[57] See my footnote, page 120.

[58] It may be relative to this fact that "Lagrange's Manuscript" is not printed in the extant French edition of Miss Mary.

[59] Great stress is laid in this feuilleton by M. Sue upon the fact that the trouble of this teacher is her dissolute brother. See my footnote on p. 24.

[60] See my footnote, p. 37.

[61] Mrs. Gaskell dwelt much on Charlotte Brontë's plainness in her Life, published seven years after the above.

[62] Wuthering Heights with Agnes Grey had been accepted by Mr. Newby, its publisher, before Messrs. Smith, Elder & Co. saw the manuscript of Jane Eyre, but Jane Eyre was published first.

[63] This artifice of presenting more than one phase of a character in the same work is equivalent to that practised by the portrait-painter who uses mirror effects to reveal some feature of his subject not in the ordinary line of vision. It was as difficult for M. Sue to present a complete portrait of the successful, fêted Miss Brontë in poor Lagrange as it was for Charlotte Brontë to present a complete portrait of herself in the unhappy Lucy Snowe of Villette. So M. Sue also used the phase of Miss Mary, and Charlotte Brontë that of Paulina—just as she gave us M. Héger as Crimsworth and occasionally as M. Pelet of The Professor, and just as she gave us herself in Shirley as Caroline Helstone and again (in regard only to her relations with M. Héger) as Shirley Keeldar. Methods which were responsible for her first portraying herself as the elder Catherine of Wuthering Heights and then as the younger Catherine, in which work M. Héger was portrayed by her often as Heathcliffe and finally as Hareton Earnshaw. With Charlotte Brontë, however, her secondary adaptations as portrayals, perhaps on account of their improvization, frequently give evidence of being unprepared. Thus the childhood of Paulina of Villette is scarcely Charlotte Brontë's; and Hareton Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights, save for the lover and pupil phase, was never M. Héger.

[64] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë, Haworth Edition, p. 55. See my reference to Catherine teaching Hareton of Wuthering Heights, in the Preface.

[65] Instead of "Swiss" pastor's daughter, read Irish.

[66] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

[67] As Rochester calls Jane his beneficent spirit, it is interesting to read that M. de Morville says to his wife:—"Je crois aux bons génies, aux bons anges."

"Aux bons anges?"

"Miss Mary, par exemple."

"Eh bien, Louise?"

"N'est-ce pas un bon génie, un bon ange, une bonne magicienne, enfin? Ne m'a-t-elle pas jeté un sort?"

[68] See my reference to Charlotte's Preface to Wuthering Heights in the second chapter of "The Recoil."

[69] See my references to Charlotte Brontë's poem "Apostasy"; and to St. John Rivers as a phase of Charlotte's Brussels Fénelon.

[70] See M. Paul and Lucy Snowe (M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë) in the close of Chapter XXI. of Villette.

[71] Mrs. Humphry Ward in her "Introductions" to the Haworth Edition of the Brontë novels instanced this passage as showing Emily Brontë's extravagant love for the moors, inferring she preferred the heath to heaven. But Mrs. Ward in these same "Introductions" even argued that Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre were dissimilar in characterization and style. Catherine's reference herewith in Wuthering Heights, to a "subliminal" existence in a lover and to the notion that the absence or loss of such a love (and hence, limiting of the bounds of existence,) would make the universe a blank, having no sympathy or relation—a stranger, is at one with Charlotte Brontë's further words in her poem, "Frances":—

[72] Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle.

[73] Mentor's advice to Telemachus when tempted and miserable on the island of Calypso is that given by the spirit of Jane Eyre's mother—"Flee temptation!" "Virtue," argues Mentor, "now calls you back to your country ... and forbids you to give up your heart to an unworthy passion.... Fly, fly, ... for love is conquered only by flight ... in retreat without deliberation, and ... looking back." "Neither Calypso nor Eucharis cared to fascinate Mentor" (Shirley, Chapter XXVII.). Evidently M. Sue knew Charlotte Brontë had read this book at Brussels, for he makes play upon it in "Lagrange's Manuscript," wherein "Télémaque" is substituted for "Rasselas" in the equivalent scene in Jane Eyre.

[74] See chapter on the Yorkshire element in Charlotte Brontë's heroes.

[75] "Religion called——Angels beckoned!—--"

[76] See my reference to Catherine of Wuthering Heights and Caroline of Shirley, and their crying aloud when ill and delirious for "a way" to the absent lover, pp. 147-8.

[77] See the reproach of the dying Catherine to Heathcliffe I quote in the next chapter. See also Crimsworth's words in the beginning of Chapter XIX. of The Professor.

[78] See close of Chapter XXIV. of Jane Eyre.

[79] See my footnote on "the trodden way" on p. 136.

[80] See my reference to "the barriers" in "Apostasy."

[81] "I called myself your brother," says M. Paul to Lucy Snowe, the originals of whom were M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë. "... I know I think of you—I feel I wish you well—but I must check myself; you are to be feared. My best friends point out danger and whisper caution."—Villette, Chap. xxxvi.

[82] Mr. Angus Mackay, in The Brontës: Fact and Fiction, identifies Charlotte Brontë as the original of "Frances" of Charlotte's poem.

[83] Charlotte Brontë and Her Sisters, pp. 181-3.

[84] See pages 136 and 140.

[85] See my remarks on Mrs. Pryor in Appendix on Shirley.

[86] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

[87] See footnote on page 97.

[88] Sydney Dobell: Life and Letters; 1878.

[89] Of course Mr. Dobell did not know that by the terms of arrangement with Mr. Newby, the publisher of Wuthering Heights, it was virtually impossible for Charlotte Brontë, after the success of Jane Eyre, to admit her authorship of Wuthering Heights publicly. See my remarks hereon in Chapter I.

[90] For this see Leyland's The Brontë Family.

[91] See footnote, page 13.

[92] Charlotte Brontë and her Sisters, page 162.

[93] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

[94] The fact that towards the end great affection sprang up between the Rev. Patrick Brontë and his only surviving daughter cannot be too strongly emphasized. A most touching narration of him and the dying Currer Bell, related by Martha Brown, the Brontë servant, and herself the eye-witness, is given by Mr. William Scruton, in Thornton and The Brontës, page 133 (1898):—"When Charlotte heard her father coming upstairs to her, she would strain every nerve to give him a pleasing reception. On his entering the room she would greet him with, 'See, papa, I am looking a little better.'" Mr. Home was "papa" to Paulina. Compare the lightsome Paulina with the younger Catherine of Wuthering Heights; and Mrs. Home's death, Villette, chap, xxiv., with Mrs. Helstone's Shirley, chap. iv.

[95] The letters in The Times in the close of 1906, and in the early part of 1907, attacking the authenticity of the Héger portrait, were written by Mr. Shorter. My footnote in The Fortnightly ran:—"In attacking the water-colour portrait of Charlotte Brontë purchased by the Trustees of the National Portrait Gallery, the discovery of which, signed 'Paul Héger, 1850,' was inimical to Mr. Clement Shorter's contention that Charlotte Brontë had but distantly interested M. Héger, Mr. Shorter said, 'M. Héger certainly did not know even in 1850 that Miss Brontë, his old pupil, and Currer Bell were identical,' and with another asserted M. Héger and Charlotte Brontë never met after 1844. We shall see here, however, that M. Héger knew all Miss Brontë's literary secrets in 1850, and that they must have met after 1844, for M. Héger could have acquired these secrets only in most intimate conversation with Currer Bell herself: to none other would she have revealed them."

[96] In this connection it is of interest to read the remarks of one of the jealous de Morville women on this portrait of the Irish governess:—"Patience! ... qui vivra verra. Je garde ce portrait de mademoiselle miss Mary, ça me fera souvent penser à elle—ça m'empêchera de l'oublier. Je vais la clouer à quatre épingles sur le papier de ma chambre".... She threatens to stick pins in it.... "Oui, oui, la belle Anglais!" she afterwards exclaims; "ce n'est pas seulement ton portrait que je perce à coups d'épingle, c'est toi-même!" Which would suggest that a portrait of Charlotte Brontë could have remained at the Héger establishment but at risk of being destroyed. I may observe these mysterious references occur only in the 1851 volume; not in the 1850 feuilleton.

[97] See my footnote on p. 82.

[98] Mr. Greenwood Dyson, born in 1830 in the Fold opposite the White Lion Hotel, in the house now a blacksmith's shop. "I was married in 1850," he stated to me, "and was living about twenty yards from Haworth Church when Charlotte Brontë gave a black silk dress to my wife." The Rev. Patrick Brontë signed a testimonial saying he well knew Mr. Dyson as being reliable and trustworthy, as also did the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, Miss Brontë's husband. I have examined the document. An interesting glimpse of Charlotte Brontë I have not seen in any work is one of Mr. Dyson's reminiscences. He tells me that "there was a draw-well situated in the kitchen of the Rectory from which we boys used to draw water for domestic purposes." He added that often he drew water for Charlotte Brontë or others of the Brontë household before drawing for himself. "In one of the upper windows," he once wrote me, "a board had been placed instead of one of the panes of glass, in the centre of which was bored a hole in which Miss Brontë inserted a telescope to take observations." Perceiving in conversation with him the genuine pleasure the sight of the Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë gave Mr. Dyson, I later forwarded him a large photograph, taken direct from the original Héger drawing of Charlotte Brontë in the National Portrait Gallery. I print his reply to me written on March 2, 1907:—

    "Dear Sir,—I received the likeness of Charlotte Brontë (which you were kind enough to send me) this morning, for which I should like to express my appreciation. It really is a very nice portrait. I think it is very much like her. With sincerest thanks, I remain, very truly yours,

J. Malham-Dembleby, Esq.

(Signed)       G. DYSON."

[99] Through the courtesy of Professor Charles J. Holmes, the present Director of the National Portrait Gallery, I am able to print herewith the N.P.G. references to this portrait.

National Portrait Gallery Tablet on picture:—

Charlotte Brontë
(Mrs. Arthur Bell Nicholls).
1816-1855.
Novelist. Author of Jane Eyre and other works.
Painted in 1850 by "Paul Héger."
Purchased, July 1906.

(1444)

National Portrait Gallery Catalogue:—

    Painted in water-colours in 1850, and stated to be by "Paul" (or Constantin) Héger, after an earlier portrait by her brother Branwell Brontë.

National Portrait Gallery Illustrated Catalogue:—

    Water-colour drawing stated to be by "Paul" (or Constantin) Héger, after Branwell Brontë.

(1444)

I may add that the inverted commas used in regard to M. Héger's name are employed because "Paul" was not his common name. He was an active member of the Society of S. Vincent de Paul, and Charlotte Brontë portrayed him as M. Paul in her novel, Villette, commenced not later than the close of 1850 or the beginning of 1851.

[100] Italics mine.

[101] In Chapters from Some Memories, by Anne Thackeray Ritchie.

[102] By "Mrs. Brookfield's party" Lady Ritchie means the later distinguished party. In Mrs. Brookfield and her Circle, page 305, vol ii. (1905), a first dinner given by Mr. Thackeray for Charlotte Brontë in November 1849, is spoken of by Mrs. Brookfield as not having been a success; and the second great party at which some clever women were present, to meet Miss Brontë in 1851, is mentioned with the fact of the non-success of the 1849 party, on pages 355-6. All this now leaves clear the occasion of the 1850 private family dinner at Mr. Thackeray's house, when Charlotte Brontë sat next Lady Ritchie in a light green dress.

[103] Mrs. Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

[104] Ibid.

[105] The Roman numerals refer to the Preface.