Thus internal evidence proves that the name of Wuthering Heights for the abode of the "deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl," Catherine Earnshaw, was primarily chosen by Charlotte Brontë because of its special appeal to her own mood at a given period, in relation to the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee," and proves that the choice of the name of Snowe for her "cold and altered" autobiographical self in Villette was dictated by its connection therewith.

In this light glance at Charlotte Brontë's poem "Mementos," and at the following verses from her "Frances":—

There is an apparent relationship of this last verse with the remarks in Chapter XXV. of The Professor, on Hunsden's "Lucia," of whom he says:—"I should ... have liked to marry her, and that I have not done so is a proof that I could not." Lucia's (Miss Brontë's) "faculty" was literature: the physiognomy was obviously an obfuscation. It is significant that Charlotte Brontë again took "Lucia," for the Christian name of Lucia or Lucy Snowe. See my references to Hunsden as a phase of M. Héger.

Perceiving, therefore, that Charlotte Brontë had likened herself to the heroine of "Puir Mary Lee," in so far as to be influenced by it to give the title of Wuthering Heights to one of her works, and to take the name of Snowe later for her autobiographical self, we understand why she wrote in Jane Eyre, Chapter XXVI.:—

The inclusion in Shirley of the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee" and the remarks anent it were apparently digressive, but they are followed by the "subtle" disclaimer:—

Indeed, there is evidence of a reconciliation between M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë, this being most marked in Jane Eyre and Shirley. In connection with the reasons responsible for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the title of Wuthering Heights, it is interesting to note some "subtlety of thought" dictated Charlotte's telling us in Shirley, Chapter XXXIII., of Caroline and her lover that:—

After the close of 1850, Charlotte Brontë resolved into the mood which was an earlier characteristic; and the choice of the name of Snowe for herself and the extraordinary tenacity with which she held to the name, having it re-inscribed in Villette by the printers though she had herself changed it, show she had returned somewhat to that state in regard to her affection for M. Héger responsible for the passionateness of her Wuthering Heights. And as following the completion of Villette she decided to marry a man she did not really love, I would say her mood was honestly in sympathy with that in which she wrote Wuthering Heights through bitter, adverse circumstances and the warping of destiny, and did not result from Sydney Dobell's advice to her when, having read Shirley and Jane Eyre, and despite her disclaimer in a preface, thinking she was the author of Wuthering Heights, he advised her to resume the frame of mind in which she had penned her Wuthering Heights.[88]

Dobell's supposition that she wrote the book had no connection whatsoever with my discovering Charlotte Brontë was the author of Wuthering Heights; neither had the fact that Miss Rigby—Lady Eastlake—in The Quarterly Review, spoke of Wuthering Heights as "purporting to be written by Ellis Bell" but having "a decided family likeness to Jane Eyre," and with still more point, identified "Catherine and Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights as Jane and Rochester of Jane Eyre in their native state." For I early found I must credit only the internal evidence of the Brontë works as my interpretative guide. Having written "The Key to Jane Eyre" nothing could prevent my discovery of that novel's kinship with Wuthering Heights; and so far back as August 29, 1902, I penned in a private letter enclosed with the proof sheets of my article to Mr. Harold Hodge, the editor of The Saturday Review, a confession that I was finding a strong kinship between the two novels. I owe to my persistent consciousness of this close kinship the fact that I finally discovered the amazing secrets of Wuthering Heights, and was enabled to state publicly in my Fortnightly Review article of March 1907, Charlotte Brontë and none other wrote Wuthering Heights. It was then I turned with interest to the remarks of Sydney Dobell, the author of Balder, and "a notable figure in the history of English thought" as he has been named, whose review of Charlotte Brontë's works had resulted in her being acclaimed a leading author and a genius. It was in The Palladium of September 1850 Sydney Dobell said:—

Charlotte Brontë warmly thanked him and protested. With eager honesty he again and again begged her to visit him and discuss the authorship of Wuthering Heights. Could Sidney Dobell but have been told the secret tragedy of Currer Bell's life and the bitterness of her cup, how he would have shrunk from inflicting her with an intrusive personal inquiry. And in all innocence he had asked her to revive the frame of mind in which, to use the words in Jane Eyre, her heart had been "weeping blood"!

Wuthering Heights was wrought near the furnace of Charlotte Brontë's fiery ordeal, and gives at its intensest that which glows through her other works, finally to flash up and smoulder out in Villette. By reason of its clear portrayal of woman when she is very woman Wuthering Heights towers above all common literary artistry, one of the finest novels in the world, an abiding monument to the vital genius of Charlotte Brontë. After her return from Brussels her life was a long human conflict, with vain regrets, vindictive recriminations, and luring memories opposing heroic commandings in the name of right and virtue. All honour to her that she fought to win!

Had Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger been characterless individuals of the common type who, knowing nothing of self-sacrifice and nobleness of life, yield to the call of immediate and unlicensed impulse, we could never have had these most vital representations, these most poignant revelations of the Martyrdom of Virtue—the works of our immortal Currer Bell. Her vehicle of confession—her dialect, was what men have termed fiction. But her heart was satisfied that truth has its ultimate appeal; and in the way of those sententious writers of old who garbed in an attractive vesture veritable and momentous records which would be preserved because they entertained, she gave the history of her life in a series of dramas we call the Brontë novels. For sixty years these have been read only as the creations of a brain that spun interesting fiction! Now, by aid of The Key to the Brontë Works, it is revealed they are more than this, and we discover the real greatness of Currer Bell and the high rank of her genius. Like that which creates the noblest and most enduring of the world's literature, the genius of Charlotte Brontë truthfully preserves the past, while it will intimately appeal to and have a salient lesson and an inspiring message for any one so ever who shall read, be it here and now, or in the time to come.

CHAPTER XVI.

I believe we have the secret of what I may call Emily's "involved moments" in Charlotte Brontë's description of her as Shirley Keeldar in Shirley, Chapter XXII., wherein we are told Emily saw visions, as it were, "faster than Thought can effect his combinations." We feel something of the clouded chaos of her moment of writing in her more impassioned or laboured verses; their illogic and incoherence fix it distressfully. Charlotte, to resume her reference to Emily in Shirley above quoted, further tells us that "so long as she is calm, indolence, indulgence, humour, and tenderness possess" her eye; "incense her, ... it instantly quickens to flame." And with her verse, so long as it was unburdened, indolent, it ran smoothly and pleasantly along with the simplicity of the insouciant; but confronted with magnitude the imagination flamed, reason and logic were involved, and there was an end of art. In her excited combativeness she hit out rashly. Thus in her last verses, considered her masterpiece, she says the "thousand creeds" which move men's hearts were "vain" to "waken doubt" in her creed, blind to the fact that truth and worship finally converge to one point, howsoever diverse their starting-places. The very unbeliever is a witness to man's innate seeking for truth and right: he is a non-believer in this or that because he conceives truth to be remote from it. He seeks truth albeit he is a wide wanderer.

In "The Old Stoic" we have a "stoic" in Emily's rôle of bold challenger of chimera. "Courage to endure" and "a chainless soul" are what this old stoic would ask for! The poet was ignorant of or indifferent to the fact that a true stoic, according to the rule of Epictetus, seeks to be not other than he is, and is content wheresoever he be, whatsoever his lot. The words of this poem are those of a bold neophyte, and they are interesting chiefly because we see advanced in them the hypothesis of punishment common to Emily's chimera-creating imagination. To repeat: so long as her mood was calm her verse ran pleasantly and smoothly along. But the saying tells us, "The good seaman is known in bad weather"; and so with the poet. Life is not a placid lake: the lethal lightnings play, and faith and happiness are threatened continually and on the whole horizon.

Charlotte Brontë, with memory of her own life-storm which has left us her Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, and her other great prose works, wrote her introduction to Emily's poems in the spirit of one who looked upon her pieces as the reflections of an uneventful life in the inner sense of vital soul-conflict.

Anne Brontë's gentle poems, like Emily's, will appeal particularly to such readers as have sympathetic temperaments; they will not call to the human heart like the clarion notes of Charlotte Brontë's poem "Passion," but mayhap their low whisperings may waken sadly pleasant memories. With Currer Bell's poems I deal in various chapters, wherein we perceive their relationship to Wuthering Heights and her other books which resulted from the harsh rigours of her tempest-bestormed night.

And shall we not say a word for Branwell Brontë? He too wrote verse.[90] He was not a genius in the sense of my definition, but his verse is such as might appear in a member of a family a generation or a degree of kin removed from the genius of the house. Him we must remember compassionately as one physically weak, an unhappy victim of circumstances against which he had not the moral force to fight. Nor shall we forget that the Rev. Patrick Brontë, the father, wrote and published verse. His productions were printed in pamphlet form, and have been collected and republished.[91] As literature they are unimportant, but to the curious they may have a sort of interest.

APPENDIX.

The interior of Thornfield Hall, as I mention on page 35, has been identified with that of "Norton Conyers," near Ripon; externally it has been associated with "The Rydings," near Birstall. Ferndean Manor has been identified with Wycollar Hall, near Colne. A Brontë biographer says this place was set on fire by a mad woman,[92] but the story finds no mention in The Annals of Colne, 1878, or in Lancashire Legends, 1873, though "Wyecoller Hall" is dealt with at length in each work.

"Shirley."

Gomersall and Birstall, near Batley, Yorkshire, contribute to the background of this story. "Field Head" has been identified with Oakwell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion. Evidence shows that intimately the Rectory in Shirley was in the main Haworth Parsonage to Charlotte Brontë. In The Dictionary of National Biography Leslie Stephen says:—"Brontë, ... a strong Churchman and a man of imperious and passionate character, ... is partly represented by Mr. Helstone in Shirley, though a [Rev.] Mr. Roberson ... supplied ... characteristic traits." And Mr. Francis Leyland, who drew much of his information from Nancy Garrs, a Brontë servant, says that the fourth chapter of Shirley, wherein Charlotte speaks of the grossly untrue reports of Mr. Helstone's dry-eyed mourning, etc., for his wife, is a defence really of Mr. Brontë. Helstone was a composite character, as also was Mrs. Pryor, to whom, without doubt, Miss Wooler contributed, though Charlotte Brontë once had a grave difference with her. Miss Nussey, who pathetically and wrongly believed herself Caroline Helstone, proclaimed Miss Wooler, her schoolmistress, as the prototype of Mrs. Pryor. Evidence declares, however, that in many regards this character was also drawn from Tabitha Aykroyd. And we see that Charlotte Brontë, years before, in her Wuthering Heights, had given an ecclesiastical name—that of Dean—to her portrayal of the one woman who alone ever took up the part of mother for her—Tabitha Aykroyd. Nevertheless Mrs. Pryor was in the main a composite character, largely at the service of "story" requirements. Sometimes she is Tabitha, sometimes Miss Wooler; elsewhile she is neither. Mr. Macarthey is said to represent the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who became Charlotte Brontë's husband.

The references in Shirley, Chapters XII. and XXVII., to Robin Hood's connection with Nunnwood and to the ruins of a nunnery, identify Nunnely in the circumstances, with Hartshead, near Brighouse and Dewsbury; Nunnely Church with Hartshead Church (Mr. Brontë was once vicar here), and the Priory with Kirklees Hall or Priory—Kirklees Park, as we may see by turning to Dr. Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete, pages 306-9 (1816), wherein we find mention of Robin Hood and an old Cistercian nunnery in connection with Kirklees, appropriately now the residence of Sir George J. Armytage, Bart., one of the founders of the Harleian Society. Whinbury has been identified with Dewsbury; but I do not know that it has been remarked the name Dewsbury may have suggested to Charlotte Brontë the dewberry, bramble, or blackberry, thus leading her to adopt "whinberry" and, finally, Whinbury. The attack on Hollow's Mill is said to have been founded on an attempt in 1812, when an assault was made on the factory of Mr. Cartwright near Dewsbury.

"The Professor" and "Villette."

The Professor, Charlotte Brontë offered to Messrs. Aylott & Jones in April 1846, was not published till after her death. It is related to Villette in something of the way, though not so verbally and intimately, that Wuthering Heights is to Jane Eyre. The early chapters deal vaguely with a West Riding of Yorkshire town, but the scene quickly changes to Brussels. The Héger pension is recognized as the original of the schools in both novels, but in Villette the place Villette occasionally becomes London as Charlotte Brontë knew it on her visits. Mr. George Smith, the Brontë publisher, and his mother, are portrayed as the Brettons. Mr. Smith showed Charlotte Brontë the sights of London: the theatres, picture galleries, churches, etc.; and we have reflected in Villette incidents associated with her seeing these places.[93] The reader will find a phase of Currer Bell in Paulina—Miss de Bassompierre, and a sympathetic phase of Mr. Brontë in her father, for after the deaths of Emily, Anne, and Branwell, Charlotte and her father were brought closer to each other. And like Mr. "Home" de Bassompierre, he had "no more daughters and no son."[94] Towards the close of Villette we may find a phase of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, Charlotte Brontë's husband, in Dr. John Bretton, my previous remarks upon whom observe. It was shortly after the completion of Villette Mr. Nicholls proposed successfully, but it would seem by the concluding chapters Miss Brontë expected this. The picture of the disappointment of the old father that his popular daughter would marry a plain character in life suggests to us the disappointment of the Rev. Patrick Brontë in regard to his daughter's marrying a curate. See Chapter XXXVII. Paulina, of course, is the feminine of Paul; and the original of M. Paul of this work we now well know. See footnote on page 120.

The chronological sequences in Charlotte Brontë's novels are seldom carefully ordered: this should be remembered in reference to her record of events in her own life.

"Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."

Agnes Grey contains simple and natural portrayals of governess life in the eighteen-forties; and the following Wildfell Hall, we may conjecture, is built from evolved incidents founded on hearsay and experience. Whether Miss Brontë had assisted Anne or not, it is certain Wildfell Hall has something in common with Currer Bell's novels. The books connected with the name of Acton Bell, however, are not important as literature in the higher sense of the word; and though a member of Messrs. Smith & Elder remarked to Miss Brontë upon a similarity in the leading male characters of Wildfell Hall to Rochester, interest in it is merely dependent upon its association with the greater Brontë works, and the book does not call for sedulous inquiry.

THE HÉGER PORTRAIT OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË
IN THE NATIONAL PORTRAIT GALLERY.

The Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, London, purchased in July 1906, a hitherto unheard of portrait of Charlotte Brontë, painted in water-colours in 1850, and stated to be by M. Héger. A reproduction of the portrait was given in The Cornhill Magazine for October 1906, Mr. Reginald J. Smith, K.C., of Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co., the Brontë publishers, having to do with its discovery.

In the early autumn of 1906, Mr. Lionel Cust, M.V.O., Surveyor of the King's Pictures and Works of Art, then Director of the National Portrait Gallery, was busily corresponding with me in regard to this portrait of Charlotte Brontë, the authenticity of which became sensationally attacked. At once I pointed out the importance and significance of the portrait's being signed "Paul Héger," instead of "Constantin Héger"; and other matters. In March 1907, I appended a footnote[95] to my article, "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil," in The Fortnightly Review, and on May 16th, 1907, the literary editor of The Tribune, Mr. E. G. Hawke, having placed space at my disposal, I wrote as follows:—

CHARLOTTE BRONTË.

THE HÉGER PORTRAIT.

To the Editor of The Tribune.

The publication of this letter ended the controversy.[99] Since it was published Mrs. Gaskell's daughters, who well knew Miss Brontë, have declared themselves fully satisfied as to the authenticity of the Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë and the faithfulness of the likeness. The testimony of Lady Ritchie, Thackeray's daughter, also supports this portrait. See my further references to my correspondence with her ladyship herewith. As regards the green dress, apart from the indisputable external evidence I referred to in the printed letter, I believe Charlotte Brontë speaks of it in Villette, though therein it is for obfuscation's sake (necessary indeed, since Villette was published only a short time after her London visit) made "pink" and "flounceless." In Chapter XXVIII. we find M. Paul saying—and it is interesting thus to have connected with the green dress a character whose prototype was M. Héger—that:

As I stated to Lady Ritchie in 1907, I believe that in Chapter XX. of Villette we undoubtedly have a real glimpse of incidents connected with the wearing of the green dress; and it should be remembered that Mrs. Bretton and Dr. John Graham Bretton in this chapter represent Mrs. Smith, and her son Mr. George Smith, the publisher, whose guest Charlotte Brontë was in 1850, when she first wore the green dress:—

But wear it she did; and when Graham [Mr. George Smith] stood in the doorway looking at her, she tells us her uneasy aspiration was:—

Clearly Charlotte Brontë wished posterity to learn how it came about she was garbed in "light fabric and bright tint," because the green dress was a page in her life's history. In a green dress she sat down to dine, as Mr. Thackeray's daughter, Lady Ritchie has written me she well remembers, when Charlotte Brontë dined at Thackeray's house on June 12, 1850—not the event of the distinguished party, when Carlyle, Miss Perry, Mrs. Procter, and others were present, though Lady Ritchie had once confounded the two in writing upon the subject[101]. Mr. Thackeray's daughter was a young girl at the time to which she referred, but she has made clear to me she saw Miss Brontë three times; that the chief occasion was when Charlotte Brontë wore the light green dress. This, to quote her ladyship's words to me, was "not Mrs. Brookfield's party, when neither my sister and I nor our governess dined—though we came down in the evening. The second occasion was just casually at my father's lecture-room, when she did not speak to me, and the third, finally, at the Brookfield evening party, which seems to have been such a solemn affair[102]."

These facts fix the wearing of the light green dress by Miss Brontë as June 12, 1850. Lady Ritchie tells me that "It was at an early family dinner by daylight with Charlotte Brontë, my father, Mr. George Smith, my sister and our governess, that I remember sitting next Miss Brontë at dinner and gazing at her sleeve and mittens. Her dress was of some texture like one I had had myself, which I suppose impressed it upon me, and it had a little moss or coral pattern in green on a white ground. I only remember the sleeve, the straight look, and the smooth Victorian bandeaux of hair. I am sure she was differently dressed at the Brookfield evening party."

On June 12, 1850, Charlotte Brontë wrote to her friend, Miss Nussey, from the Smiths' in London, saying:—

And this was when Miss Brontë sat in a light green dress at the Thackeray dinner-table.

The Richmond portrait of Charlotte Brontë being now also in the National Portrait Gallery, I may remark that Mrs. Gaskell herself says of this portrait:—"Those best acquainted with the original were least satisfied with the resemblance.... Mr. Brontë thought ... it looked good and lifelike." Charlotte Brontë herself said her father thought the portrait looked older than she. In view of the new interest now attaching to Tabitha Aykroyd and Charlotte, it is instructive to find the latter telling us Tabitha "maintains that it is not like," and also, that Tabitha thought it "too old looking." Then she apologized for the old servant in a sentence that pathetically recalls Mrs. Dean and Bessie of "Catherine's" and "Jane's" childhood—"Doubtless she confuses her recollections of me as I was in childhood, with present impressions."[104] We discover, therefore, that in the main there was really dissatisfaction at the "old looking" presentation, and we see Charlotte Brontë from the beginning must have wished she had had her hair arrangement in that portrait as was common to her at home and in her younger days. Hence do we get a further insight into the origin of the different pose in the more characteristic and intimately faithful Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë.

INDEX.