame Beck, are pseudonyms, under which w

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 perso

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 thre

eant, to paint her own relationships to Monsieur and Madame Heger in the story, she would stand c

tic, 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 peo

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 th

rsonal 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,' (-on

iven 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

omplished 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

olitical 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,

harlotte Bront?'s personal friend, and a critic whose good faith, and honest desire to serve t

r, 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 M

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

d it, and if man or woman should be ashamed of feeling such love, then there is nothing right, noble, faithful,

te's books and her genius through her own temperament, and by intellectual standards. She followed up the pri

s 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 unco

nker, 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 regard

ations 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 t

ot 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 tran

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 movem

the sources of her inspiration at Haworth; nor in the circle of dull people, to whom she wrote, br

ween 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