[1] This chapter is reproduced from the Cornhill by the kind permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co.
Let me give here my mother's, and my own, account of the impressions made upon us by M. Heger's personal appearance at this time.
'He is very like one of those selected Roman Catholic Priests,' my mother told her Dutch relatives, 'who go into society and look after the eldest sons of Catholic noblemen. He has too good a nose for a Belgian and, I should say, he has Italian blood in him.'
My own report, to my brother, who made anxious inquiries of me, was less flattering perhaps, but it was not intended to be disrespectful. I always see M. Heger as I saw him then: as too interesting to be alarming; but too alarming to be lovable.
'He is rather like Punch,' I said, 'but better looking of course; and not so good-tempered.'
Let me justify these two descriptions by showing that both of them were based upon an accurate observation of the man himself.
M. Heger, as I remember him, was no longer what Charlotte called him, angrily, in her letter to Ellen Nussey, a little Black Being, and, affectionately, under the disguise of Paul Emanuel, 'a spare, alert man, showing the velvet blackness of a close-shorn head, and the sallow ivory of his brow beneath.' M. Heger in 1859 was still alert, but he was not spare, he was inclining towards stoutness. His hair was not velvet black, but grizzled, and he was bald on the crown of his head, in a way that might have been mistaken for a tonsure; and this no doubt added to the resemblance my mother saw in him to a Priest. He did not look in the least old, however. His brow, not sallow but bronzed, was unwrinkled; his eyes were still clear and penetrating (Charlotte said they were violet blue; and certainly she ought to have known. Still, do violet eyes penetrate one's soul like points of steel?) The Roman nose, that my mother thought too good a nose to be Belgian, and that reminded me of Punch (but a good-looking Punch) was a commanding feature. And the curved chin (also suggesting a good-looking Punch, to a young and irreverent observer), although it indicated humour, meant sarcasm, rather than a sense of fun. But Monsieur Heger had one really beautiful feature, that I remember often watching with extreme pleasure when he recited fine poetry or read noble prose:—his mouth, when uttering words that moved him, had a delightful smile, not in the least tender towards ordinary mortals, but almost tender in its homage to the excellence of writers of genius.
In brief, what M. Heger's face revealed when studied as the index of his natural qualities, was intellectual superiority, an imperious temper, a good deal of impatience against stupidity, and very little patience with his fellow-creatures generally; it revealed too a good deal of humour; and a very little kind-heartedness, to be weighed against any amount of irritability. It was a sort of face bound to interest one; but not, so it seems to me, to conquer affection. For with all these qualities of intellect, power, humour, and a little kind-heartedness, one quality was totally lacking: there was no love in M. Heger's face, nor in his character, as I recall it; and, oddly enough, looking back now to him as one of the personages in my own past to whom I owe most, and whose mind I most admire, I have to recognise that in my sentiment towards M. Heger to-day even, made up as it is half of admiration and half of amusement, there is not one particle of love.
I have said—in connection with my first impression, that 'undying hate' was the sentiment that M. Heger had conceived for me—that really 'it was not so bad as all that.' Still, what happened at this first interview, if it did not determine any deep-rooted antipathy to me, planted from this moment in M. Heger's breast, did indicate, to a certain extent, what the character of our future relationships was to be—out of lesson-hours. In these hours, our relationships of Professor and pupil were ideal. Seldom did an occasional misunderstanding trouble them. Certainly, in my own day, no other pupil entered with so much sympathetic admiration into the spirit of M. Heger's teaching as I did. He saw and felt this; and here I, too, was for him, and as a pupil, sympathetic. But in our personal relationships, there were certain things in me that were antipathetic to M. Heger, and that rubbed him so much the wrong way, that he was constantly (so it still seems to me) unjust to what were not faults, but idiosyncrasies, that belonged to my nationality and my character. First of all, there was my English accent: and here this singular remark has to be made: I never spoke such purely British French to any one as to M. Heger; and this was the result of my constant endeavour to be very careful to avoid the accent he disliked, when speaking to him. The second cause of offence in me was also due to my nationality, or rather to my upbringing. Like all English children of my generation, I had been brought up to esteem it undignified, and even a breach of good manners, to cry in public: and although I was tender-hearted and emotional, I was not in the least hysterical; and except under the stress of extreme distress, it cost me very little self-control not to weep, as my Belgian schoolfellows did, very often, at the smallest scolding; or even without a scolding, and simply because they were bored—'ennuyée.' I remember now my surprise, at first hearing the reply to my question to a sobbing schoolfellow: 'Pourquoi pleures-tu? 'Parce que je m'ennuie.' 'Why?' 'Mais je te le dis parce que je m'ennuie.' Well, but M. Heger liked his pupils to cry, when he said disagreeable things: or, in any case, he became gentle, and melted, when they wept, and was amiable at once. But when one did not weep, but appeared either unmoved, or indignant, he became more and more disagreeable: and, at length, exasperated. A third idiosyncrasy in me that he disliked was not national, but personal. It was due to a sort of incipient Rousseau-ism,—that must have been inborn, because I was never taught it, even in England. And yet there it was, implanted in me as a sentiment, long before I recognised it as an opinion or conviction, that I could express in words! This natural sentiment, or principle, was the belief that 'I was born free: that my soul was my own: and that there was no virtue, wisdom, nor happiness possible for me outside of the laws of my own constitution.' Unformulated, but inherent in me, this fundamental belief in myself as a law to myself, no doubt betrayed itself in a sort of independence of mind and manner very aggravating to my elders and betters, and to those put in authority over me. And especially aggravating to an authoritative Professor, who was, in all domains, opposed to individualism, and the doctrine of personal rights and liberty. Thus in literature M. Heger was a classic; in religion he was a dogmatic Catholic; in politics he was an anti-democrat, a lover of vigorous kings; and by constitution he was a king in his own right: a masterful man, not only a law to himself, but a lord, by virtue of his sense of superiority, to everyone else.
For these reasons, M. Heger and myself—on ideal terms as Professor and pupil—were on bad terms outside of lesson-hours. We could not quite dislike each other; but our relationships were stormy. There were, however, intervals of calm.
I have said that with a good deal of admiration, gratitude, and some amusement, there is no love for M. Heger intermingled with my remembrances of him.
There is, on the contrary, a good deal of love in the sentiment I retain for Madame Heger,—although, as a matter of fact, in the days when I was her pupil I never remember any strong or warm feeling of personal affection for her; nor have I any distinct personal obligation to her, as to one who, like M. Heger, rendered me direct services by her instructions or counsels. Nor yet again had Madame Heger any strong personal liking for me; nor did she show me any special kindness. But her kindness was of an all-embracing character. And so was her liking for, or rather love of, all the inhabitants of the little world she governed: a world that extended beyond the boundaries of the actual walls of the Pensionnat, in any stated year; a world, made up of all the girls who, before that year, and afterwards, through several generations, had been and ever would be, her 'dear pupils'; 'mes chères élèves';—terms that, uttered by her, were no mere formula, but expressed a true sentiment, and a serious and, so it seems to me, a beautiful and sweet idealism. This idealism in Madame Heger, this constant love and care and watchfulness for the community of girls, who, passing out of her hands, were to go out into the world by and by, to fulfil there what Madame Heger saw to be the kind and sweet and tranquil, and sometimes self-sacrificing and sorrowful, mission of womanhood, enveloped the ideal school-mistress with a sort of unfailing benevolence, that became a pervading influence in the Pensionnat, singling out no particular pupils, and withdrawn from none of them.
Here, it seems to me, and not at all in the reasons imagined by Charlotte in the case of Madame Beck, we have the secret of Madame Heger's system of government. I really am not, at this distance of time, able to say positively whether there was, or was not, a surveillance that might be called a system of espionage carried on, keeping the head-mistress informed of the conversation and behaviour of this large number of girls, amongst whom one or two black sheep might have sufficed to contaminate the flock. I was not a faultless, nor a model girl by any means: but I was a simple sort of young creature with nothing of the black sheep in me; and I never remember in my own case having my desk explored, nor my pockets turned inside out. But if even this had been done, it would not have gravely affected me; because neither in my pockets nor in my desk, would anything have been found of a mysterious or interesting character. But I should think it very probable that, in this very large school, a watchful surveillance was kept up; and that if any of these schoolgirls, most of them under sixteen, had attempted, after their return from the monthly holiday, to bring back to school illegal stores of sweets, or a naughty story book, and had concealed such things in their school desks, well, I admit, I think it possible, that the sweets or naughty book might have been missing from the desk next day. And also that, in the course of the afternoon, a not entirely welcome invitation would have been received by the imprudent smuggler of forbidden goods to pay Madame Heger a visit in the Salon? These things took place occasionally I know: and naturally, amongst the girls public sympathy was with the smuggler. But I am not sure, if one takes the point of view of a Directress, if a large girls' school could be carried on successfully, were it made a point of honour that there should be no surveillance, and that pupils might use their lockers as cupboards for sweets, or as hiding-places for light literature.
But, apart from the fact that Madame Heger was, no doubt, both watchful and uncompromising in her surveillance, based upon a firm resolution that nothing 'inconvenient' must be smuggled in, or hidden out of sight, as a source of mischief in the school, there was in her no resemblance to the odious Madame Beck; that is to say, no moral resemblance. In physical appearance, the author of Villette did use Madame Heger evidently as the model for the picture of an entirely different moral person. 'Her complexion was fresh and sanguine, her eye blue and serene. Her face offered contrasts—its features were by no means such as are usually seen in conjunction with a complexion of such blended freshness and repose; their outline was stern; her forehead was high, but narrow; it expressed capacity and some benevolence, but no expanse.... I know not what of harmony pervaded her whole person.'[1]
Taking this portrait from Villette, as it is given of Madame Beck, and comparing it with my own recollections, and also with the photograph I am fortunate enough to possess of Madame Heger at the age of sixty, it seems to me that this is a very accurate physical description of the real Directress of the school in the Rue d'Isabelle; who morally was as unlike the fictitious Madame Beck as truth is unlike falsehood. About the physical resemblance, I may say that, if I had trusted to my own impressions, I should have rejected the assertion that the 'outline of her features was stern.' I never remember associating sternness with Madame Heger; though her supreme quality of serenity imposed a sort of respect that had a little touch of fear in it. Upon re-examining the photograph attentively, however, I find that it is true that the outline of the features is stern; but I do not think that this impression was conveyed by the younger face, remembered with softened colouring; and lit up, as a characteristic expression, by a normal expression of serenity and of kindliness. 'I know not what of harmony pervaded her whole person': that sentence of Charlotte's (used by her of the unspeakable Madame Beck) exactly expresses the impression I still retain of the very estimable and, by myself, affectionately remembered, Madame Heger.
In the same way, as I have said, the apprehensions as to my future companions in this foreign school, that would infallibly have been awakened in me if I had read, before meeting them, the account given by the author of Villette of Belgian schoolgirls, as differing, not only in nationality, but in human nature, from English schoolgirls, would have been groundless. When I call up around me to-day the recollections of my Bruxelles schoolfellows, amongst whom I was the only English girl and the only Protestant, there does not come back to me any painful remembrance that I ever felt myself an alien amongst them. On the contrary, I remember privileges granted me as 'la petite Anglaise,' who was further away than others from home, and must be treated with special kindness. I see around me in this large company of girls, no 'perverted' nor precociously formed young women, whose 'eyes are full of an insolent light, and their brows hard and unblushing as marble.' In brief, I see no 'swinish multitude'—such as insular prejudice, and a disturbed imagination, showed Charlotte; but I see very much the same mixed crowd of youthful faces, fair and dark, pretty and plain, smiling and serious, stupid and intelligent, coarse and fine, sympathetic and unlikeable, that one would get in such a large collection of English schoolgirls; but in all this crowd of my Belgian schoolfellows just what my memory does not show me anywhere, are the 'eyes full of an insolent light, and the brow hard and unblushing as marble,'[2]—that are not characteristics of the schoolgirl in any nation or country I have ever known; and I have been a traveller in my time, and enjoyed opportunities of observing different national peculiarities, that never fell in the way of Charlotte, who spent two years in Bruxelles; but lived the rest of her life in Yorkshire.
As for the hundred (or more perhaps than a hundred) schoolgirls that made up in my day the little world ruled by Madame Heger as the administrator of a system based on the authority of Douceur, Bonté, and les Convenances (in the sense of what was seemly, and opposed to violence and ugliness), amongst them were many girls whom I only knew by name and sight; many of whom I knew slightly better, and whom I rather liked than disliked; a few whom I disliked heartily (very few of these)—and a few whom I loved dearly (very few again)—but amongst these friends, chosen because their hearts were in tune with my own, the difference of nationality and creed did not stand in the way of mutual affection. In some cases, it is true, life, with its exacting claims of duties and occupations and cares, rushed in to divide me afterwards from these companions of my best years; when everything that I am glad, and not sorry, to have been, and to have done, in a long life, was prepared and made possible for me—but at least one of these friendships formed with a Belgian schoolgirl in those days, I may describe as a life-long friendship: because it remains an unaltered sentiment that lives in me to-day, unquenched by the fact that, only a few years ago—after half a century had passed since we met—my girl friend that had been then, a white-haired woman now, died; in the same year, as it strangely happened, that our old school (transformed into a boys' college during the last twenty years of its existence), that had stood in the Rue d'Isabelle until 1909, was swept away, with its beautiful old walled garden and time-honoured pear-trees, that to the end of their lives 'renewed their perfumed snowy blossom every spring.'
I am told a handsome building now replaces the long, plain straggling façade of the historic school—but I have no wish to see it.
[1] Villette, chapter viii.
[2] See Villette, chapter viii.
I had been an inmate of the school in the Rue d'Isabelle a fortnight. In this interval I had lived through a great deal. Thanks to attentive self-doctoring and a strict régime, where no luxuries in the way of private crying were allowed, I had pulled myself through the first acute stage of the sort of sickness that attacks every 'new' girl, as the result of being plunged into the cold atmosphere of a strange, and especially of a foreign, school. Now I was out of danger of the peril that had threatened me during about a week, the possible disaster of some sudden access of violent weeping over my sense of desolation, in the sight of these foreign teachers and pupils, that would have seemed to me profoundly humiliating, on patriotic, as well as upon private grounds. For, as the one English girl in this Belgian school, was not the honour of my country, or, at any rate, of the girls of my country, at stake? And then I realised, also, that politeness to the foreigner, as well as duty to myself and my country, forbade any exhibition of vehement home-sickness. Thus, might not these Belgian teachers and girls reasonably take offence, and say, 'Why do you come to school in our country if you don't like it? We didn't ask you to come here. Why don't you go home?'
By these methods, then, of what it pleased me to regard as a sort of philosophy of my own, I had lived through the worst, and if I was not entirely cured of occasional inward sinkings of the heart and the feeling of desolation, I felt I had mastered the temptation to make any public display of them. And having reached this point by my own effort, now help came to me in the shape of a friendly tribute and encouragement from a girl who was a sort of philosopher, also by a rule of her own, which she kindly explained to me, and which I entirely approved of. This girl was fair and small, and had broad brows and clear green eyes under them. Her name was Marie Hazard. She had not spoken to me before, but on several occasions had shown me little kindnesses, and given me nice smiles and nods of greeting. Finally she came up to me in the garden and took my arm:—
'Do you know why I have a friendship for you?' she asked.
'No,' I answered. 'But have you really? I am so glad.'
'Yes,' she proceeded to explain; 'I like you, because you are reasonable, and don't sit down and cry, as, of course, you could if you liked. I have as much heart as another; but it irritates me, and does not touch me one bit, to see some of the pupils here, the big ones too, crying and crying, and why? because they have come back to school, and would rather be at home! Evidently that is the case with all of us. And evidently, what is more, it's going to be the case for ten months. But for some insignificant holidays at the New Year, from now until August, thus it will be with us. We shall be all of us in this school, and we would all of us prefer to be in our homes. But why cry, then? or if one begins to cry, why leave off? Is one, then, to cry for ten months? And what eyes will one have at the end? And what good is it?'
I laughed, not only because she seemed to me to put it humorously, but because I was full of happiness that I had found a friend.
'Yes,' she said, 'you laugh, and that is well, too. It's the thing to do. Now, if you cried there might be an excuse; you are farther away from your people than we are. But you ask yourself, What is the good? And you say to yourself, No, I won't discourage the others. And that is English. And that is why I like the English; they are at least reasonable.'
This was balm to me. The sense of desolation had vanished. Here was the proof that I had been a good witness, and served to uphold the good name of England, and also that I had conquered a friend.
I think it was the same afternoon, because there were Catechism classes, from which, as a Protestant, I was exempted, that I was sent out into the garden, for the first time, at an hour when no other pupils were there. Later on this privilege was very often accorded me, for the same reason; so that, in my own day at any rate, no one else in the school had the opportunity I had given me, and that I used, of taking possession of the enchanted place and making it my very own. And this was so because there was no knowledge in my mind at the time that Some One had been beforehand with me here; and that although for my inner self it became (and must always be for me exclusively) my own beautiful, well-enclosed, flower-scented, turf-carpeted, Eden where the spirit of my youth had its home before any worldly influences, or any knowledge of evil, had come between it and the poetry of its aspirations and its dreams, yet for every one but myself, it is Charlotte Brontë's Garden of Imagination, where she used to 'stray down the pleasant alleys and hear the bells of St. Jean Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound.[1]
And although no angel with a flaming sword—no, nor yet any Belgian architects and masons, who have broken down the walls and uprooted the old trees, and made the old historical garden in the Rue d'Isabelle a place of stones—can drive me out of my garden of memories where still (and more often than before as the day darkens) I walk 'in the cool of the evening' with the spirit of my youth; yet, for English readers, it is not I, but Charlotte Brontë who must describe, what I could never dare nor desire to paint after her, the famous Allée défendue that holds such a romantic place in her novel of Lucy Snowe, and that was also the scene of my second meeting with M. Heger.
'In the garden there was a large berceau,' wrote the author of Villette, 'above which spread the shade of an acacia; there was a smaller, more sequestered bower, nestled in the vines which ran along a high and grey wall and gathered their tendrils in a knot of beauty; and hung their clusters in loving profusion about the favoured spot, where jasmine and ivy met and married them ... this alley, which ran parallel with the very high wall on that side of the garden, was forbidden to be entered by the pupils; it was called indeed l'Allée défendue.'
In my day there was no prohibition of the Allée défendue, although the name survived. It was only forbidden to play noisy or disturbing games there; as it was to be reserved for studious pupils, or for the mistresses who wished to read or converse there in quietude.
If I had a lesson to learn, it was to the Allée défendue that I took my book; and in this allée I had already discovered and appropriated a sheltered nook, at the furthest end of the berceau, where one was nearly hidden oneself in the vine's curtain, but had a delightful view of the garden. Before reaching this low bench, I had noticed, when entering the berceau, that a ladder stood in the centre; and that, out of view in so far as his head went, a man, in his shirt sleeves, was clipping and thinning the vines. I took it for granted he was a gardener, and paid no attention to him; but, in a quite happy frame of mind, sat down to learn some poetry by heart. My impression is that it was Lamartine's Chûte des Feuilles. Shutting my eyes, whilst repeating the verses out aloud (a trick I had), I opened them, to see M. Heger. He it was who had been thinning the vine; it was a favourite occupation of his (had I read Villette I should have known it).[2] Once again he took me by surprise, and I was full of anxiety as to what might come of it. Since I entered the school I had, indeed, caught distant views of him, hurrying through the class-rooms to or from his lessons in the First and Second divisions. But until my French had improved I was placed in the Third division, where M. Heger only taught occasionally, so that I had not yet received any lesson from him.
It was a relief to see that he looked amiable, and even friendly; if only I didn't lose my head and say the wrong thing again! One thing I kept steadily in view; nothing must induce me to forget my brother's advice this time; there must be no attempt at fine phrases, this time nothing that could possibly appear like showing off.... But all my anxieties upon this occasion were dispelled by the purpose of my Professor's disturbance of my studies. He invited me to assist him in washing a very stout but very affectionate white dog, to whom I was told I owed this service as he was a compatriot of mine, an English dog, with an English name: a very inappropriate one, for he was sweet-tempered and white, and the name was Pepper. For this operation of washing Pepper, I was invited upstairs into M. Heger's library, which was, in this beautifully clean and orderly house, a model of disorder; clouded as to air, and soaked as to scent, with the smoke of living and the accumulated ashes of dead cigars. But the shelves laden from floor to ceiling with books made a delightful spectacle.
Upon the occasion of this first visit to his library, M. Heger made me the present of a book that marked a new epoch in my life, because, before I was fifteen, it put before me in a vivid and amusing way the problem of personality, Le Voyage autour de ma Chambre of Xavier de Maistre, was my introduction to thoughts and speculations that led me to a later interest in Oriental philosophy, and especially in Buddhism. I must not forget another present in the form of one more of those luminous little sentences that, as I have said, he used as Lanterns, turning them to send light in different directions. I had confided to him, not my own methods of philosophy—I did not dare incur the risk—but my newly found friend's methods of helping herself to be 'reasonable.' M. Heger showed no enthusiasm, nor even approval: and I found out that he had a strong dislike to my elected friend. Personally he would have preferred and recommended Religious methods of prayer, and docile submission to spiritual direction, to any philosophy, especially in the case of women. But he quoted to me and wrote down for me, and exhorted me to learn by heart and repeat aloud (as I actually did), a definition of the philosophy of life of an Eighteenth-century Woman, as 'Une façon de tirer parti de sa raison pour son bonheur.' I discovered this sentence a great many years afterwards in a book of the de Goncourts. But M. Heger first gave it to me in my girlhood.
Although it was, of course, as Professor of Literature that M. Heger excelled, he was in other domains—in every domain he entered—an original and an effective teacher. Let me give the history of a famous Lesson in Arithmetic by M. Heger that took place, I am not quite sure why, in the large central hall, or Galerie as it was called, that flanked the square, enclosing the court or playground of daily boarders, whilst the Galerie divided the court from the garden. For some special reason, all the classes attended this particular lesson; where the subject was the Different effects upon value, of multiplication and division in the several cases of fractions and integers. Madame Heger and the Mesdemoiselles Heger, and all the governesses were there. I had been promoted into the first class (passing the second class over altogether) before this, so that I was a regular pupil of M. Heger's in literature, and certainly in this class, a favourite. But I was a complete dunce at arithmetic, and it was a settled conviction in my mind that my stupidity was written against me in the book of destiny; and I admit that, as it did not seem of any use for me to try to do anything in this field, I had given up trying, and when arithmetic lessons were being given I employed my thoughts elsewhere. But a lesson from M. Heger was another thing; even a lesson in arithmetic by him might be worth while. So that I really did, with all the power of brain that was in me, try to apply myself to the understanding of his lesson. But it was of no use; after about five minutes, the usual arithmetic brain-symptoms began; words ceased to mean anything at all intelligible. It was really a sort of madness; and therefore in self-defence I left the thing alone and looked out of the window, whilst the lesson lasted. It never entered my head that I was in any danger of being questioned: no one ever took any notice of me at the arithmetic lessons. It was recognised that, here, I was no good; and as I was good elsewhere, they left me alone. Yes, but M. Heger wasn't going to leave me alone. Evidently he had taken a great deal of trouble, and wanted the lesson to be a success. And it had not succeeded. He was dissatisfied with all the answers he received. He ran about on the estrade getting angrier and angrier. And then at last, to my horror, he called upon me; and what cut me to the soul, I saw that there was a look of confidence in his face, as if to say 'Here is some one who will have understood!'
... Well of course the thing was hopeless. I had a sort of mad notion that a miracle might happen, and that Providence might interfere, and that if by accident I repeated some words I had heard him say there might be some sense in them—but, as Matthew Arnold said, miracles don't happen. It was deplorable. I saw him turn to Madame Heger with a shrug of the shoulders: and that he must have said of the whole English race abominable things, and of this English girl in particular, may be taken for granted; because Madame Heger hardly ever spoke a word when he was angry. But now she said something soothing about the English nation, and in my praise. Well, my case being settled, M. Heger began: and he did not leave off until the whole Galerie was a house of mourning. In the whole place, the only dry eyes were mine, and here I had to exercise no self-control; for although at first I had been sorry for him, now I was really so angry with him for attacking these harmless girls, and attributing to them abominable heartlessness, although the place rang with their sobs, that I don't think I should have minded a slight attack of apoplexy—only I shouldn't have liked him to have died.
It was really a bewildering and almost maddening thing, because on both sides it was so absurd. First of all, what had all these weeping girls done to deserve the reproaches the Professor heaped upon them? 'They said to themselves,' he told them: '"What does this old Papa-Heger matter? Let him sit up at night, let him get up early, let him spend all his days in thinking how he can serve us, make difficulties light, and dark things clear to us. We are not going to take any trouble on our side, not we! why should we? Indeed, it amuses us to see him navré—for us, it is a good farce."'
The wail rose up—'Mais non, Monsieur, ce n'est pas vrai, cela ne nous amuse pas; nous sommes tristes, nous pleurons, voyez.'
The Professor took no heed; he continued. 'They said to themselves "Ah! the old man, le pauvre vieux, takes an interest in us, he loves us; it pleases him to think when he is dead, and has disappeared, these little pupils whom he has tried to render intelligent, and well instructed, and adorned with gifts of the mind, will think of his lessons, and wish they had been more attentive. Foolish old thing! not at all," they say, "as if we had any care for him or his lessons."'
The wail rose up—'Ce n'est pas gentil ce que vous dites là, Monsieur: nous avons beaucoup de respect pour vous, nous aimons vos leçons; oui, nous travaillerons bien, vous allez voir, pardonnez-nous.'
'Frankly, now, does that touch you?' I heard behind me. 'It is not reasonable! I find it even stupid (je le trouve même bête).' Marie Hazard, of course. I made a mistake when I said my eyes were the only dry ones. Here was my philosopher-friend, amongst the pupils in the Galerie, and her eyes were quite as dry as mine.
But the story of the Lesson in Arithmetic does not finish here; and nothing would be more ungrateful were I to hide the ending: by which I was the person to benefit most. To my alarm, in the recreation hour next day, M. Heger came up to me, still with a frowning brow and a strong look of dislike, and told me he wished to prove to himself whether I was negligent or incapable. Because if I was incapable, it was idle to waste time on me—so much the worse for my poor mother, who deceived herself! On the other hand, if I was negligent, it was high time I should correct myself. This was what had to be seen. I followed him up to his library, not joyously like the willing assistant in the washing of Pepper, but like a trembling criminal led to execution. I felt he was going again over 'fractions' and the 'integers.' I knew I shouldn't understand them; and that he wouldn't understand that I was 'incapable,' that when arithmetic began my brain was sure to go!
The funny and pleasant thing about M. Heger was that he was so fond of teaching, and so truly in his element when he began it, that his temper became sweet at once; and I loved his face when it got the look upon it that came in lesson-hours: so that, whereas we were hating each other when we crossed the threshold of the door, we liked each other very much when we sat down to the table; and I had an excited feeling that he was going to make me understand. It took him rather less than a quarter of an hour.
On the table before us he had a bag of macaroon biscuits, and half a Brioche cake. He presented me with a macaroon. There you have one whole macaroon (intègre): well, but let us be generous. Suppose I multiply my gift, by eight: now you have eight whole macaroons and are eight times richer, hein? But that's too many; eight whole macaroons! I divide them between you and me. As the result, you have half the eight. But now for our half-Brioche; we have one piece only: and we are two people, so we multiply the pieces. But each is smaller, the more pieces, the smaller slice of cake; here are eight pieces; they are really too small for anything, we will divide this collection of pieces into two parts. Now does not this division make you better off, hein? Then he folded his arms across his chest in a Napoleonic attitude, and nodding his head at me, asked, 'Que c'est difficile,—n'est-ce pas?'
Of course in this, and indeed in all his personal and special methods, M. Heger followed Rousseau faithfully. But, then, where is the modern educationalist since 1762 who does not found himself upon Rousseau?
It was not, however, in rescuing one from the slough of despond, where natural defects would have left one without his aid, that M. Heger excelled—it was rather in calling out one's best faculties; in stimulating one's natural gifts; in lifting one above satisfaction with mediocrity; in fastening one's attention on models of perfection; in inspiring one with a sense of reverence and love for them, that M. Heger's peculiar talent lay.
I may attempt only to sum up a few maxims of his, that have constantly lived in my own mind: but I feel painfully my inability to convey the impression they produced when given by this incomparable Professor; whose power belonged to his personality; and was consequently a power that cannot be reproduced, nor continued by any disciple. The Teacher of genius is born and not made.
The first of these maxims was that, before entering upon the study of any noble or high order of thoughts, one had to follow the methods symbolised by the Eastern practice of leaving one's shoes outside of the Mosque doors. There were any number of ways of 'putting off the shoes' of vulgarity, suggested to one's choice by M. Heger: the reading of some beautiful passage in a favourite book; the repetition of a familiar verse: attention to some very beautiful object: the deliberate recollection of some heroic action, etc. With different temperaments different plans might be followed:—what was necessary was that one did not enter the sacred place without some deliberate renunciation of vulgarity and earthliness: by some mental act, or process, one must have 'put off one's shoes.' There is here a strange circumstance that I was too young to feel the true importance of at the time, but that I have often wondered over since then. There can be no doubt of M. Heger's rigid orthodoxy as a Catholic. Yet whilst the recitation of the Rosary inaugurated the daily lessons, M, Heger had a special invocation[3] of 'the Spirits of Wisdom, Truth, Justice, and Equanimity,' that was recited by some chosen pupil; who had to come out of her place in class and stand near him; and who was not allowed by him to gabble. And this was the invariable introduction to his lesson. I can't feel it was an orthodox proceeding: There was not a Saint's name anywhere! But I feel the infallible impression it produced upon me now. One effect, in the sense of 'putting off one's shoes,' that it had for myself was that the Professor of Literature appeared to me without any of the dislikable qualities of the everyday M. Heger.
Another maxim of M. Heger's was certainly borrowed from Voltaire: That one must give one's soul as many forms as possible. Il faut donner à son âme toutes les formes possibles. Again, that every sort of literature and literary style has its merits, except the literature that is not literary and the style that is bad: here again, one has, of course, Voltaire's well-known phrases: J'admets tous les genres, hors le genre ennuyeux.'
A third maxim was that one must never employ, nor tolerate the employment of, a literary image as an argument. The purpose of a literary image is to illuminate as a vision, and to interpret as a parable. An image that does not serve both these purposes is a fault in style.
A fourth maxim is that one must never neglect the warning one's ear gives one of a fault in style; and never trust one's ear exclusively about the merits of a literary style.
A fifth rule:—One must not fight with a difficult sentence; but take it for a walk with one; or sleep with the thought of it present in one's mind; and let the difficulty arrange itself whilst one looks on.
A sixth rule:—One must not read, before sitting down to write, a great stylist with a marked manner of his own; unless this manner happens to resemble one's own.
Now I shall be told that these rules and maxims, whether true or false, are 'known to nearly every one,' and are of assistance to no one; because people who can write do not obey rules: and people who can't write are not taught to do so by rules. If this were literally true then there would be no room in the world for a Professor of Literature. My own opinion is that there are very few good writers who do not obey rules; and that these rules are, if contracted in youth, of great use as a discipline that saves original writers from the defect of their quality of originality, in a proneness to mannerisms and whims.
In connection with the possible complaint that I am putting forward as M. Heger's maxims, sentences that were not originally invented nor uttered by him, my reply is that I do not affirm that he invented his own maxims, but simply that he chose them from an enormous store he had collected by study and fine taste and by a sound critical judgment, the result of an extensive acquaintanceship with the best that has been said and thought in the world by philosophers, poets, and literary artists and connoisseurs. In his character of a Professor of literature I find it hard to imagine that any gift of original thought, or personal power of expressing his own thoughts, could have placed M. Heger's pupils under the same obligations as did his knowledge of beautiful ideas, beautifully expressed, gathered from north, south, east and west, in classical, mediæval and modern times. To be given these precious and luminous thoughts in one's youth, when they have a special power to 'rouse, incite and gladden one,' is a supreme boon:—and in my own case my gratitude to M. Heger has never been in the least disturbed by the discovery that he was not the inventor of the maxims that have constantly been a light to my feet and a lantern to my path during the half-century that has elapsed since I received them from him in the historical Pensionnat, that stood for many years, after Monsieur Heger himself had vanished out of life, but that stands no longer in the Rue d'Isabelle.
[1] From Mlle. Louise Heger I have this note: 'Les cloches de St. Jacques et non pas St. Jean Baptiste, église qui se trouve à l'autre côté de la ville près du canal: quartier du Père Silas dans "Villette."'
[2] Villette, chapter xii.
[3]
Esprit de Sagesse, conduisez-nous:
Esprit de Vérité, enseignez-nous:
Esprit de Charité, vivifiez-nous:
Esprit de Prudence, préservez-nous:
Esprit de Force, défendez-nous:
Esprit de Justice, éclairez-nous:
Esprit Consolateur, apaisez-nous.
Here is the invocation, sent me by Mlle. Heger; who has, with extreme kindness, endeavoured to recover it for me.
In connection with the particular Belgian schoolgirls whom I knew, who still, in 1860, learnt their lessons in the class-rooms where Charlotte Brontë once taught, and who were still taught by M. Heger, and still surrounded with the benign and serene influences of Madame Heger, let me prove that these schoolgirls had not the characteristics of the Lesbassecouriennes; and that Charlotte Brontë displayed insular prejudice, as well as an imagination coloured by the distress of an unhappy passion, when she said of them, 'The Continental female is quite a different being to the insular female of the same age and class.'[1]
Inasmuch as the story I have to tell is the story of a Bonnet, it will be recognised as one that is calculated to display the qualities and intimate and essential peculiarities of the 'Continental female' (under sixteen) in a light, and under the stress and strain of passions and interests, too serious to permit of any tampering with, or disguise of, nature. One has to realise, also, that the question is not merely of a bonnet, but of a Best Bonnet, a Sunday Bonnet. For, in the remote days of which I am now writing modern young people should realise even schoolgirls of ten or twelve wore bonnets on Sunday, and even upon week-days, when they went beyond the borders of their garden: a hat was thought indecorous on the head of any girl in her 'teens—a form of undress rather than of dress. To wear a hat was like wearing a pinafore—a confession that one had not forgotten the nursery. To save one's best Sunday Bonnet, in the garden, one might go about in a hat, and in the bosom of one's family wear a pinafore to save a new dress; but in the same way that one did not go into the drawing-room with a pinafore on, one did not, in those days, pay visits in a hat: and to go to church in one would have been thought irreverent. So that a Sunday Bonnet meant that childish ways were done with, and that one had attained the age of reason. Like a barrister's wig it imposed seriousness on the wearer, who had to live up to it. Madame Heger, when establishing the rules for the uniform that was worn by all the pupils of the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, paid great attention to the Sunday Bonnet. Following the sense she lent to the law of her system of government, the love of dress was not to be allowed amongst her pupils to become an encouragement to vanity and rivalship, and hence one uniform, for rich and poor alike, avoided any chance of vain, unkind, and envious feelings; but at the same time the love of dress was not to be discouraged altogether; because it was serviceable to taste, and the care for appearance, without which a young person remains deficient in femininity. Therefore although every boarder wore the same uniform, what this uniform was to be was made quite an important question: and the girls were invited to choose a committee to decide it, in consultation with their head-mistress. And to this consultation Madame Heger brought a large spirit of indulgence, especially where the Sunday Bonnet was concerned. The Sunday Dress had to be black silk—about the façon there might be discussion, but not about the colour or material. On the other hand, about the Bonnet, everything was left an open question. It might be fashionable: it might be becoming: and even serviceableness was not made a too stringent obligation. Indeed in the first year of my school career the Sunday Bonnet selected for the summer months was the reverse of serviceable. It was white chip; it was decorated with pink rosebuds, where blonde and tulle mingled with the rosebuds; it had broad white ribands edged with black velvet—in short, a very charming Bonnet: but sown with perils. Everything about it could get easily soiled; and nothing about it would stand exposure to rain.
Madame Heger, recognising these material inconveniences, had nevertheless seen that, on the educational side, there were compensating advantages—the cultivation of neatness and order. She had not then discouraged the white chip, rosebuds and the rest; at the same time, she had stated the case for a yellow straw, with a plaid-ribbon that would not easily soil.
'On the one hand,' she had said, 'you may, with merely simple precautions, carry your Bonnet through the summer to the big holidays, without anxiety. On the other hand, no doubt there will be anxiety: the white chip is extremely pretty, but do not forget that it will require almost incessant care. Never must this Bonnet be put on one side without a clean white handkerchief to cover it. Not only so, one storm, if you have no umbrella, will suffice; everything will need renewal. And I warn you, my children, that if this misfortune arrive, it is not I, but you, who will have to ask your good mammas for another Bonnet. I ask from your parents a chapeau d'uniforme, and one only, each term: no more. So now decide as you please.'
The decision had been for the white chip, arrive what may. My own point of view, whilst the subject was being discussed around me, was that nothing could interest me less. Fancy troubling one's head about a Bonnet! I did not say it, because I had no wish to make myself unpopular, but the interest in the affair appeared to me puerile. Happily these trifling matters had no importance for me; it did not matter to me at all what sort of chapeau d'uniforme they chose.
How wrong I was! It mattered to me more than to any one else in the whole school, because no one wore their chapeau d'uniforme so much, and no one took the poor thing out so frequently into storm and rain. All the other boarders attended early mass on Sunday mornings in a convent chapel, within five minutes' walk of the school. The other occasions when they wore the fragile white chip chapeau were safe occasions, when, if it rained, they took shelter in their own homes on the monthly holidays, or were sent back to school in a fiacre. My case was different. Every Sunday morning, in accordance with the arrangement made by my mother, my brother called at the Rue d'Isabelle to take me to the English Church, which in those days was a sort of hall, known as the 'Temple Anglican,' situated in a passage near the Bruxelles Museum. The service was generally over by noon; but it was too late for me to return to school in time for the déjeuner at mid-day, and this authorised the custom of my taking lunch with my brother and enjoying a short walk afterwards; so that I was taken back by him to the Rue d'Isabelle before four o'clock. Now it will be easily understood that this agreeable arrangement had temptations: and that sometimes, on very fine days, there would occur forgetfulness of the 'Temple Anglican' altogether; and the whole of these four or five hours would be spent in our favourite haunt, the Bois de la Cambre, where we would picnic, on cakes and fruit, when there was pocket-money enough, or on two halfpenny 'pistolets,' when, as often happened, ten centimes, that ought to have gone into the plate at the Temple, was all we had. And whether the lunch was of cakes, or of dry bread, it did not alter the fact that we talked of home incessantly; and were supremely happy. Yes; but no doubt our conduct was reprehensible, and did not deserve the favour of Heaven. And my recollection is that almost invariably these picnics in the Bois de la Cambre, to which an exceptionally fine day had tempted us, ended in a downpour of rain. And how it rains at Brussels, when it does rain! So now, think of the state of the white chip Bonnet, and of the bunch of rosebuds, interwoven with blonde, and of the white silk ribbon edged with black velvet, that I took back with me to the Rue d'Isabelle.
And it is here where the beautiful nature of Belgian schoolgirls, or of these particular Belgian schoolgirls who were my companions and contemporaries, stands revealed. For upon one particular Sunday, having hastily and silently fled to the dormitory upon my return, and being discovered there, in dismayed contemplation of the lamentable saturated mixture of mashed up tinted pulp and wires, that had once been rosebuds and blonde, my depths of despondency moved these sympathetic young hearts to compassion. As it was Sunday afternoon, one was allowed to loiter over getting ready for dinner; a circle of consolers gathered round me, and from it, forth stepped two rival aspirants to the honour of sacrificing themselves on the altar of friendship. The first said: 'Now nothing is more simple: we shall wrap up this unhappy rag in my handkerchief as you see;—You shall have my chapeau d'uniforme, and I shall tell Maman everything—she interests herself in you; for when she was young, she was at school in England. She will send me another chapeau d'uniforme, and all is said.'
The other girl, whose name was Henriette—I forget her surname—said, 'My plan is easier: for here is an accident,—as though it were done on purpose. Now what do you say: I have two chapeaux d'uniforme, if you please! The first my mother sent me as a model to show Madame Heger, and from this model she chose it. But now Madame had ordered mine with the others: and when I told my mother, she said, 'Say nothing: an accident may happen, the Bonnet will not support rain, you will have this one at hand if a misfortune arrive. Well, and here is the misfortune: there's no difficulty at all.'
Both of these girls had their homes in Brussels, and both of them I knew had everything their own way with two fondly indulgent mammas. I had no scruple in accepting their generous sacrifice, and I hugged them both, and was really (I who despised tears) on the verge of crying. Between the two, I hardly knew which offer to take, but it seemed to me that as Henriette had two Bonnets, it was most reasonable to take hers. And we all went down to dinner happily. And the 'Unhappy rag' 'cette malheureuse loque,' was buried in the hangar, the wood-house at the bottom of the garden.
But under cloudless skies one is prone to forget the lessons of misfortune. It took some time—but the Sunday came when, once again, it seemed 'almost wrong' to waste summer hours in the Temple Anglican, when one felt so good under the beautiful trees in the Bois de la Cambre. And then there was pocket-money in hand, and a lunch of cakes, and not halfpenny pistolets, could be obtained.
'I suppose you don't think it will rain?' I suggested.
'Rain!' My brother said with scorn. 'Look at that sky! How could it rain?'
It managed to do it. True, it was only a brief shower: but the water came down in sheets. In despair I took off the chapeau d'uniforme, and my brother, who wore an Inverness cape, sheltered it under the flap. I stood to hold the cape at a right angle, so that the precious object might not be crushed, and we were watching it under this sheltering wing, and my brother was assuring me it was all right when,—as I stood there bareheaded and rain-beaten, beneath a tree by the side of the broad path near the entrance to the wood—a short, stoutish man, buttoned up to the chin in his greatcoat, and holding his umbrella tightly, walked by us at a great pace, without (so at least it seemed) looking at us at all. And that man was M. Heger. We gasped, and looked at each other.
'He didn't see us,' said my brother cheerily. 'What a bit of luck!'
'You may be quite sure he did see us,' I answered. 'Well, I wonder what will happen now?'
With this new anxiety on our hands, even the precious chapeau d'uniforme became a secondary consideration. But the shower having passed, we examined it carefully. There was no disaster this time. The rosebuds were still rosebuds and the blonde still blonde. It is true that a splash had fallen on the white chip crown, but my brother was always ready with comfort.