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-The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Secret of Charlotte Brontë, by Frederika
-Macdonald
-
-
-This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
-almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
-re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
-with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
-
-
-
-
-
-Title: The Secret of Charlotte Brontë
-       Followed by Some Reminiscences of the Real Monsieur and Madame Heger
-
-
-Author: Frederika Macdonald
-
-
-
-Release Date: October 18, 2012  [eBook #41105]
-
-Language: English
-
-Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
-
-
-***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTë***
-
-
-E-text prepared by Clare Graham & Laura McDonald
-(http://www.girlebooks.com) and Marc D'Hooghe
-(http://www.freeliterature.org)
-
-
-
-Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
-      file which includes the original illustrations.
-      See 41105-h.htm or 41105-h.zip:
-      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41105/41105-h/41105-h.htm)
-      or
-      (http://www.gutenberg.org/files/41105/41105-h.zip)
-
-
-
-
-
-THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË
-
-Followed by Some Reminiscences of the Real
-Monsieur and Madame Heger
-
-by
-
-FREDERIKA MACDONALD, D.LITT.
-
-Authoress of 'Xavier and I,' 'The Iliad of the East,'
-'A New Criticism of J.-J. Rousseau,' 'The Flower
-and The Spirit,' 'The Humane Philosophy
-of Rousseau,' etc.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-London: T.C. & E.C. Jack
-67 Long Acre, W.C.
-and Edinburgh
-1914
-
-
-
-[Illustration: Portrait by Richmond]
-
-
-     'And now I will rehearse the tale of Love, which I heard
-     from Diotima of Mantineia, a woman wise in this, and many
-     other kinds of knowledge....
-
-     '... "What then is Love," I asked: "Is he mortal?" "He is
-     neither mortal nor immortal, but in a mean between the two,"
-     she replied. "He is a great Spirit, and, like all spirits,
-     an intermediate between the divine and the mortal." "And
-     what," I said, "is his power?" "He interprets," she replied,
-     "between gods and men; conveying to the gods the prayers and
-     sacrifices of men; and to men the commands and replies of
-     the gods." "And who," I said, "is his father? and who is his
-     mother?" "His father," she replied, "was Plenty (Poros), and
-     his mother Poverty (Penia), and as his parentage is, so are
-     his fortunes. He is always poor, and has no shoes, nor a
-     house to dwell in; on the bare earth exposed he lies under
-     the open heaven, in the streets, or at the doors of houses,
-     taking his rest, and like his mother he is always in
-     distress. Like his father, too, he is bold, enterprising,--a
-     philosopher at all times, terrible as an enchanter,
-     sorcerer, sophist. As he is neither mortal nor immortal, he
-     is alive and flourishing one moment, and dead another
-     moment; and again alive, by reason of his father's nature."'
-
-     (_Symposium_. Plato's _Dialogues_. Translator, Jowett, vol.
-     ii. pp. 54, 55.)
-
-[Illustration: THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL (RUE D'ISABELLE),
-WHICH REMAINED UNALTERED UNTIL 1909]
-
-
-
-CONTENTS
-
-PART I
-
-CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S LETTERS TO M. HEGER
-_(These Letters supply the Key to the Secret of Charlotte Brontë)_
-
-CHAPTER I
-THE PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM OF CHARLOTTE
-BRONTË, CREATED BY A FALSE CRITICAL
-METHOD
-
-CHAPTER II
-THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM
-
-CHAPTER III
-CHARLOTTE'S LAST YEAR AT BRUXELLES, 1842-43
-
-CHAPTER IV
-THE CONFESSION AT STE. GUDULE
-
-CHAPTER V
-THE LEAVE-TAKING--THE SCENE IN THE CLASS-ROOM
---'MY HEART WILL BREAK'
-
-CHAPTER VI
-THE LOVE-LETTERS OF A ROMANTIC
-
-PART II
-
-SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE REAL
-MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER
-
-CHAPTER I
-THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE
-FACT FROM FICTION
-
-CHAPTER II
-MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE
-BRONTË'S PROFESSOR
-
-CHAPTER III
-MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW THEM:
-AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I KNEW
-THEM
-
-CHAPTER IV
-MY SECOND INTERVIEW WITH M. HEGER. THE
-WASHING OF 'PEPPER.' THE LESSON IN
-ARITHMETIC
-
-CHAPTER V
-THE STORY OF A CHAPEAU D'UNIFORME
-
-CHAPTER VI
-MADAME HEGER'S SENTIMENT OF THE JUSTICE
-OF RESIGNATION TO INJUSTICE
-
-
-LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
-
-     CHARLOTTE BRONTË .... _Frontispiece_
-     THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL IN THE RUE D'ISABELLE
-     M. HEGER AT SIXTY
-     DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË OF ASHBURNHAM CHURCH
-     (_Copyright of Author_)
-     MADAME HEGER AT SIXTY
-     (_Copyright of Author_)
-     THE ALLÉE DÉFENDUE
-     (_Copyright of Author_)
-     THE GALERIE AND GARDEN IN WINTER
-     (_Copyright of Author_)
-
-
-
-THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË
-
-PART I
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-THE 'PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM' OF CHARLOTTE
-BRONTË, CREATED BY A FALSE
-CRITICAL METHOD
-
-
-We live in an epoch when impressionist methods of criticism, admissible,
-and often illuminative, in the domains of art and of imaginative
-literature, have invaded the once jealously guarded paths of historical
-criticism, to the detriment of correct standards of judgment. Leading
-critics, whose literary accomplishments, powers of persuasive argument,
-and unquestionable good faith, lend great influence to their decisions,
-show no sort of hesitation in undertaking to interpret the characters
-and careers of famous men and women, independently of any examination
-of evidence, by purely psychological methods. I am not denying that, as
-literary exercises, some of these impressionist portraits of men and
-women of genius, seen through the temperament of writers who are,
-_sometimes_, endowed with genius themselves, are very interesting. But
-what has to be remembered (and what is constantly forgotten) is, that if
-these psychological interpretations of people who once really existed
-are to be accorded any authority as historical judgments, they must have
-been preceded by an attentive enquiry, enabling the future interpreter,
-before he begins to employ psychology, to feel perfectly certain that he
-has clearly in view the particular Soul he is undertaking to penetrate,
-with its own special qualities, and placed amongst, and acted upon by,
-the real circumstances of its earthly career. Where the preliminary
-precaution of this enquiry, into the true facts that have to be
-penetrated, and explained, has been neglected, no psychological
-subtlety, no pathological science, no sympathetic insight, can protect
-the most accomplished literary impressionist from forming, and
-fostering, false opinions about the historical personages he is judging
-from a standpoint of assumptions that do not allow him to exercise the
-true function of criticism, defined by Matthew Arnold as: 'an impartial
-endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is.'
-
-In the case of Charlotte Brontë, her first, and, still, classical
-biographer, Mrs. Gaskell, carried through, now fifty-seven years ago,
-with great literary skill, and also with historical exactitude, the
-study of her parentage and youth; of her experiences in England as a
-governess; of her family trials and losses; of the sudden development of
-her talent, or rather, of her genius as a writer, that, at one bound,
-after the publication of her first novel, made her famous throughout
-England; and soon famous throughout Europe: and that proved her (since
-Charlotte has been 'dead'--as people use the phrase--more than half a
-century, and since her books are still living spirits, we may be allowed
-to affirm this) one of the immortals.
-
-But now whilst all these epochs in Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte
-Brontë_ were studied by exact historical methods, there was one epoch in
-her heroine's career that this, elsewhere, conscientious biographer
-neglected to study at all: in the sense, of subjecting facts and events
-and personages, belonging to its history, to careful examination. Here,
-on the contrary, we find that Mrs. Gaskell left exact methods of enquiry
-behind her; and adopted arbitrary psychological methods, of arguments,
-and assumptions, where, not only no effort was made to consult the
-testimony of facts, but where this testimony was ignored, or
-contradicted, when it stood in the way, of preconceived theories. And
-this period, thus inadequately, or, rather, thus mischievously, dealt
-with, happened to be precisely the one where the key must be found to
-the right interpretations of Charlotte's personality; and of the
-emotions and experiences she had undergone and that called her genius
-forth to life: and stamped it with the seal and quality that made her,
-amongst our great English Novelists, the only representative
-prose-writer in our literature of the European literary movement that
-French critics praise, and attack, under the name of _le Romantisme_.
-
-The period in Charlotte's life that I am speaking of is, of course, the
-interval of two years (from Feb. 1842 to Jan. 1844) that she spent at
-Bruxelles, in the school in the Rue d'Isabelle, whose Director and
-Directress, Monsieur and Madame Heger, are supposed to have been painted
-in the characters of 'Paul Emanuel' and of 'Madame Beck,' in the famous
-novel of _Villette_.
-
-How far that supposition is justified, and to what extent _Villette_ is
-an autobiographical reminiscence, thinly disguised as a novel, can be
-now, but has never been up to this date, satisfactorily decided, by an
-attentive historical enquiry. What is established securely to-day, and
-cannot be removed from the foundation of documentary evidence that
-serves as the basis upon which all future theories must rest, is, that
-it is in this period that Charlotte Brontë--not as an enthusiastic and
-half-formed school-girl, as some reckless modern impressionist critics,
-careless of the evidence of facts, would have us believe, but as a
-woman, profoundly sincere, impassioned, exalted, unstained, and
-unstainable, who, between twenty-six and twenty-eight years of age, had
-long left girlish extravagance behind her--underwent experiences and
-emotions, that were not transient feelings, nor sensational excitements.
-But they were transforming and formative spiritual influences--causing,
-no doubt, bitter anguish, and intolerable regrets, that 'broke her
-heart,' in the sense that they destroyed personal hope or belief in
-happiness, and even the personal capacity for happiness: yet that from
-this grave of buried hope, called her genius forth to life; and stamped
-and sealed it, with its special quality and gift:--the gift that made
-her a 'Romantic.' So that at this hour one has not to deplore any
-longer, for Charlotte's sake, this tragical sentiment, of predestined,
-hopeless, and unrequited love, that broke her heart, but that gave her
-immortality. For, whilst the broken heart is healed now, or, at any
-rate, has slept in peace for more than half a century, the genius, born
-from its sorrow, is still a living spirit; and will probably continue
-to live on, from age to age, whilst the English tongue endures.
-
-At the present hour all this can be positively affirmed. But even before
-the final settlement, for every critic who respects historical evidence,
-of the now incontrovertible fact, Mrs. Gaskell's method of dealing with
-this momentous period could not satisfy an attentive student who
-compared her account with Charlotte's correspondence: and also with
-eloquent impassioned passages in _Villette_ and the _Professor_, where
-the authoress is plainly painting emotions and impressions she has
-herself undergone. And the effect that was left upon thoughtful readers
-of the _Life of Charlotte Brontë_' was that the biographer was, not
-negligently, but _deliberately_, altering the true significance, by
-underrating the importance, of Charlotte's experiences in Bruxelles, and
-of her relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger.
-
-This biographer's theory was (and the doctrine has been vehemently
-defended by a certain clique of devotees of Charlotte Brontë down to
-the present day) that Charlotte obtained, certainly, great intellectual
-stimulus, as well as literary culture, from the lessons of M. Heger, as
-an accomplished Professor; but that, outside of these influences, her
-relationships with M. Heger were of an entirely ordinary and tranquil
-character, and that she carried back with her to Haworth, after her two
-years' residence in Bruxelles, no other sentiments than those of the
-grateful regard and esteem a good pupil necessarily retains for a
-Professor whose lessons she has turned to excellent account.
-
-How far Mrs. Gaskell did believe, or was able to make herself believe,
-what she professed, it is difficult to determine now. My own opinion is
-she did _not_ believe it; but that she esteemed it a duty to respect the
-secret _that had not been confided to her_: and to pass by in silence,
-and with averted eyes, the place where, forsaken by hope, Charlotte had
-fought out bravely and all alone this battle, with a hopeless passion
-(that, after all, when it comes across any woman's path, she _must_
-fight out _alone_, because nowhere, outside of her own soul, is there
-any help), and then, having won her battle, had gone on, leaving her
-broken heart buried in that silent, secret place, to face her altered
-destiny. And to write stories as a method of salvation from despair. But
-to return, now and again, to visit that silent, secret grave: and to
-gather the magical flowers that grew there, and breathe their bitter,
-sweet perfume. And to take large handfuls of these flowers home with
-her, and, in the air saturated with the bitter-sweet perfume of these
-magical flowers, to write her stories. So that the stories themselves
-come to us, not like other stories, but steeped in this strange perfume
-thrilled through with the magical life belonging to flowers of
-remembrance, gathered from the grave of a tragical romance. And this
-explains why the stories are themselves romantic: and why, as Harriet
-Martineau complained, _Villette_, especially, has this quality, which,
-to the authoress of _Illustrations in Political Economy_, appeared a
-defect, that '_all events and personages are regarded through the medium
-of one passion only--the passion of unrequited love._'
-
-To return to Mrs. Gaskell and her criticism of Charlotte Brontë. The
-question of whether she, like Harriet Martineau, committed a critical
-blunder, as a result of studying Charlotte's character and genius by
-wrong methods, or whether out of loyalty she endeavoured to cover in her
-friend's life the secret romance that Charlotte herself never revealed,
-does not need to trouble us much, because the answer does not greatly
-matter. However laudatory Mrs. Gaskell's motive may have been, the fact
-remains, that, as a result of her endeavour rather to turn attention
-away from, than to examine, the true circumstances of Charlotte's
-relationships with Monsieur and Madame Heger, an inadequate, or else a
-false, criticism was inaugurated by her influence of the most popular in
-Europe of our distinguished women novelists, and who, outside of
-England, is judged by right standards as a 'Romantic,' but who, in her
-own country, has been criticised from 1857 down to 1913, in the light of
-one of two contradictory impressions--both of which we now know were
-historical mistakes.
-
-The first of these impressions is that Charlotte Brontë has painted, not
-only her own emotions, but her own actual experiences, in _Villette_;
-and that Lucy Snowe, Paul Emanuel, and Madame Beck, are pseudonyms,
-under which we ought to recognise Charlotte herself, and the Director
-and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle.
-
-The second, and almost equally mischievous impression is that no
-romantic nor tragical sentiment whatever characterises the relationships
-between Charlotte Brontë and her Bruxelles Professor in literature; and
-that she derived her inspirations as a writer solely from the drab
-dreariness and the desolation of disease and death, of her life in the
-shadow of Haworth churchyard. It is impossible from the standpoint of
-either of these impressions to form right opinions about Charlotte
-Brontë, either as a distinguished personality, or as a writer of genius,
-whose place in English literature is that amongst our prose writers she
-is the representative 'Romantic' who counts with George Sand; but
-differs from her, as an English and not a French exponent of the
-sentiment of romantic love.
-
-Judged both as a distinguished personality and as a writer of genius
-from the standpoint of the impression that _Villette_ is an
-autobiographical story, Charlotte Brontë suffers injustice, both as a
-woman of fine character, and as an imaginative painter of emotions
-rather than an observer of events, or a critic of manners. Accepted as a
-realistic picture of her own adventures in Brussels, the book does not
-testify to her accuracy or skill in portraiture, from the purely
-literary point of view. And from the moral and personal standpoint, she
-remains convicted (if she be held to be telling her own story) of the
-baseness of a half-confession;--and _of a dishonourable and a
-successful_, not a _romantic and tragical_, love for a married man. And
-of the treacherous wrong done a sister-woman, who threw open her home to
-her, when she was a friendless alien in a foreign city. And, if this
-were so, this traitress would have further aggravated the dishonest
-betrayal of her protectress, by holding up the woman she had wronged to
-the world's detestation, either as the contemptible and scheming Mlle.
-Zoraïde Reuter, of the _Professor_:--or the less contemptible but more
-hateful Madame Beck, in _Villette_.
-
-If, then, Charlotte did mean, or even suppose, that others could be
-induced to believe that she meant, to paint her own relationships to
-Monsieur and Madame Heger in the story, she would stand convicted, not
-only as a woman of bad character, but as one who had a wicked and
-vindictive heart.
-
-Nor yet does the second impression, patronised by devotees of Charlotte
-Brontë (who seem to imagine that the revelation of an entirely innocent
-and indeed beautiful, though tragical, romantic attachment in the life
-of this romantic writer, is the disclosure of a sin), help us to find
-any solution of the 'problem' as psychological critics present it to us,
-of the 'dissonance' between her personality and dull existence, and her
-literary distinction, as our chief English Romantic, and the authoress
-of those amazing masterpieces _Jane Eyre_ and _Villette._ What a
-contrast, in effect, between the characteristics of these masterpieces
-and the characteristics of her circumstances at Haworth and of the
-circle of her familiar acquaintances! The characteristics of Charlotte's
-books are--emotional force, the exaltation of passion over all the
-commonplace proprieties, the low-toned feelings, the semi-educated
-pedantries that are the characteristics of the people who surround
-Charlotte; who are her correspondents and her friends; and whose
-mediocrity weighs on the poor original woman's spirit (and even on her
-literary style) like lead:--so that the letters she writes to them are,
-really, nearly as dull as the letters they write to her; and one finds
-it hard to believe that some of the letters, to Ellen Nussey, for
-instance, come from the same pen that wrote _Villette_: or even that
-wrote from Bruxelles some of her letters to Emily.
-
-And again, if we leave out of account the tragical romantic sentiment
-for M. Heger, how are we to solve the problem as these psychologists
-present it to us, and that states itself in this conviction: that the
-creator of 'Rochester' and 'Paul Emanuel' found her _own_ romance, only
-at forty years of age, in her marriage with the Rev. A.B. Nicholls, an
-event she announces thus:--'_I trust the demands of both feeling and
-duty will be in some measure reconciled by the step in contemplation_';
-adding on to this the following description of the future bridegroom:
-'_Mr Nicholls is a kind, considerate fellow: with all his masculine
-faults, he enters into my wishes about having the thing done quietly_'?
-
-From the standpoint of the impression that the romance in Charlotte's
-life, was the marriage she speaks of as '_the thing_,' that she wishes
-'_may be done quietly_,'--and that the highest pitch of personal emotion
-she attained to, is expressed by her in the temperate confidence that by
-'the step in contemplation'--'_the demands of both feeling and duty may
-in some measure be reconciled_,' (--only _in some measure_? Poor
-Charlotte!--But she died within a year)--from this standpoint, I say,
-one really cannot solve the problem of the 'dissonance' between
-Charlotte's personality and her books.
-
-But there is one conclusion we are bound to reach. The influences of
-Haworth, no doubt--the drab dreariness of everything; and then the
-desolation after Bramwell's death, and Emily's death, and Anne's
-death--and the father threatened with blindness--and also the mediocrity
-of all those dull, dull people, who represented her familiar friends and
-correspondents, so satisfied with themselves, all of them; so
-dissatisfied with life, and who saw it through the medium not of a
-romantic tragical sentiment, not of one great passion, but through the
-medium of small grievances of superior nursery governesses: the sort of
-people who dislike children, and want overdriven mothers to be always
-occupied with their governesses' sentiments, instead of with the baby
-who is cutting its teeth. No doubt the influences of Haworth and of
-Charlotte Brontë's 'Circle' there, before she became famous, _did_ help
-to plant in her the immense depression and fatigue of a spirit that had
-known the stress of great emotions, and _could bear no more_,--expressed
-in the letter announcing her decision to marry one of the curates she
-had laughed at in _Shirley_--who _with all his masculine faults_,' she
-says, 'is a _kind, considerate fellow_,' who doesn't expect her to
-pretend she thinks this marriage ('_the thing_')--a Festival. Well, but
-the conclusion we must form is this, that if it be at Haworth, and after
-1846, that we must find the causes of the depression that brought about
-Charlotte's marriage with Mr. Nicholl, it is _not_ here that we must
-seek the '_Secret of Charlotte Brontë_';--the romance that broke her
-heart, true--but made her an immortal, whose claim to live for ever is
-based upon no moderate well-balanced sentiment, where 'the demands of
-both feeling and duty will be in some measure reconciled'--but upon
-passionate emotions, compelling expression, and forming a new language
-almost; as M. Jules Lemaître has said 'introducing new ways of feeling,
-and as it were a new vibration into literature.'
-
-And in the place where the romance in Charlotte's life is found must we
-seek, also, the source of this power of emotion: creating powers of
-expression to which much more accomplished literary artists than
-Charlotte (Jane Austen and Mrs. Gaskell, for instance) never reached;
-and to an intimate knowledge of moods and ecstasies and raptures, that
-rule and torture and exalt human souls, that much more subtle and
-scientific psychologists than herself (George Eliot, for instance, and
-Mrs. Humphry Ward) never discovered.
-
-The supreme gift of the authoress of _Villette_ and _Jane Eyre_, as a
-painter of emotions, an interpreter of intimate moods, a witness in the
-cause of ideal sentiments, an incessant rebel against vulgarity and
-common worldliness, and the stupid tyranny of custom, an upholder of the
-sovereignty of romance, cannot be weighed against, nor judged by, the
-same standards as the accomplished literary gift of such finished
-artists as the authors of _Pride and Prejudice_ and _Cranford_, such
-subtle students of character as the authors of _Middlemarch_ and _Robert
-Elsmere_, such vigorous fighters for intellectual and moral ends as are
-represented by the author of the _Illustrations upon Political Economy_,
-and the _Atkinson Letters_. And it is because, as a result of judging
-her genius and her personality from the standpoint of false
-impressions, Charlotte Brontë has not been recognised in England as a
-painter of personal emotions, a Romantic in short, but has been judged
-as the advocate of a general doctrine--(one very agreeable to the
-convictions of the average man, but especially exasperating to the
-aspirations and principles of the superior woman)--I mean, the doctrine
-that _to obtain the love of a man whom she feels to be, and rejoices to
-recognise as, her 'Master,'--is the supreme desire and dream of every
-truly feminine heart_; it is because, I say, of this mistake, that
-Charlotte has become the idol of a class of critics least qualified
-perhaps to appreciate the merits of a romantic rebel against
-conventional domesticity; whilst amongst more naturally sympathetic
-judges, the peculiar perfume and power of these novels, steeped in and
-saturated with the passionate essence of a personal romance, has not
-been recognised either for what it really is,--the 'magic' of Charlotte
-Brontë; the special quality in her work that gives it originality and
-distinction; but this very quality--'the personal note' that makes her
-our only English Romantic Novelist, has been signalised by many sincere
-admirers of her books as a defect!
-
-I have already mentioned the judgment passed upon _Villette_ by an
-admirable woman of letters, Charlotte Brontë's personal friend, and a
-critic whose good faith, and honest desire to serve the interests of
-this sister-authoress with whom she found fault it is quite impossible
-to doubt.
-
-When _Villette_ appeared, Charlotte Brontë had been for some little time
-on very friendly terms with Harriet Martineau: and she did not fear to
-incur the risk--always a perilous one to friendship--of asking Harriet
-to tell her, quite frankly, what she thought of her book. Harriet
-responded with perfect frankness to the invitation; and the almost
-inevitable result followed. The event wrecked their friendship. And no
-one was to blame: Harriet Martineau, without disguise, but without
-malice, said what she thought was true. But neither was Charlotte in the
-wrong, for she felt herself unjustly judged; and her feeling was right,
-because Harriet used false standards.
-
-'As for the matter which you so desire to know,' wrote the frank
-Harriet; 'I have but one thing to say: but it is not a small one. I do
-not like the love--either the kind or the degree of it--and its
-prevalence in the book, and effect on the action of it, help to explain
-the passages in the reviews which you consulted me about, and seem to
-afford some foundation for the criticism they afford.'
-
-Charlotte was deeply offended: 'I protest against this passage,' she
-wrote; 'I know what _love_ is as I understand it, and if man or woman
-should be ashamed of feeling such love, then there is nothing right,
-noble, faithful, truthful, unselfish in this earth, as I comprehend
-rectitude, nobleness, fidelity, truth and disinterestedness.'
-
-Here spoke the Romantic. But Harriet Martineau was _not_ a Romantic but
-an Intellectual, and she judged Charlotte's books and her genius through
-her own temperament, and by intellectual standards. She followed up the
-private rebuke to her friend for making too much of love, in a review of
-_Villette_, contributed to the _Daily News._
-
-'All the female characters,' she wrote, 'in all their thoughts and
-lives, are full of one thing, or are regarded in the light of that one
-thought, love! It begins with the child of six years old, of the opening
-(a charming picture), and closes with it at the last page. And so
-dominant is this idea, so incessant is the writer's tendency to describe
-_the need of being loved_, that the heroine, who tells her own story,
-leaves the reader at last under the uncomfortable impression of her
-having either entertained a double love, or allowed one to supersede
-another, without notification of the transition. It is not thus in real
-life. There are substantial, heartfelt interests for women of all ages,
-and, under ordinary circumstances, quite apart from love; there is an
-absence of introspection, an unconsciousness, a repose, in women's
-lives, unless under peculiarly unfortunate circumstances, of which we
-find no admission in this book; and to the absence of it may be
-attributed some of the criticism which the book will meet with from
-readers who are no prudes, but whose reason and taste will regret the
-assumption that events and characters are to be regarded through the
-medium of one passion only.'
-
-The critical blunder in this judgment is that here the authoress of the
-_Illustrations in Political Economy_ and of the _Atkinson Letters_ sees
-the authoress of _Villette_ through her own temperament, as an
-intellectual like herself:--a humane sociologist, and a philosophical
-freethinker, _whose literary purpose is to use her talent as a writer in
-the service of her ideas and principles_. Judging _Villette_ and its
-authoress from this point of view and by these standards, Harriet
-Martineau decides that _because_ 'all events and characters in _Villette
-are_ regarded through the medium of one passion, love,' _therefore_ the
-literary motive and purpose of the authoress must have been to deny--or
-at any rate to ignore--that '_there are substantial heartfelt interests
-for women of all ages, and in ordinary circumstances, quite apart from
-love._'
-
-The mistake lay in assuming that Charlotte Brontë was an intellectual,
-instead of an imaginative genius; and that her literary purpose was to
-affirm, or deny, or ignore deliberately, any principle; or in any way
-to make her genius the servant of her intellect; whereas her
-intelligence was so coloured by her imagination, so subservient to her
-genius, that if one were to measure her by intellectual standards--with
-Harriet Martineau, for instance--she would remain as vastly Harriet's
-inferior in enthusiasm of humanity, in practical benevolence and warm
-interest in social reform, and in emancipations from prejudice and
-insularity and bigotry, as she was Harriet's superior in power of
-passionate feeling, in wealth of imagination, and in superb gift of
-expression. But any such comparison would be out of place. Let us admit
-that Charlotte's thoughts and aspirations, as we find them scattered
-through her writings, express the ordinary vigorous prejudices of an
-English gentlewoman of her period, brought up under the influences of a
-father who was a good sort of Tory clergyman; that her attitude of
-condescension toward, rather than of sympathy with, the 'common people,'
-regarded as the 'lower orders,' who should be kindly treated of course,
-but kept in their place, and taught to 'order themselves lowly and
-reverently to their betters,' indicates a defective humanitarianism;
-that her almost rabid patriotism--her conviction that not to be English
-is a misfortune, and a stamp of inferiority that weighs heavily as an
-impediment to nobility and virtue, upon every member of every other
-foreign race, is distinctly narrow; and that her staunch and straitened
-protestantism, leaves her as far away as the 'idolatrous priests' she
-denounced, from any claim to enlightened tolerance.
-
-Yet this lack of any particular height or breadth or distinction in
-Charlotte Brontë's social, political, critical, or even religious views,
-does not in any way detract from the height, depth and distinction of
-her powers of noble emotion and splendid expression; nor from the rare
-gift of translating words into feelings that quicken her readers'
-sensibility to a finer perception of the ideal beauty that lies at the
-heart of common things.
-
-Here is the gift by which we have to judge, or, to speak more
-becomingly, for which we have to praise and thank, our only English
-'Romantic' novelist, who stands in rank with George Sand, and who has
-been studied in comparison with her by Swinburne. And we have to praise,
-and thank our Charlotte all the more, because she has a national as well
-as a personal note: and brings to this European literary movement the
-characteristic qualities of imagination and sentiment that belong to our
-English literary temperament, and that do us honour, as a romantic
-people who are romantic in our own, and nobody else's way.
-
-But now if we want to appreciate the 'magic' of Charlotte Brontë as a
-Romantic we must not look for the sources of her inspiration at Haworth;
-nor in the circle of dull people, to whom she wrote, brilliant writer as
-she was, dull letters, because their mediocrity weighed upon her spirit
-like lead.
-
-Twenty years ago, now, I attempted (but was not especially successful in
-the task) to establish upon the personal knowledge that my own residence
-as a pupil in the historical Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, at
-Bruxelles gave me of the facts of Charlotte Brontë's relationships to
-Monsieur and Madame Heger, right impressions about the experiences and
-emotions she underwent between 1842 and 1846, and that supply the key
-and clue to the right interpretation of her genius. Every opinion I then
-ventured to state, not upon the authority of any special power of
-divination or of psychological insight of my own, but solely upon the
-authority of this personal knowledge of Monsieur and Madame Heger in my
-early girlhood, and also of the information I owed to the friendship and
-kind assistance given me, in my endeavour to rectify false judgments, by
-the Heger family, has quite recently, not only been confirmed, but
-established upon entirely incontrovertible evidence, by the generous
-gift made to English readers throughout the world of the key needed to
-unlock once and for ever the tragical but romantic 'Secret' of Charlotte
-Brontë.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-THE KEY TO THE PROBLEM
-
-
-The common saying, that 'people must be just before they are generous,'
-becomes at once less common and more correct when it is formulated
-differently. '_One needs to be very generous before one can be really
-just_' is Jean-Jacques Rousseau's way of stating the proposition. And
-one calls this sentence to remembrance when recognising how much
-generosity is revealed in the act of justice recently performed by Dr.
-Paul Heger in his gift to the British Museum (that is to say to English
-readers throughout the world) of the four tragical, but incomparably
-beautiful, Letters written by Charlotte Brontë to his father, the late
-Professor Constantin Heger, within two years of her return to England.
-
-No doubt this gift _was_ an act of justice. Without the conclusive
-evidence these Letters afford, there would have been no means of
-rectifying the arbitrary, false, and inadequate criticism of the
-personality, and thus, indirectly, of the writings, of a great novelist
-misjudged especially in her own country.
-
-But whilst, for these reasons, the publication of these Letters was a
-duty to English literature, the son of the late Director and Directress
-of the Bruxelles Pensionnat--unwarrantably supposed to have their
-literal counterparts in the interesting Professor Paul Emanuel, and in
-the abominable Madame Beck--might well, in view of the unintelligent and
-ungenerous criticism of his parents by English readers, have refused to
-recognise any obligation on his side to concern himself with the
-rectification of the dull laudatory, or the malicious condemnatory,
-judgments passed, from a false standpoint, on the authoress of
-_Villette._
-
-We find Dr. Paul Heger able to rise entirely above all personal rancour,
-and to recognise that Charlotte Brontë herself is not to be made
-responsible because a good many of her critics have blundered. Indeed,
-the conduct of the whole Heger family since the publication of
-_Villette_, and the death of Charlotte Brontë, has been distinguished by
-this fine spirit of disinterestedness; and by a dignified indifference
-to undeserved reproaches. The answer to all charges, of unkindness to
-Charlotte on Madame Heger's part, or of injudicious kindness first,
-followed by heartless indifference, on M. Heger's side, was in their
-hands; and they had only to publish the present Letters to establish the
-facts as they really were. But this could not have been done in the time
-when _Villette_ appeared, nor even immediately after Charlotte's death,
-without wounding others. _Villette_ appeared in 1853. In 1854 Charlotte,
-then in her fortieth year, married the Rev. A.B. Nicholls; and she died
-less than a year after this marriage. Mr. Nicholls survived her more
-than forty years. No doubt he would have been wounded in his
-sensibilities by the disclosure of his late wife's entirely honourable,
-but very romantic and passionate earlier attachment to somebody else.
-Intimate personal friends of Charlotte, also, would have been afflicted,
-not by her revelations, but by the commentaries upon them that a
-certain type of critic would have infallibly indulged in. Whilst these
-conditions lasted, the Heger family scrupulously refrained from
-publishing these documents. Twenty years ago, when I was collecting the
-materials for my article published in the _Woman at Home_, and when, in
-the light of my own recollection of M. and Madame Heger, as their former
-pupil, I endeavoured to rectify, what _I knew to be_, false impressions
-about their relationships with Charlotte Brontë, I was told by my
-honoured and dearly loved friend, Mademoiselle Louise Heger, about the
-existence of these Letters; _but they were not shown me._ And I was
-further assured that, whilst they would be carefully preserved, they
-would not be published, until every one had disappeared who could in any
-way be offended by their disclosure. After the lapse of more than half a
-century since Charlotte's death, these conditions have now been reached.
-And in his admirable Letter to the Principal Librarian of the British
-Museum, Dr. Paul Heger explains his reasons for making this present to
-the English people of documents entirely honourable to the character of
-one of our great writers, and that explain the emotions and experiences
-that formed her genius:
-
-'Sir,--In the name of my sisters and myself' (thus runs the opening
-sentence of the Letter reprinted in the _Times_), 'as the
-representatives of the late M. Constantin Heger, I beg leave to offer to
-the British Museum, as the official custodian on behalf of the British
-People, the Letters of Charlotte Brontë, which the great Novelist
-addressed to our Father. These four important Letters, which have been
-religiously preserved, may be accepted as revealing the soul of the
-gifted author whose genius is the pride of England. We have hesitated
-long as to whether these documents, so private, so intimate, should be
-scanned by the public eye. We have been deterred from offering them
-sooner, by the thought that, perhaps, the publicity involved in the gift
-might be considered incompatible with the sensitive nature of the artist
-herself. But we offer them the more readily, as they lay open the true
-significance of what has hitherto been spoken of as the "Secret of
-Charlotte Brontë," and show how groundless is the suspicion which has
-resulted from the natural speculations of critics and biographers; to
-the disadvantage of both parties to the one-sided correspondence. We
-then, admirers of her genius and personality, venture to propose that we
-may have the honour of placing these Letters in your hands; making only
-the condition that they may be preserved for the use of the nation.'
-
-'Doubtless,' continues Dr. Paul Heger, when dealing with the actual
-relations between Charlotte and the Director and Directress of the
-school in the Rue d'Isabelle, 'Doubtless, my parents played an important
-part in the life of Charlotte Brontë: but she did not enter into their
-lives as one would imagine from what passes current to-day. That is
-evident enough from the very circumstances of life, so different for
-her, and for them. There is nothing in these Letters that is not
-entirely honourable to their author, as to him to whom they are
-addressed. It is better to lay bare the very innocent mystery, than to
-let it be supposed that there is anything to hide. I hope that the
-publication of these Letters will bring to an end a legend which has
-never had any real existence in fact. I hope so: _but legends are more
-tenacious of life than sober reality_.'
-
-The last observation shows that Dr. Paul Heger, an experienced
-_littérateur_, foresaw what has actually happened, and that the
-defenders of the two 'legends' of Charlotte Brontë, patronised by
-writers who derive the authority for their opinions about her, not from
-the study of the facts of her life and character, but from their own
-impressions and convictions, are not going to admit that the legends are
-overthrown, simply because it has been proved that they are founded upon
-mistakes. At the same time, no statement can be more true than that
-'facts are stubborn things,' and that, when these 'stubborn things' are
-found arrayed in stern and uncompromising opposition to the impressions
-and convictions of the most accomplished psychological theorists--well,
-it is the psychological theorists who must give way.
-
-And this is the situation that has to be faced to-day by critics of
-Charlotte Brontë, who have either formed their opinions about her in the
-light of their impression that _Villette_ represents an autobiographical
-study, or else who have founded their judgments of her personality and
-genius as a writer upon their conviction that it is a '_silly and
-offensive imputation_' to suppose that her sentiment for M. Heger was a
-warmer feeling than the esteem and gratitude a clever pupil owes an
-accomplished professor.
-
-In connection with the tenacity of life of this last theory (after the
-publication of the evidence which proves it is a mistake), we have to
-consider with serious attention the account rendered in the _Times_ of
-the 30th July 1913, of an interview with Mr. Clement Shorter, known to
-be the most distinguished supporter, in the past, of the doctrine that
-Charlotte's sentiment for Professor Heger was 'literary enthusiasm,' and
-nothing more. And this serious attention is needed, because, in Mr.
-Clement Shorter's case, it is not allowable to dismiss lightly the
-judgment of a critic who (after Mrs. Gaskell) has done more than
-any one else to throw light upon the family history of the Brontës,
-and also upon and around those three interesting and touching
-personalities--Emily, Anne, and, the greatest of them all, Charlotte,
-amongst the familiar scenes and personages of their environment at
-Haworth, both before and after they had conquered their unique place in
-English literature. One cannot for a moment suppose that Mr. Clement
-Shorter wilfully refuses to see things as they really are, simply
-because it pleases him to see them differently? No! One realises
-perfectly that, as with Mrs. Gaskell fifty-seven years ago, _so_ with
-this modern conscientious and generous critic to-day there exists an
-entirely noble, and, _from a given point of view_, justifiable reason,
-for refusing to handle or examine a matter with which (so it is alleged)
-historical and literary criticism has no concern--a purely personal, and
-intimate secret sorrow, in the life of an admirable woman of genius; the
-sanctuary of whose inner feelings it is by no means necessary to
-explore: and still less necessary to throw open to the vulgar curiosity
-and malevolent insinuations of a generation of critics, infected with
-hero-phobia, and the unwholesome delight of discovering '_a good deal to
-reprobate and even more to laugh at_,' in the sensibility of men and
-women of genius, who have honoured the human race, and enriched the
-world, _because_ they have possessed through power of feeling, power
-also of doing fine work, that the critics who find much in them 'to
-reprobate and more to laugh at' have not the power even to appreciate.
-Now, _if_ the point of view of Mrs. Gaskell and Mr. Clement Shorter were
-a correct one, with all my heart and soul I, for my part, should approve
-of their action in slamming the door in the face of invading facts that
-threatened to leave the way open for scandal-hunters and hero-phobists
-to enter with them, and to deal with the honoured reputation of
-Charlotte Brontë in the same way that--more to the discredit of English
-letters than to that of two French writers of genius--recent critics
-have dealt with the love-letters of Madame de Staël and George Sand.
-
-This point of view, however, is a mistaken one in the present case,
-because, to commence with, Charlotte Brontë's romantic love for M. Heger
-affords no game to the scandal-hunter; but, on the contrary, it is
-serviceable to the just appreciation of her character, as well as of her
-genius, that her true sentiment for her Professor--_that explains her
-attitude of mind when writing 'Villette'_--should be rightly understood.
-Then also, whilst Madame de Staël's infatuation for Benjamin Constant
-neither adds to nor diminishes her claims, as the authoress of _Corinne_
-and _de l'Allemagne_, to the rank of a fine writer and a great critic,
-and while George Sand's tormenting and tormented love for the ill-fated,
-irresistible, unstable 'child of his century,' de Musset, is a poignant
-revelation of the passing weakness (through immense tenderness) of a
-splendidly strong and independent spirit, that one is almost ashamed to
-be made the spectator of, Charlotte Brontë's valorous martyrdom,
-undergone secretly and silently, and 'rewarded openly,' fills one with
-an extraordinary sentiment of respect for her: and justifies Mr. Clement
-Shorter's own fine and generous utterances upon the impression that the
-Letters that betray the anguish she endured, and overcame, alone,
-produces upon him.
-
-'_Charlotte Brontë_,' said Mr. Clement Shorter, by the report of an
-interviewer who recorded his opinions in the _Times_, 30th July,
-immediately after the publication of these Letters, '_is one of the
-noblest figures in life as well as in literature; and these Letters
-place her on a higher pedestal than ever_.'
-
-Let me quote from the same report in the _Times_ the further statement
-of his opinions given by this well-known critic, as to the sentiments
-revealed in these Letters:
-
-     'Mr. Shorter,' affirmed the interviewer, 'welcomed the
-     publication of the letters in the _Times_ "as giving the
-     last and final word on an old and needless controversy."
-     "Personally," he said, "I have always held the view that
-     those letters were actuated only by the immense enthusiasm
-     of a woman desiring comradeship and sympathy with a man of
-     the character of Professor Heger. There was no sort of
-     great sorrow on her part because Professor Heger was a
-     married man, and it is plain in her letters that she merely
-     desired comradeship with a great man. When Charlotte Brontë
-     made her name famous with her best-known novel, she
-     experienced much the same adulation from admirers of both
-     sexes as she had already poured upon her teacher. She found
-     that literary comradeship she desired in half a dozen male
-     correspondents to whom she addressed letters in every way as
-     interesting as those written by her to Professor Heger.
-     There is nothing in those letters of hers, published now for
-     the first time, that any enthusiastic woman might not write
-     to a man double her age, who was a married man with a
-     family, and who had been her teacher. When one considers
-     that half a dozen writers have, in the past, declared that
-     Charlotte Brontë was in love with Professor Heger, it is a
-     surprising thing that Dr. Heger did not years ago publish
-     the letters. They are a complete vindication both of her and
-     of his father, and, as such, I welcome them, as I am sure
-     must all lovers of the Brontës."'
-
-In his first contention Mr. Clement Shorter is undeniably right: it _is_
-quite true that '_the publication of these Letters places Charlotte
-Brontë on a higher pedestal than ever_.' But why is this true? _Because
-these are love-letters of a very rare and wonderful character_; because
-the passionate tragical emotion that throbs through them is a love that,
-recognised as hopeless, as unrequited, makes only one claim; that,
-_precisely because it makes no other_, it has a right to be accepted and
-to live. Now this sort of love is a _very rare and wonderful emotion,
-that only a noble being can feel; and that although it is hopeless,
-tragical, is nevertheless a splendid fact, that renders it absurd to
-deny that sublime unselfishness is a capacity of human nature_. And,
-again, these letters place Charlotte Brontë 'on a higher pedestal than
-ever,' because in them her vocation and gift of expressing her own
-emotions in a way that makes them 'vibrate' in us like living feelings
-is here carried to its height. So that these personal letters, more even
-than the pictured emotions of Lucy Snowe, stand out as a record of
-romantic love that (in so far as I know) has never before been rivalled.
-It is true we have the romantic love-letters of Abelard and Héloïse, and
-the letters in the _New Héloïse_ of Saint-Preux to Julie, and of Julie
-to Saint-Preux, after their separation, as beautiful examples of love
-surviving hope of happiness; and Sainte-Beuve has quoted, as examples of
-the tragical disinterested passion of a love that claims no return, but
-only the right to exist, the letters of some eighteenth-century women:
-Mademoiselle de l'Espinasse, Madame de la Popelinière, and Mademoiselle
-d'Aissé. But in none of these historic love-letters (so, at least, it
-seems to me) does one feel, with the same truth and strength as in these
-recently published letters of Charlotte Brontë to M. Heger, the
-'vibration' of this tragical, hopeless, romantic love, that asks for
-nothing but acceptance, that does not 'seek its own'--the love that only
-asks to give, compared with which all other sorts of love, that _do_
-seek their own and claim return, are as sounding brass and a tinkling
-cymbal.
-
-But now, if we were to accept the view of these letters, that they do
-not express love at all, but merely the writer's '_desire of comradeship
-with a great man_': and that '_after she had become famous "she found
-that literary comradeship she desired, in half a dozen male
-correspondents, to whom she addressed letters in every way as
-interesting as those written by her to M. Heger_"'; and that '_there is
-nothing in these letters that any enthusiastic woman might not write to
-a man double her age, who was a married man with a family, and who had
-been her teacher_'--if we could accept all these views, could we _then_
-hold the opinion that 'the publication of these letters places Charlotte
-on a higher pedestal than ever'?
-
-It seems to me, on the contrary, that _then_ we should find ourselves
-compelled to admit that Charlotte Brontë had fallen very much in our
-esteem as a result of the publication of these Letters. For whilst
-romantic love is a noble sentiment that does honour to the heart that
-feels it, an '_immense enthusiasm for literary comradeship with great
-men_' is not _necessarily_, nor generally even, a commendable sentiment.
-It is very often merely a rather vulgar and selfish persistency in
-claiming the time and attention of busy people who don't want the
-comradeship; and I suppose there are very few people in the least degree
-famous who have not been rightly harassed by the 'enthusiasm' of
-professing admirers who have nothing to do themselves, and who want
-busy men or women of letters to correspond with them. And if a desire of
-comradeship with M. Heger had really been the sentiment and motive of
-Charlotte's letters to him, after she left Bruxelles, then the fact that
-she continued to write to him although he did not answer her letters
-would prove that she was insisting upon being the 'comrade' of some one
-who did not want her. Again, if the tone and terms of these Letters to
-M. Heger in 1845 were the same that she employed with '_half a dozen
-other male correspondents_,' after she became a famous writer, well
-Charlotte _would_ fall in our estimation, both as a writer, who ought to
-know how to avoid extravagant language, and as a self-respecting woman
-who should not have allowed her enthusiasm for literary comradeship to
-induce her to repeat experiences that, without loss of dignity, one
-cannot pass through more than once in a lifetime.
-
-Happily, however, attention to facts proves that none of the conditions
-that, if they had existed, would have rendered the writing of these
-Letters discreditable to Charlotte's reputation, can be accepted as in
-the least credible. It is not credible that her sentiment for M. Heger
-was that of intellectual enthusiasm for a great man double her age;
-because, to begin with, M, Heger was _not_ double Charlotte Brontë's
-age, but only seven years her senior. About this question there can be
-no dispute. M. Heger was born in 1809; and Charlotte Brontë in 1816. In
-1844 Charlotte then was twenty-eight, and M. Heger thirty-five years of
-age, and given the fact that women lose their youth first, M. Heger had
-precisely the age that would render him most sympathetic to a woman who
-was still young but who had left girlhood behind her. Again, M. Heger
-was not a '_Great Man_,' in the sense of being either a celebrity, or an
-original genius with gifts or qualities of an order calculated to kindle
-intellectual hero-worship; and he was further a dictatorial and
-ingrained Professor, the very last person on earth to offer literary
-comradeship to a former pupil. The Director of the Pensionnat in the Rue
-d'Isabelle, and the former _Préfet des Études_ at the Brussels
-_Athénée_ (who had resigned this post when religious instruction, made a
-free subject, was excluded, as a compulsory Catholic training from the
-college curriculum) was a man of talent, who had weight in Catholic
-circles, and was recognised in his character of a Professor as one with
-an admirable gift for teaching, even by the enemies of his religious
-convictions; but he was not in any way, save as a teacher, a
-distinguished or famous personage; and in all probability if this
-English writer of genius had not immortalised him in the character of
-'Paul Emanuel,' M. Heger would not have outlived the affectionate and
-respectful remembrance of his family and personal friends.
-
-The method of testing the question of whether intellectual enthusiasm,
-or tragical romantic love is the sentiment revealed in these Letters is
-_to read the Letters themselves--in the light of a true impression of
-the real relationships (when they were written) between Charlotte Brontë
-and M. Heger_, that is to say in the first twelve months that followed
-Charlotte's farewell to the Director and the Directress of the
-Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle, in January 1844. And to obtain this
-right impression, we have to see what had taken place, to alter the
-original entirely friendly terms between Madame Heger and the English
-under-mistress, who during the first year of her stay in Brussels had
-been a parlour-boarder:--for the story told in _Villette_ of Lucy
-Snowe's arrival at the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle late at night,
-and with no place of shelter, having lost her box and been robbed of her
-purse on the voyage, is, to start with, an incident that has no place in
-the true history.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-CHARLOTTE'S LAST YEAR AT BRUSSELS
-
-1842-43
-
-
-What were Charlotte Brontë's real relationships with Monsieur and Madame
-Heger when, in January 1844, she bade them, what was to prove, a final
-farewell? This is what has to be understood before we can read with a
-full sense of their true meaning the tragical impassioned Letters to M.
-Heger, written within the first two years of Charlotte's return to
-England, Letters that not only place the authoress of _Jane Eyre_ and
-_Villette_ (as a devotee, and an exponent of Romantic love) on a 'higher
-pedestal than ever,' but that, also, explain at what cost of personal
-anguish she attained as a writer her extraordinary power of translating
-emotions into words, that, by the impression they produce retranslate
-themselves to her readers' imagination and sensibilities as feelings.
-
-We have always to remember that the relationships between Charlotte and
-her former Professor were not those that existed between Lucy Snowe and
-her 'Master.' Paul Emanuel was unmarried, and in love with Lucy,
-although Madame Beck and the Jesuit, Père Silas,--and in the end
-Destiny--prevented the love-story from reaching a happy ending.
-
-Nor were these relationships, as the facts of the case reveal them,
-those imagined by Mr. Clement Shorter; where '_it was no cause of grief
-to Charlotte that M. Heger was married_,' because her enthusiasm for him
-was that of simple hero-worship for a great man. Nor yet were these
-relationships, when she left Bruxelles in 1844 (nor had they been for
-some ten months before that date), the same relationships (of trustful
-friendship on the one hand and sympathetic interest on the other) that
-had existed between Charlotte and the Director and Directress of the
-Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle when, a year earlier (in January 1843),
-Charlotte had returned to Bruxelles alone, _in response to Madame's as
-well as Monsieur's invitation_, to perfect her own French, and to
-receive a small salary as English Mistress. These first relationships
-had continued untroubled for the first few months after Charlotte's
-return. Thus, in March 1843, writing to her friend Ellen Nussey, she
-qualifies her complaints of loneliness in the Pensionnat (without the
-companionship she had enjoyed the previous year of her dearly loved
-sister Emily) by reference to the kindness of Madame, as well as of
-Monsieur Heger.
-
-'As I told you before,' she writes, 'M. and Madame Heger are the only
-two persons in the house for whom I really experience regard and esteem;
-and of course I cannot be always with them, nor even very often. They
-told me, when I first returned, that I was to consider their
-sitting-room my sitting-room, and to go there whenever I was not engaged
-in the schoolroom. This, however, I cannot do. In the daytime it is a
-public room, where music-masters and mistresses are constantly passing
-in and out; and in the evening I will not, and ought not, to intrude on
-M. and Madame Heger and their children. Thus I am a good deal by
-myself; but that does not signify. I now regularly give English lessons
-to M. Heger and his brother-in-law. They get on with wonderful rapidity,
-especially the first.[1]
-
-So that, up to this date, no cloud is visible. But by May 29 there is a
-cloud above the horizon. It is no bigger than 'a man's hand' as yet: but
-it is charged with electricity, and one knows the storm is gathering.
-This time Charlotte is writing to Emily, _who never liked M. Heger for
-her part_. 'Things wag on much as usual here, only Mlle. Blanche and
-Mlle. Haussé are at present on a system of war without quarter. They
-hate each other like two cats. Mlle. Blanche frightens Mlle. Haussé by
-her white passions, for they quarrel venomously; Mlle. Haussé complains
-that when Mlle. Blanche is in a fury "_elle n'a pas de lèvres_." I find
-also that Mlle. Sophie dislikes Mlle. Blanche extremely. She says she is
-heartless, insincere and vindictive, which epithets, I assure you, are
-richly deserved. _Also I find she is the regular spy of Madame Heger,
-to whom she reports everything. Also she invents, which I should not
-have thought_. I am [not] richly off for companionship in these parts.
-_Of late days, M. and Madame Heger rarely speak to me; and I really
-don't pretend to care a fig for anybody else in the establishment_. You
-are not to suppose by that expression that I am under the influence of
-_warm_ affection for Madame Heger. _I am convinced she does not like me:
-why, I can't tell_. (O Charlotte!) _Nor do I think she herself has any
-definite reason for this aversion_.(!) But for one thing, she cannot
-understand why I do not make intimate friends of Mesdames Blanche,
-Sophie and Haussé. M. Heger is wondrously influenced by Madame: and I
-should not wonder if he disapproves very much of my unamiable want of
-sociability. He has already given me a brief lecture on universal
-_bienveillance_; and perceiving that I don't improve in consequence, I
-fancy he has taken to considering me as a person to be let alone, left
-to the error of her ways, and consequently he has, in a great measure,
-withdrawn the light of his countenance; and I get on from day to day,
-in a Robinson Crusoe like condition, very lonely. That does not signify;
-in other respects I have nothing substantial to complain of, nor is even
-this a cause of complaint. _Except for the loss of M. Heger's goodwill
-(if I have lost it,) I care for none of 'em_.'[2]
-
-Let us see what this letter, written eight months before Charlotte left
-Bruxelles, tells us about the altered facts of the relationships between
-herself and the Directress and Director of the School. First, it is no
-longer Monsieur and Madame Heger who are the only people Charlotte cares
-about in the establishment, _but it is only the goodwill of M. Heger
-that she would grieve to lose_. And Madame Heger, who so kindly invited
-her to consider the family sitting-room hers, now takes no notice of
-her, and, Charlotte knows it, has taken an aversion to her. And when M.
-Heger says, 'Don't you think, "Mees Charlotte," who is lonely without
-her sister Emily, should be taken more notice of?' Madame Heger replies
-coldly: '_If "Mees" is lonely, it is her own fault. Why does she not
-make friends with her compeers, Mesdemoiselles Blanche, Sophie and
-Haussé?_ They are of her rank; they follow the same profession; no, this
-young Englishwoman is full of the pride and narrowness of her race! She
-is without _bienveillance_: she esteems herself better than others, she
-makes her own unhappiness; _and it is not for her good to single her out
-amongst the other excellent under-mistresses as we have done_. Let her
-make herself friends amongst them: _let her learn to be amiable_.' And
-M. Heger, who thinks there is something true in this, because his
-unalterable opinion is that it belongs to the English character, and to
-the Protestant creed, to be proud, narrow, unamiable and without
-benevolence, lectures Charlotte in this sense. Here are the facts of the
-situation in May 1843.
-
-Now what has happened in these few months to so change the relationships
-between Charlotte and Madame Heger, and to render Monsieur Heger--_under
-Madame's influence_--less friendly and helpful than he had formerly
-been, in his efforts to encourage the studies, and brighten by gifts of
-books, and talks about them, the solitude of the English teacher? It is
-not very difficult to discover the cause of the change, if only critics
-with psychological insight would employ this quality, not to fabricate
-problems out of false impressions, but to penetrate the true
-significance of the evidence that lies open to one, of the actual
-circumstances and facts.
-
-The circumstance that explains the fact of Madame Heger's altered
-conduct and feeling towards the English under-mistress whom only a few
-months earlier she had invited to use her own sitting-room, and to
-regard herself as a member of the family, and whom _now_ she scarcely
-speaks to, and thinks should find companions with the other
-under-mistresses, is a discovery that Madame probably made, before even
-Charlotte herself had fully recognised what had happened. This discovery
-is that a change has taken place in Charlotte's sentiment towards her
-'Master in literature'; a sentiment that at first had not transgressed
-the limits of a cordial and affectionate appreciation of his kindness
-and of his talent and charm and power as a teacher--approved of by
-Madame Heger as a becoming sentiment in this young person, convenient,
-'convenable.' But as Charlotte's exclusive pleasure in M. Heger's
-society and conversation increases, with her distaste for the society
-and conversation of every one else with whom she is now in daily
-contact, and as the charm of his original personality grows, with her
-sense of the natural disparity between herself and the self-controlled
-Directress, whose rule of life is respect for what is _convenient,_ in
-the French sense of _la convenance_ (_i.e._ what is _becoming_) and of
-revolt against the vulgarity and profligacy she finds as the
-distinguishing characteristics of her fellow-governesses, this sentiment
-becomes transformed (insensibly and fatally, without her knowledge or
-will) into a passionate personal devotion--in other words, into a
-sentiment that does transgress very seriously indeed the limits of the
-sort of feeling that Madame Heger, in her double character of directress
-of a highly esteemed Pensionnat de Demoiselles, and of the wife of
-Monsieur Heger--esteems 'convenient,' in the case of an under-mistress
-in her establishment. It was not a question of ordinary jealousy at all.
-Madame Heger, a much more attractive woman than Charlotte Brontë in so
-far as her personal appearance was concerned, was absolutely convinced
-of the affection and fidelity of her husband, and of the entirely and
-exclusively professorial interest he took in assisting this clever and
-zealous and meritorious daughter of an evangelical Pastor, to qualify
-herself for a schoolmistress in her own country. It was entirely a
-question of the '_inconvenience_'--the unbecoming character of this
-unfortunate infatuation, that renders it entirely intolerable; something
-that must be got rid of at once; but as quietly as possible, without
-exciting remark, and with as much consideration for this imprudent,
-unhappy 'Mees Charlotte' as possible. The whole affair is a misfortune,
-of course, 'un malheur': but what one has to do, now it _has_ arrived,
-is to guard against even greater 'malheurs' for everybody concerned. For
-'Mees Charlotte' herself, first of all--what a 'malheur' should this
-'infatuation,' involuntary and blameless in intention, no doubt, but so
-utterly inconvenient, betray itself in some regrettable exhibition of
-feeling, most humiliating to herself, and most distressing to her only
-parent, the respectable widowed evangelical Pastor in Yorkshire! And
-then for the Pensionnat, what a 'malheur' should any gossip arise: and
-what sort of an effect would it produce upon the mind of parents of
-pupils, who most naturally would object to the knowledge of the
-existence even of a sentiment so inconvenient as this being brought to
-the knowledge of their young daughters? And confronted with these
-perils, Madame Heger's conclusion upon the only way of avoiding them, is
-really not a very unreasonable nor unkind one. It is that the sooner
-'Mees Brontë' returns to her home in Yorkshire, the better for herself,
-and for the interests and the tranquillity of the Director and the
-Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle: who wish to sever
-their relationships with her on friendly terms; who, in the future,
-when she has cured herself of this unhappy extravagance (as no doubt her
-good sense and excellent upbringing will assist her to do) hope to renew
-their intercourse with her; but who, in the circumstances that have
-arisen, think it better all intimacy should be suspended.
-
-Nor, having formed this conclusion, was Madame Heger's method of
-endeavouring to force Charlotte to adopt it also, either wilfully unkind
-or inconsiderate. Her method was to convey forcibly to Charlotte's
-knowledge _without any needless humiliating explanations_, that she, the
-Directress of the Pensionnat where Charlotte was under-mistress, has
-penetrated the secret of her feelings towards M. Heger, and consequently
-that the old terms between herself and Charlotte have become impossible,
-and that the necessity has arisen to assert her claims and to establish
-the rules that must be observed in the ordering of the Pensionnat and of
-the staff of teachers for which she is responsible. Without discussions
-or recriminations in connection with the reasons for this decision,
-these mere reasons, well known to Miss Brontë herself, convince her
-that it is not convenient 'Mees' should continue a teacher, or even an
-inmate, in her school any more; and surely this circumstance alone
-should point out to 'Mees' herself, what she ought to do? Let her do
-this, let her take the opportunity offered her of relieving Madame Heger
-of the painful necessity of touching upon distressing subjects, and the
-secret they share shall never be made known to any one, _not even to M.
-Heger himself_, who is entirely unconscious of it. An explanation could
-easily be found by 'Mees' for the necessity of her return to
-England:--her aged father's infirmities, the establishment of the school
-that she is now qualified to manage, etc.--and all this matter will
-arrange itself quietly. _To bring Charlotte to dismiss herself_ was
-Madame Heger's purpose: but in view of the slowness and reluctance of
-this obstinate Englishwoman to recognise what was 'becoming,' and
-expected from her, the immediate object became to guard against any
-self-betrayal by Charlotte of her state of feeling to other members of
-the establishment, _and especially to M. Heger,_ whom Madame knew to be
-entirely innocent of any warm feeling resembling romantic sentiment for
-the homely but intelligent and zealous Englishwoman, whose progress
-under his instruction and capacity for appreciating good literature made
-her interesting to him as a pupil, whilst her meritorious courage in
-working to qualify herself to earn her own bread as an instructress
-herself claimed his approval--but whom he had not as yet suspected of a
-tragical passion for him. _And Madame Heger esteemed it most undesirable
-he should ever make the discovery._ And _therefore_ her immediate care
-was to guard against the occasion of such a revelation being given: and
-_therefore_ she endeavours to stop private lessons given by M. Heger to
-Charlotte, or English lessons given by her in return; _therefore_ too,
-she works to prevent any intercourse or meetings between the Professor
-and this particular pupil, outside of the presence of spectators and
-listeners, whose unsympathetic but attentive eyes and ears will impose
-restraint upon this extravagant Charlotte; so little under the control
-of good sense and respect for what is becoming.
-
-But now these tactics followed by Madame Heger, although from her own
-point of view they were as considerate and judicious as the interests of
-Charlotte, the Pensionnat, and 'convenience' permitted, and although no
-personal jealousy, vindictiveness nor malice entered into them,
-nevertheless _from Charlotte's point of view_ were intolerable and
-cruel; and the torments they inflicted upon her during the long seven
-months she lived through this incessant conflict with Madame Heger,
-under cover of an outer show of politeness on both sides, were precisely
-the same torments of cheated expectancy, suspense, thwarted hope,
-disappointments, that she has painted in _Villette_, and the
-_Professor_, as inflicted upon the hapless governesses Lucy Snowe and
-Frances Henri, by those two cruel, pitiless head-mistresses Madame Beck
-and Mlle. Zoraïde Reuter. Yes:--but there was all the difference in the
-world between the circumstances arranged by the authoress in her two
-novels, and the circumstances as a mischievous destiny had entangled
-them in the true history.
-
-In the stories made to please her fancy by Charlotte, we have in
-_Villette_ Paul Emanuel unmarried--and in love with Lucy Snowe; but by
-the base contrivances of Madame Beck, a Jesuit priest, Père Silas, has
-been called in, to stir up superstitious dread of allying himself with a
-heretic in the mind of the good Catholic that Paul was, and so prevent
-him from carrying through certain tentative indications of the state of
-his affections that have awakened and justified the passionate but timid
-and self-despising Lucy Snowe. Nothing then can be more plain than the
-position here--Paul Emanuel and Lucy Snowe are being divided, and
-trouble is being created, by a horrid, jealous, mischievous Madame Beck,
-who wants Paul Emanuel to marry her, although she knows he loves Lucy,
-and that Lucy is in love with him, but too little self-confident, too
-feeble, in her dependent position, to assert her claims. In the
-_Professor_ it is much the same case, only Mlle. Zoraïde Reuter is more
-of a cat than Madame Beck, and less an evil genius, who demands
-admiration for her cleverness whilst Mlle. Zoraïde, who makes coarse
-love to the Professor, provokes contempt.
-
-Well but now here is the real case. Madame Heger knows that here is the
-English daughter of an Evangelical Pastor, who (although she is old
-enough to look after herself), is nevertheless under her (Madame's)
-protection, and behold this young woman has taken it into her head to
-conceive a most inconvenient infatuation for her husband, M. Heger! Now
-how is one to meet this situation in the best way for everybody? Happily
-the secret lies between herself and Mees Charlotte: it rests with Mees
-to take herself out of harm's way: and all is safe. But that is what she
-will not do. So here you have the position: this grown-up, obstinate
-Englishwoman, with her 'inconvenient' passion, always on the verge of
-exhibiting her sentiments in a way that may inform M. Heger--who is the
-best of men; most honourable, but still a man--who may or may not see
-how serious this is: who may tell one, 'Let _me_ talk reason to her,'
-which is the last course to take! It is true, Madame will have said to
-herself, 'I might take matters into my hands; and since she has no sense
-of 'convenience' herself, I might say: 'Mees, I exact this of you:
-_immediately_ you make up your trunks, and return to Yorkshire; you
-start to-morrow.' Yes, but what happens then? There are
-observations,--indignation is excited. M. Heger will say to me, 'What
-now is this sudden attitude you take up towards Mees? it is not just.'
-And if I explain, he may say: 'You imagine things; you women are not
-good to each other.' Or he may say: 'Let _me talk to Mees Charlotte_,'
-and then there will be _attaques de nerfs_--who can say? No, there is
-only one thing to do: as this Englishwoman has not herself any sense of
-'convenience.' We must be patient until the end of the year, when her
-term is finished. _Then she goes_, arrive what may. And, meanwhile, one
-must support it; only she must not meet M. Heger alone: and one must
-constantly take precautions, in this sense, against scenes.'
-
-Well, was there anything very cruel, or hard-hearted, or vindictive, in
-Madame Heger's conduct? If you are a psychologist, put yourself in her
-place. What could she have done with this entanglement of circumstances,
-all menacing what she most valued, a watchful preservation of
-'convenience,' most necessary in a Pensionnat de _Jeunes Filles_ of high
-repute? If any one will suggest a plan that would have been more
-considerate to Charlotte than the one she took, I should very much like
-to hear what plan? Even then, in the light of what I know of Madame
-Heger's incapability of a deliberate desire to torture, or inflict
-severe punishment on any pupil, or teacher, or living thing, I should
-still protest confidently that in all she did--that sweet and kind old
-schoolmistress of mine--in the days when she was twenty years younger
-than when I knew her--she _meant_ to be considerate and kind.
-
-Without attempting to decide who, between Charlotte and Madame Heger,
-was to blame, or whether either of them were to blame, here, at any
-rate, we have the conditions of feeling between these two women: each
-exasperated against the other, under the strain of a forced politeness,
-during the last seven months of Charlotte's residence in Bruxelles. No
-doubt, for both of them the strain was great. All this time (without
-saying it out aloud) Madame Heger was forcing upon Charlotte's
-attention, the '_inconvenience_' of her presence in the Pensionnat; the
-necessity for her return to England. All this time Charlotte--outwardly
-compliant with all the demands made upon her, that keep her writing
-letters at Madame's dictation (_in the hours when Monsieur is giving his
-lessons in class_), that send her upon messages to the other end of
-Bruxelles (_upon holidays when Monsieur's habit is to trim the vine
-above the Berceau in the garden_)--all this time, Charlotte's bitter
-protest spoke out in the gaze she fastened on the Directress: 'Merciless
-woman that you are! _you_ who have everything; who are his wife, the
-mother of his children, whom he loves; who will enjoy his conversation
-and his society, and the pleasant home you share with him, all your
-life; and who grudge me--I, who have nothing of all this, but who love
-him more--I, who in a few months must go out into the dark world,
-without the light his presence is to me; without the music his voice
-makes for me; without the delight his conversation is to my mind, and
-the complete satisfaction his society brings to my whole nature--and you
-grudge me these few months of happiness? Rich and cruel woman, who, in
-your selfish life possess all this, you are more cruel than Dives was to
-Lazarus; you grudge me even the crumbs that fall from your table.'
-
-
-[1] _Life of C.B._, p. 254.
-
-[2] _Life_, p. 258.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-THE CONFESSIONS AT ST. GUDULE
-
-
-We are now in a position to realise the emotions and experiences that
-lasted up to the eve of Charlotte's return to England. But there are two
-events that vary the incessant conflict with Madame Heger; and that help
-to form the basis of real experiences, expressed in the portraits (that
-are not historical pictures) of Zoraïde Reuter and of Madame Beck. These
-two events also re-appear, as scenes in _Villette, that did not take
-place in the way the authoress relates_ them; but that put us in
-possession of the parallel facts in Charlotte's true career: where she
-felt the very same emotions she describes in the novel. The first event
-gives us the actual, the original history, of what in _Villette_
-reappears in the imaginary account of Lucy Snowe's Confession: and
-serves there to introduce us to the Jesuit who is half a spy and half a
-saint--Père Silas. In Charlotte's life the event, as it is related by
-her in a letter to Emily, took place during that long and solitary
-vacation in the empty Pensionnat, where, from August to October 1843,
-Charlotte was left to face the position now made for her by Madame
-Heger's discovery of the Secret that, possessed by her enemy, could not
-remain hidden from Charlotte herself.
-
-Charlotte's letter to Emily begins by describing the desolation of this
-large house, with its deserted class-rooms, and silent garden, and
-galérie, and for her solitary companion only the repulsive-minded and
-malicious Mademoiselle Blanche, whom she has described in an earlier
-letter as a spy of Madame Heger's.
-
-'I should inevitably,' she writes, 'fall into the gulf of low spirits if
-I stayed always by myself.... Yesterday I went on a pilgrimage to the
-cemetery, and far beyond it, on to a hill where there was nothing but
-fields as far as the horizon. When I came back it was evening, but I had
-such a repugnance to return to the house which contained nothing that I
-cared for, that I kept treading the narrow streets in the neighbourhood
-of the Rue d'Isabelle, and avoiding it. I found myself opposite to _Ste.
-Gudule_; and the bell, whose voice you know, began to toll for evening
-_salût_. I went in quite alone (which procedure you will say is not much
-like me), wandered about the aisles (where a few old women were saying
-their prayers), till vespers. I stayed till they were over. Still I
-could not leave the church nor force myself to go home--to school, I
-mean. _An odd whim_ came into my head. In a solitary part of the
-cathedral six or seven people still remained, kneeling by the
-Confessionals. In two Confessionals I saw a Priest. I felt as if I did
-not care what I did, provided it was not absolutely wrong, and that it
-served to vary my life and yield a moment's interest. I took a fancy to
-change myself into a Catholic, and go and make _a real Confession_ to
-see what it was like. Knowing me as you do, you will think this odd,
-_but when people are by themselves they have singular fancies_. A
-penitent was occupied in confessing. They do not go into the sort of pew
-or cloister the priest occupies, but kneel down on the steps and
-confess through a grating. Both the confessor and the penitent whisper
-very low: you can hardly hear their voices. After I had watched two or
-three penitents go, and return, I approached at last, and knelt down in
-a niche which was just vacated. I had to kneel there ten minutes
-waiting, for on the other side was another penitent, invisible to me. At
-last that one went away, and a little wooden door inside the grating
-opened and I saw the Priest leaning his ear toward me. I was obliged to
-begin, and yet I did not know a word of the formula with which they
-always commence their confessions!... I began by saying I was a
-foreigner and had been brought up as a Protestant. The Priest asked if I
-was a Protestant then. I somehow could not tell a lie, and said yes. He
-replied that in that case I could not "_jouir du bonheur de la
-confesse_," but _I was determined to confess_, and at last he said he
-would allow me, because it might be the first step towards returning
-towards the true Church. _I actually did confess--a real Confession_.
-When I had done he told me his address, and said that every morning I
-was to go to the Rue du Parc to his house, and he would reason with me
-and try to convince me of the error and enormity of being a Protestant.
-I promised faithfully. Of course, however, the adventure stops here: and
-_I hope I shall never see the Priest again_. I think you had better not
-tell Papa this. He will not understand that it was _only a freak_, and
-will perhaps think I am going to turn Catholic.'
-
-Only 'a freak'?--an 'odd whim'? Even without the knowledge of the
-special facts we now possess, could any serious student of Charlotte
-Brontë believe it? Given what we know of her seriousness, of her
-religious temper, that cannot take spiritual things lightly, of her
-rational Protestant piety, of her antipathy to Catholic formulas--given
-all this as characteristic of her aspirations,--and as characteristics
-of her personality, shyness, and reserve carried almost to
-morbidness--can any one believe that mere _ennui_, a craving for
-variety, excitement, flung this normally shamefaced, timid Englishwoman
-down on her knees, on the stone steps of the Sainte Gudule
-Confessional; inspired her with the determination needed to withstand
-the Priest's objections to allow her, as a Protestant, _de jouir du
-bonheur de la confesse_; compelled her to insist upon her claim, by
-virtue of her dire need of this '_happiness_' (or at any rate of this
-_relief_) of unburthening her soul by a 'real Confession'? A _real_
-Confession--of _what_? What crime has this poor innocent Charlotte on
-her conscience that stands in such need of confession? No crime, we may
-be sure. Only the weight, the misery of this tragic 'Secret'; too
-intimate, too sacred to be confided even to those nearest to her,--even
-to Emily. But now that her 'enemy' holds it, too grievous a secret to
-remain unshared with Some One, who is not an enemy, nor yet a friend--a
-stranger, who will not blush nor tremble for her, will not see her
-whilst she whispers through the grating: whom she will not see, or meet
-again;--Some One, who by profession, is God's Delegate of Mercy to
-deliver the unwilling offender, who repents him of his secret sins,
-Some One who is pledged, when he has given pardon and consolation,
-_never to betray what he has heard--to forget it even_. Some One who,
-experienced in offering counsel and consolation, may (who can say?)
-offer some comfort or advice, assisting her to extricate herself from
-the snare into which she has fallen, and to recover safety.
-
-Does one not know what the 'Confession,' whispered through the grating,
-really was? Or can one doubt what the Priest's advice was? Was it not
-necessarily the same advice so urgently forced upon her by Madame Heger?
-She must escape from the peril of temptation: she must not show this
-tragic passion any mercy: she must break this spell: she must go back to
-England. She felt she could not do this thing of herself without 'God's
-special grace preventing her'? Therefore she must diligently seek to
-obtain this grace _by the aid of the Holy Catholic Church_--and she must
-call in the Rue du Parc--next morning. In so far as the last
-recommendation went, we know Charlotte did not follow it. _The
-adventure_--as she says herself, _stopped there_. Nor is there anything
-in her own story to indicate the existence of any real Jesuit, taking
-the place of the mischief-making Saint, Père Silas, familiar to readers
-of _Villette_. The Priest of Ste. Gudule comes to us as a more
-impressive personage just because Charlotte _never met him again._
-
-But his advice remained vividly present to her recollection we may feel
-sure. On the 23rd October, about a month after this event, she writes
-once more to Ellen Nussey:--
-
-'It is a curious position to be so utterly solitary in the midst of
-numbers. One day lately I felt as if I could bear it no longer _and I
-went to Madame Heger and gave her notice. If it had depended upon her I
-should certainly have soon been at liberty. But M. Heger having heard of
-what was in agitation, sent for me the day after and pronounced with
-vehemence his decision that I could not leave. I could not at that time
-have persevered in my intentions without exciting him to anger; and
-promised to stay a little while longer._'
-
-And so what had to be done in the end was postponed: and the old hidden
-enmity between Charlotte and Madame Heger went on for another three
-months.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-THE LEAVE-TAKING--THE SCENE IN THE
-CLASS-ROOM--CHARLOTTE LEAVES BRUSSELS
-
-
-Two other events that we know must have happened within a few days of
-Charlotte's departure from Brussels, 2nd January 1844, are lit up by the
-emotions painted in _Villette._ We cannot doubt that these emotions were
-suffered by the woman of genius who describes them, because it is, not
-imagination, but remembrance, that has given these pages the magical
-touch of life, the 'vibration' that translates words 'into feelings,' so
-that we are not readers, but witnesses, of what this tormented heart
-endures.
-
-Anguish of suspense; heart-sickness of hope deferred; despair, following
-on repeated disappointment; rage and indignation at the cruelty and
-injustice of this outrage done to a Love, that has wronged no one,
-robbed no one, that has no desire to inflict injury on others; yet that
-is refused the right that even the condemned criminal is _not_
-refused,--to bid farewell to what he holds most dear on earth before he
-goes forth to execution--all these feelings are painted in the wonderful
-pages, where the circumstances of the story nevertheless are legendary,
-and belong to the parable of Lucy Snowe: but where the sufferings Lucy
-endures on the eve of her separation from Paul Emanuel were facts stored
-up in the experiences of Charlotte Brontë.
-
-Like the incident of Lucy Snowe's 'Confession,' the passages that in
-_Villette_ describe the efforts made by Madame Beck and the Jesuit, Père
-Silas, to prevent Paul Emanuel from bidding Lucy farewell, before he
-starts for his voyage to Basseterres in Guadeloupe, are pages from the
-spiritual life of Charlotte Brontë--taken out of their proper frame of
-circumstances, and altered in some important details. But outside of
-these alterations, one recognises their truthfulness, in the vivid light
-they throw upon the facts told us in Charlotte's correspondence.
-
-In the novel, Paul Emanuel is expected to visit the class-room at a
-certain hour and to take farewell of his pupils. In connection with the
-real events, it has to be remembered that Charlotte left Bruxelles on
-the 2nd January, that is to say, in a period when, from Christmas day to
-perhaps the 7th January, there would be holidays, and the Bruxelles
-pupils would have gone to their homes. It is probable then that the
-English teacher, before the breaking-up, would have taken her farewell
-of her pupils in the class-rooms--this was the usual practice when a
-teacher was leaving for good--and that M. Heger, whom she hoped to have
-seen upon this occasion, would have been absent.
-
-There would have been also a last lesson in class given by M. Heger
-before the breaking-up for these short Christmas holidays--the last
-lesson of his, that Charlotte, before she quitted the Pensionnat for
-ever, would have had the chance of attending. But, _like Madame Beck_,
-Madame Heger would have kept her English teacher employed in writing
-letters at her dictation, in her private sitting-room, whilst this
-class was going on. Like Lucy, Charlotte would have broken away at the
-end, when she heard the sound of moving forms, and shutting desks,
-proving the lesson ended. But here also Madame Heger would have followed
-her (even as Madame Beck followed Lucy Snowe)--have kept the
-under-mistress in the background, and then have taken possession of M.
-Heger, on the plea of some business matter demanding his attention.
-
-Certainly also (it seems to me) we may believe in the incident of the
-scrap of paper, handed by one of the smallest girls in the school, to
-Charlotte, after these two exploits of Madame Heger's diplomacy,
-intended to avoid the danger--_and was not the danger real?_--of an
-emotional scene of leave-taking, that might thwart her endeavour to get
-Charlotte safely out of the house, without any 'inconvenient'
-revelations. M. Heger may, or may not, have been as ignorant of all that
-was going on between his wife and 'Mees Charlotte' as Madame Heger
-desired him to be. But it would have been entirely like him, whether he
-knew what was happening or not, to wish for an emotional leave-taking
-with his English pupil. M. Heger liked to foster a certain amount of
-sensibility in his relationships with his pupils--it did not amount to
-more than a taste for dramatic situations where he had an interesting
-part to play that gave his histrionic talents a good field of exercise.
-But the message warning Charlotte '_that he must see her at leisure,
-before she left, and talk with her at length_,' appears to me just the
-sort of message M. Heger would have sent. And more especially he would
-have acted thus if _in reality he had forgotten all about Charlotte's
-near time of departure_ and then had suddenly remembered it, and that
-'Mees' would feel hurt, and think he had behaved coldly to her. In this
-case he would have tried to put himself right and to persuade her that
-he had not forgotten at all, but had arranged a special opportunity for
-a long talk, etc. And Charlotte believing it all, upon the strength of
-this note, would have lingered on in his class-room, expecting M.
-Heger,--who never appeared.
-
-
-[Illustration: M. HEGER AT SIXTY (He was born in 1809: hence
-thirty-four, in 1843, when Charlotte bade him farewell)]
-
-
-It seems to me that, whilst it is _possible_ that Madame Heger _may_
-have prevented her husband from keeping the appointment, it is also
-quite _possible_ that M. Heger may have again forgotten all about it?
-That would have been like him too,--as I shall show by and by.
-
-But what I believe to have _certainly happened is that the scene between
-Madame Heger and Charlotte took place just as the authoress of
-'Villette' described_. That interview wears, to my mind, the stamp of
-truth.
-
-     The last day broke. Now would he visit us. Now would he come
-     and speak his farewell, or he would vanish mute, and be seen
-     by us nevermore.
-
-     This alternative seemed to be present in the mind of not a
-     living creature in that school. All rose at the usual hour;
-     all breakfasted as usual; all, without reference to, or
-     apparent thought of, their late professor, betook themselves
-     with wonted phlegm to their ordinary duties.
-
-     So oblivious was the house, so tame, so trained its
-     proceedings, so inexpectant its aspect, I scarce knew how to
-     breathe in an atmosphere thus stagnant, thus smothering.
-     Would no one lend me a voice? Had no one a wish, no one a
-     word, no one a prayer to which I could say Amen?
-
-     I had seen them unanimous in demand for the merest trifle--a
-     treat, a holiday, a lesson's remission; they could not, they
-     _would_ not now band to besiege Madame Beck, and insist on a
-     last interview with a master who had certainly been loved,
-     at least by some--loved as _they_ could love; but, oh! what
-     _is_ the love of the multitude?
-
-     I knew where he lived; I knew where he was to be heard of or
-     communicated with. The distance was scarce a stone's-throw.
-     Had it been in the next room, unsummoned I could make no use
-     of my knowledge. To follow, to seek out, to remind, to
-     recall--for these things I had no faculty.
-
-     M. Emanuel might have passed within reach of my arm. Had he
-     passed silent and unnoticing, silent and stirless should I
-     have suffered him to go by.
-
-     Morning wasted. Afternoon came, and I thought all was over.
-     My heart trembled in its place. My blood was troubled in its
-     current. I was quite sick, and hardly knew how to keep at my
-     post or do my work. Yet the little world round me plodded on
-     indifferent; all seemed jocund, free of care, or fear, or
-     thought. The very pupils who, seven days since, had wept
-     hysterically at a startling piece of news, appeared quite to
-     have forgotten the news, its import, and their emotion.
-
-     A little before five o'clock, the hour of dismissal, Madame
-     Beck sent for me to her chamber, to read over and translate
-     some English letter she had received, and to write for her
-     the answer. Before settling to this work, I observed that
-     she softly closed the two doors of her chamber; she even
-     shut and fastened the casement, though it was a hot day, and
-     free circulation of air was usually regarded by her as
-     indispensable. Why this precaution? A keen suspicion, an
-     almost fierce distrust, suggested such question. Did she
-     want to exclude sound? What sound?
-
-     I listened as I had never listened before; I listened like
-     the evening and winter wolf, snuffing the snow, scenting
-     prey, and hearing far off the traveller's tramp. Yet I could
-     both listen and write. About the middle of the letter I
-     heard what checked my pen--a tread in the vestibule. No
-     door-bell had rung; Rosine--acting doubtless by orders--had
-     anticipated such reveille. Madame saw me halt. She coughed,
-     made a bustle, spoke louder. The tread had passed on to the
-     _classes_.
-
-     'Proceed,' said Madame; but my hand was fettered, my ear
-     enchained, my thoughts were carried off captive.
-
-     The _classes_ formed another building; the hall parted them
-     from the dwelling-house. Despite distance and partition, I
-     heard the sudden stir of numbers, a whole division rising at
-     once.
-
-     'They are putting away work,' said madame.
-
-     It was indeed the hour to put away work, but why that sudden
-     hush, that instant quell of the tumult?
-
-     'Wait, madam; I will see what it is.'
-
-     And I put down my pen and left her. Left her? No. She would
-     not be left. Powerless to detain me, she rose and followed,
-     close as my shadow. I turned on the last step of the stair.
-
-     'Are you coming too?' I asked.
-
-     'Yes,' she said, meeting my glance with a peculiar aspect--a
-     look clouded, yet resolute. We proceeded then, not together,
-     but she walked in my steps.
-
-     He was come. Entering the first _classe_, I saw him. There
-     once more appeared the form most familiar. I doubt not they
-     had tried to keep him away, but he was come.
-
-     The girls stood in a semicircle; he was passing round,
-     giving his farewells, pressing each hand, touching with his
-     lips each cheek. This last ceremony foreign custom permitted
-     at such a parting--so solemn, to last so long.
-
-     I felt it hard that Madame Beck should dog me thus,
-     following and watching me close. My neck and shoulder shrank
-     in fever under her breath; I became terribly goaded.
-
-     He was approaching; the semicircle was almost travelled
-     round; he came to the last pupil; he turned. But Madame was
-     before me; she had stepped out suddenly; she seemed to
-     magnify her proportions and amplify her drapery; she
-     eclipsed me; I was hid. She knew my weakness and deficiency;
-     she could calculate the degree of moral paralysis, the total
-     default of self-assertion, with which, in a crisis, I could
-     be struck. She hastened to her kinsman, she broke upon him
-     volubly, she mastered his attention, she hurried him to the
-     door--the glass door opening on the garden. I think he
-     looked round. Could I but have caught his eye, courage, I
-     think, would have rushed in to aid feeling, and there would
-     have been a charge, and, perhaps, a rescue; but already the
-     room was all confusion, the semicircle broken into groups,
-     my figure was lost among thirty more conspicuous. Madame had
-     her will. Yes, she got him away, and he had not seen me. He
-     thought me absent. Five o'clock struck, the loud dismissal
-     bell rang, the school separated, the room emptied.
-
-     There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and
-     distraction in some certain minutes I then passed alone--a
-     grief inexpressible over a loss unendurable. _What_ should I
-     do--oh! _what_ should I do--when all my life's hope was thus
-     torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart?
-
-     What I _should_ have done I know not, when a little
-     child--the least child in the school--broke with its
-     simplicity and its unconsciousness into the raging yet
-     silent centre of that inward conflict.
-
-     'Mademoiselle,' lisped the treble voice, 'I am to give you
-     that. M. Paul said I was to seek you all over the house,
-     from the _grenier_ to the cellar, and when I found you to
-     give you that.'
-
-     And the child delivered a note. The little dove dropped on
-     my knee, its olive leaf plucked off. I found neither address
-     nor name, only these words,--
-
-     'It was not my intention to take leave of you when I said
-     good-bye to the rest, but I hoped to see you in _classe_. I
-     was disappointed. The interview is deferred. Be ready for
-     me. Ere I sail, I must see you at leisure, and speak with
-     you at length. Be ready. My moments are numbered, and, just
-     now, monopolized; besides, I have a private business on hand
-     which I will not share with any, nor communicate, even to
-     you.--Paul.'
-
-     'Be ready!' Then it must be this evening. Was he not to go
-     on the morrow? Yes; of that point I was certain. I had seen
-     the date of his vessel's departure advertised. Oh! _I_ would
-     be ready. But could that longed-for meeting really be
-     achieved? The time was so short, the schemers seemed so
-     watchful, so active, so hostile. The way of access appeared
-     strait as a gully, deep as a chasm; Apollyon straddled
-     across it, breathing flames. Could my Greatheart overcome?
-     Could my guide reach me?
-
-     Who might tell? Yet I began to take some courage, some
-     comfort. It seemed to me that I felt a pulse of his heart
-     beating yet true to the whole throb of mine.
-
-     I waited my champion. Apollyon came trailing his hell behind
-     him. I think if eternity held torment, its form would not be
-     fiery rack, nor its nature despair. I think that on a
-     certain day amongst those days which never dawned, and will
-     not set, an angel entered Hades, stood, shone, smiled,
-     delivered a prophecy of conditional pardon, kindled a
-     doubtful hope of bliss to come, not now, but at a day and
-     hour unlooked for, revealed in his own glory and grandeur
-     the height and compass of his promise--spoke thus, then
-     towering, became a star, and vanished into his own heaven.
-     His legacy was suspense--a worse born than despair.
-
-     All that evening I waited, trusting in the dove-sent olive
-     leaf, yet in the midst of my trust terribly fearing. My fear
-     pressed heavy. Cold and peculiar, I knew it for the partner
-     of a rarely-belied presentiment. The first hours seemed long
-     and slow; in spirit I clung to the flying skirts of the
-     last. They passed like drift cloud--like the rack scudding
-     before a storm.
-
-     Prayers were over; it was bed-time; my co-inmates were all
-     retired. I still remained in the gloomy first _classe_,
-     forgetting, or at least disregarding, rules I had never
-     forgotten or disregarded before.
-
-     How long I paced that _classe_, I cannot tell; I must have
-     been afoot many hours. Mechanically had I moved aside
-     benches and desks, and had made for myself a path down its
-     length. There I walked, and there, when certain that the
-     whole household were abed and quite out of hearing, there I
-     at last wept. Reliant on night, confiding in solitude, I
-     kept my tears sealed, my sobs chained, no longer. They
-     heaved my heart; they tore their way. In this house, what
-     grief could be sacred!
-
-     Soon after eleven o'clock--a very late hour in the Rue
-     Fossette--the door unclosed, quietly, but not stealthily; a
-     lamp's flame invaded the moonlight. Madame Beck entered,
-     with the same composed air as if coming on an ordinary
-     occasion, at an ordinary season. Instead of at once
-     addressing me, she went to her desk, took her keys, and
-     seemed to seek something. She loitered over this feigned
-     search long, too long. She was calm, too calm. My mood
-     scarce endured the pretence. Driven beyond common rage, two
-     hours since I had left behind me wonted respects and fears.
-     Led by a touch and ruled by a word under usual
-     circumstances, no yoke could now be borne, no curb obeyed.
-
-     'It is more than time for retirement,' said madame. 'The
-     rule of the house has already been transgressed too long.'
-
-     Madame met no answer. I did not check my walk. When she came
-     in my way I put her out of it.
-
-     'Let me persuade you to calm, Meess; let me lead you to your
-     chamber,' said she, trying to speak softly.
-
-     'No!' I said. 'Neither you nor another shall persuade or
-     lead me.'
-
-     'Your bed shall be warmed. Goton is sitting up still. She
-     shall make you comfortable. She shall give you a sedative.'
-
-     'Madame,' I broke out, 'you are a sensualist. Under all your
-     serenity, your peace, and your decorum, you are an undenied
-     sensualist. Make your own bed warm and soft; take sedatives
-     and meats, and drinks spiced and sweet, as much as you will.
-     If you have any sorrow or disappointment (and perhaps you
-     have--nay, I _know_ you have) seek your own palliatives in
-     your own chosen resources. Leave me, however. _Leave me_, I
-     say!'
-
-     'I must send another to watch you, Meess; I must send
-     Goton.'
-
-     'I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my
-     life, and my troubles. O madame! in _your_ hand there is
-     both chill and poison. You envenom and you paralyse.'
-
-     'What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot
-     marry.'
-
-     'Dog in the manger!' I said, for I knew she secretly wanted
-     him, and had always wanted him. She called him
-     'insupportable'; she railed at him for a 'devot.' She did
-     not love; but she wanted to marry that she might bind him to
-     her interest. Deep into some of madame's secrets I had
-     entered, I know not how--by an intuition or an inspiration
-     which came to me, I know not whence. In the course of living
-     with her, too, I had slowly learned that, unless with an
-     inferior, she must ever be a rival. She was _my_ rival,
-     heart and soul, though secretly, under the smoothest
-     bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.
-
-     Two minutes I stood over madame, feeling that the whole
-     woman was in my power, because in some moods, such as the
-     present, in some stimulated states of perception, like that
-     of this instant, her habitual disguise, her mask, and her
-     domino were to me a mere network reticulated with holes; and
-     I saw underneath a being heartless, self-indulgent, and
-     ignoble. She quietly retreated from me. Meek and
-     self-possessed, though very uneasy, she said, 'If I would
-     not be persuaded to take rest, she must reluctantly leave
-     me.' Which she did incontinent, perhaps even more glad to
-     get away than I was to see her vanish.
-
-     This was the sole flash-eliciting, truth-extorting rencontre
-     which ever occurred between me and Madame Beck; this short
-     night scene was never repeated. It did not one whit change
-     her manner to me. I do not know that she revenged it. I do
-     not know that she hated me the worse for my fell candour. I
-     think she bucklered herself with the secret philosophy of
-     her strong mind, and resolved to forget what it irked her to
-     remember. I know that to the end of our mutual lives there
-     occurred no repetition of, no allusion to, that fiery
-     passage.
-
-
-Is it possible to doubt that this 'fiery passage,'--or one strangely
-like it--went to the building up of the impressions and emotions that
-transformed the early memories of Madame Heger, of whom Charlotte once
-spoke so kindly in her letters, as a generous friend who had offered her
-a post in her school more from a kind wish to help her than from selfish
-motives?
-
-We have another scene of which again, it seems to me, we cannot doubt
-the autobiographical reality. If one need proof of this, it may be
-found in the admirable criticism of _Villette_ by Mrs. Humphry Ward, who
-judges the book exclusively as the author's _literary masterpiece_. In
-this masterpiece, Mrs. Humphry Ward finds one notable flaw:--_it is this
-very passage_--which the critic affirms (and no doubt she is quite
-right) does not strike her as a convincing nor even as a credible
-account of the sentiments or behaviour that could have belonged to Lucy
-Snowe, the heroine in _Villette._ 'Lucy Snowe,' this critic complains,
-'could never have broken down, never have appealed for mercy, never have
-cried "_My heart will break_" before her treacherous rival Madame Beck
-in Paul Emanuel's presence! A reader by virtue of the very force of the
-effect produced upon him by the whole creation has a right to protest,
-incredible. No woman, least of all Lucy Snowe, could have so understood
-her own cause, could have so fought her own battle.'
-
-I am ready to accept this sentence as an entirely authoritative literary
-sentence, first of all on account of the unquestionable claims of the
-critic who utters it to pronounce judgment on these matters; and then
-because I feel myself entirely unable, by reason of my personal
-acquaintanceships with the real people dressed up in strange disguises
-in this book, and placed in positions that the real people never
-occupied, to judge this particular novel, _Villette_, from a purely
-literary standpoint. Thus I agree that Mrs. Humphry Ward is right when
-she says that Lucy Snowe, _by virtue of the very force of the effect
-produced by this creation_, could not have said, '_My heart will break,'
-before her treacherous rival Madame Beck, in Paul Emanuel's presence_. I
-admit this, because Lucy Snowe, Madame Beck and Paul Emanuel, if not
-absolutely 'creations,' in the sense of being imaginary characters, are
-nevertheless different people from Charlotte Brontë, Madame Heger and
-Monsieur Heger, and their relationships to each other are different.
-Thus, in the novel Lucy Snowe is not only in love with Paul Emanuel, but
-she has a perfect right to be in love with him, not only because he is
-unmarried, but also because he has given her very good reason to
-believe he is in love with her: and Madame Beck has no sort of right to
-interfere with the lover of her English governess, and her cousin the
-Professor; and all her schemes to keep these two sympathetic creatures
-apart are absolutely unjustifiable, and the results of jealousy and
-selfishness. In other words, Lucy has the _beau rôle_ in the piece,--she
-has no reason to say, 'My heart will break,' because Madame Beck
-intrudes upon her interview with Paul Emanuel.
-
-But Charlotte had not the _beau rôle_, but the tragic one, in the real
-drama. The Directress, who stands between her and the beloved Professor,
-is not her rival, but the Professor's wife. And the _beau rôle_, in the
-sense of having the right to stand in the way, and also in being the
-woman preferred by the man whom both women love, is Madame Heger's in
-every way, for Madame Heger is charming to look at, and Charlotte plain.
-Therefore it is not in the least incredible, but it seems so natural as
-to be almost inevitably true, that when in the very moment that poor
-Charlotte has obtained, after so much suspense and waiting, and as the
-result of a heaven-sent accident, the almost despaired of chance of a
-personal interview with her loved Professor, before she loses sight of
-him, perhaps for ever, and when in this moment, and just when he has
-taken her hand in his,... Madame Heger enters, and thrusts herself
-between them, and commands her husband, _'Come, Constantin_,' and
-Charlotte believes he will obey, it seems to me so eminently credible as
-to be almost inevitably true, that what Charlotte describes happened,
-and that _then_, in dread of this new frustration of the hope so long
-deferred, an anguish that 'defied suppression' rang out in the cry 'My
-heart will break!' Put oneself in Charlotte's place, and it seems to me
-the emotion startled to expression by this new shock, expresses just
-what one knows she felt. And, therefore, I find it myself impossible to
-doubt that this account is literally true, and may and should be studied
-in the light of the assurance that we have here the faithful description
-of what really took place, upon the very day, perhaps, when Charlotte
-left Bruxelles.
-
-Let us leave Lucy Snowe's love-story on one side, and judge this page as
-one torn out of Charlotte's life--and then decide whether it rings true.
-
-     Shall I yet see him before he goes? Will he bear me in mind?
-     Does he purpose to come? Will this day--will the next hour
-     bring him? or must I again essay that corroding pain of long
-     attent, that rude agony of rupture at the close, that mute,
-     mortal wrench, which, in at once uprooting hope and doubt,
-     shakes life, while the hand that does the violence cannot be
-     caressed to pity, because absence interposes her barrier.
-
-     It was the _Feast of the Assumption_[1]; no school was held.
-     The boarders and teachers, after attending mass in the
-     morning, were gone a long walk into the country to take
-     their _goûter_, or afternoon meal, at some farmhouse. I did
-     not go with them, for now but two days remained ere the
-     _Paul et Virginie_ must sail, and I was clinging to my last
-     chance, as the living waif of a wreck clings to his last
-     raft or cable.
-
-     There was some joiner-work to do in the first _classe_, some
-     bench or desk to repair. Holidays were often turned to
-     account for the performance of these operations, which
-     could not be executed when the rooms were filled with
-     pupils. As I sat solitary, purposing to adjourn to the
-     garden and leave the coast clear, but too listless to fulfil
-     my own intent, I heard the workmen coming.
-
-     Foreign artisans and servants do everything by couples. I
-     believe it would take two Labassecourian carpenters to drive
-     a nail. While tying on my bonnet, which had hitherto hung by
-     its ribbons from my idle hand, I vaguely and momentarily
-     wondered to hear the step of but one _ouvrier_. I noted,
-     too--as captives in dungeons find sometimes dreary leisure
-     to note the merest trifles--that this man wore shoes, and
-     not sabots. I concluded that it must be the master-carpenter
-     coming to inspect before he sent his journeymen. I threw
-     round me my scarf. He advanced; he opened the door. My back
-     was towards it. I felt a little thrill, a curious sensation,
-     too quick and transient to be analysed. I turned, I stood in
-     the supposed master-artisan's presence. Looking towards the
-     doorway I saw it filled with a figure, and my eyes printed
-     upon my brain the picture of M. Paul.
-
-     Hundreds of the prayers with which we weary Heaven bring to
-     the suppliant no fulfilment. Once haply in life one golden
-     gift falls prone in the lap--one boon full and bright,
-     perfect from Fruition's mint.
-
-     M. Emanuel wore the dress in which he probably purposed to
-     travel--a surtout, guarded with velvet. I thought him
-     prepared for instant departure, and yet I had understood
-     that two days were yet to run before the ship sailed. He
-     looked well and cheerful. He looked kind and benign. He came
-     in with eagerness; he was close to me in one second; he was
-     all amity. It might be his bridegroom-mood which thus
-     brightened him. Whatever the cause, I could not meet his
-     sunshine with cloud. If this were my last moment with him, I
-     would not waste it in forced, unnatural distance. I loved
-     him well--too well not to smite out of my path even Jealousy
-     herself, when she would have obstructed a kind farewell. A
-     cordial word from his lips, or a gentle look from his eyes,
-     would do me good for all the span of life that remained to
-     me. It would be comfort in the last strait of loneliness. I
-     would take it--I would taste the elixir, and pride should
-     not spill the cup.
-
-     The interview would be short, of course. He would say to me
-     just what he had said to each of the assembled pupils. He
-     would take and hold my hand two minutes. He would touch my
-     cheek with his lips for the first, last, only time, and
-     then--no more. Then, indeed, the final parting, then the
-     wide separation, the great gulf I could not pass to go to
-     him, across which, haply, he would not glance to remember
-     me.
-
-     He took my hand in one of his; with the other he put back my
-     bonnet. He looked into my face, his luminous smile went out,
-     his lips expressed something almost like the wordless
-     language of a mother who finds a child greatly and
-     unexpectedly changed, broken with illness, or worn out by
-     want. A check supervened.
-
-     'Paul, Paul!' said a woman's hurried voice behind--'Paul,
-     come into the _salon_. I have yet a great many things to say
-     to you--conversation for the whole day--and so has Victor;
-     and Josef is here. Come, Paul--come to your friends.'
-
-     Madame Beck, brought to the spot by vigilance or an
-     inscrutable instinct, pressed so near she almost thrust
-     herself between me and M. Emanuel. 'Come, Paul!' she
-     reiterated, her eye grazing me with its hard ray like a
-     steel stylet. She pushed against her kinsman. I thought he
-     receded; I thought he would go. Pierced deeper than I could
-     endure, made now to feel what defied suppression, I cried,--
-
-     'My heart will break!'
-
-     What I felt seemed literal heartbreak; but the seal of
-     another fountain yielded under the strain. One breath from
-     M. Paul, the whisper, 'Trust me!' lifted a load, opened an
-     outlet. With many a deep sob, with thrilling, with icy
-     shiver, with strong trembling, and yet with relief, I wept.
-
-     'Leave her to me; it is a crisis. I will give her a cordial,
-     and it will pass,' said the calm Madame Beck.
-
-     To be left to her and her cordial seemed to me something
-     like being left to the poisoner and her bowl. When M. Paul
-     answered deeply, harshly, and briefly, 'Laissez-moi!' in the
-     grim sound I felt a music strange, strong, but life-giving.
-
-     'Laissez-moi!' he repeated, his nostrils opening, and his
-     facial muscles all quivering as he spoke.
-
-     'But this will never do,' said madame with sternness.
-
-     More sternly rejoined her kinsman,--
-
-     'Sortez d'ici!'
-
-     'I will send for Père Silas; on the spot I will send for
-     him,' she threatened pertinaciously.
-
-     'Femme!' cried the professor, not now in his deep tones, but
-     in his highest and most excited key--'femme! sortez à
-     l'instant!'
-
-     He was roused, and I loved him in his wrath with a passion
-     beyond what I had yet felt.
-
-     'What you do is wrong,' pursued madame; 'it is an act
-     characteristic of men of your unreliable, imaginative
-     temperament--a step impulsive, injudicious, inconsistent--a
-     proceeding vexatious, and not estimable in the view of
-     persons of steadier and more resolute character.'
-
-     'You know not what I have of steady and resolute in me,'
-     said he, 'but you shall see; the event shall teach you.
-     Modeste,' he continued, less fiercely, 'be gentle, be
-     pitying, be a woman. Look at this poor face, and relent. You
-     know I am your friend and the friend of your friends; in
-     spite of your taunts you well and deeply know I may be
-     trusted. Of sacrificing myself I made no difficulty, but my
-     heart is pained by what I see. It _must_ have and give
-     solace. _Leave me!_'
-
-     This time, in the '_leave me_' there was an intonation so
-     bitter and so imperative, I wondered that even Madame Beck
-     herself could for one moment delay obedience. But she stood
-     firm; she gazed upon him dauntless; she met his eyes,
-     forbidding and fixed as stone. She was opening her lips to
-     retort. I saw over all M. Paul's face a quick rising light
-     and fire. I can hardly tell how he managed the movement. It
-     did not seem violent; it kept the form of courtesy. He gave
-     his hand; it scarce touched her, I thought; she ran, she
-     whirled from the room; she was gone, and the door shut, in
-     one second.
-
-     The flash of passion was all over very soon. He smiled as he
-     told me to wipe my eyes; he waited quietly till I was calm,
-     dropping from time to time a stilling, solacing word. Ere
-     long I sat beside him once more myself--reassured, not
-     desperate, nor yet desolate; not friendless, not hopeless,
-     not sick of life and seeking death.
-
-     'It made you very sad, then, to lose your friend?' said he.
-
-     'It kills me to be forgotten, monsieur,' I said. 'All these
-     weary days I have not heard from you one word, and I was
-     crushed with the possibility, growing to certainty, that you
-     would depart without saying farewell.'
-
-     'Must I tell you what I told Modeste Beck--that you do not
-     know me? Must I show and teach you my character? You _will_
-     have proof that I can be a firm friend? Without clear proof
-     this hand will not lie still in mine, it will not trust my
-     shoulder as a safe stay? Good. The proof is ready. I come to
-     justify myself.'
-
-     'Say anything, teach anything, prove anything, monsieur; I
-     can listen now.'
-
-After this, in _Villette_, the story drifts away from the real
-experience of Charlotte herself, not only in the circumstances related,
-but even in the emotions pictured, now painted, not from what she has
-felt herself, but from what she imagines for her heroine, that other
-happier self, lifted up into the heaven of romance, who, assured of Paul
-Emanuel's love, and his betrothed, waits and works in the school where
-he has appointed her Directress; in patient expectation of his
-return,--_that never comes to pass!_ For (why or wherefore, no literary
-critic of _Villette_ who measures the book by simply artistic standards
-can find any reason to explain) Charlotte won't let Lucy Snowe, the
-heroine, who is her other self, find happiness at last with Paul
-Emanuel: or even find him again, after that cruel separation, all due to
-the wicked craft and selfish jealousy of Madame Beck. Destiny
-interferes; a storm; a shipwreck--one is not told _what_ has happened:
-one is made to hear wailing winds and moaning ocean, that is all; we
-know nothing further than this: _Lucy Snowe waited and hoped; hoped and
-waited; but Paul Emanuel never came back._
-
-But, at any rate, before he sailed on that last fatal voyage, all
-misunderstandings, all doubts had been swept away. He had driven Madame
-Beck from the room, and shown her his contempt and indignation. He had,
-with tenderness and passion, declared his love for Lucy; and had asked
-her to be his wife. This is what had followed after those scenes
-between Lucy and Madame Beck in the late night scene in the class-rooms
-and between Lucy and Paul Emanuel, when Madame Beck is put out of the
-room by Paul Emanuel, who insists upon saying good-bye to Lucy.
-
-All that we know of what followed these scenes, enacted under different
-circumstances, in Charlotte's life, must be gathered, not by a quite
-literal acceptance, but by an intelligent and impartial weighing, of her
-statements, contained in a letter written on the 23rd January 1844,
-three weeks after her return to Haworth.
-
-'I suffered much before I left Brussels. I think, however long I live, I
-shall not forget what the parting with M. Heger cost me: it grieved me
-so much to grieve him, who had been so true, kind and disinterested a
-friend. At parting, he gave me a kind of diploma certifying my abilities
-as a teacher sealed with the seal of the Athenée Royal of which he is a
-professor.... I do not know whether you feel as I do, but there are
-times when it appears to me as if all my ideas and feelings, except a
-few friendships and affections, are changed from what they used to be.
-Something in me which used to be enthusiasm is tamed down and broken. I
-no longer regard myself as young--indeed I shall soon be
-twenty-eight--and it seems as if I ought to be working and having the
-rough realities of the world as other people do.'[2]
-
-
-[1] New Year's Day, perhaps? Charlotte left Bruxelles 2nd January 1843.
-
-[2] _Life_, p. 273.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-THE LOVE-LETTERS OF A ROMANTIC[1]
-
-
-Taking up the study of Charlotte's letters written to M. Heger after her
-return to Haworth, and reading them in the light of what we know of the
-circumstances and emotions that have formed the feelings, and decided
-the tone and attitude of the writer, what do we find to be the sentiment
-they reveal to us?
-
-Is it the 'enthusiasm for a great man,' and the desire (for the sake of
-vanity, or of amusement) to keep up a correspondence with him?
-
-Or is it the intellectual need of this teacher's instructions and
-advice, as a means of mental improvement?
-
-Or is it the want of a companion to exchange ideas with, who is a
-brighter and more cultivated being than the Nusseys, Taylors, Woolers,
-and the others?
-
-Or is it the pleasure of having a man friend, in the case of a woman who
-is neither pretty, nor young, nor silly, enough to indulge in an
-ordinary flirtation?
-
-Or is it none amongst these several forms of desire, or want, that seeks
-its own good?
-
-Is it love?--a love so exalted, so passionate, so personal, so distinct
-from any other instinct or interest, physical, social or intellectual,
-that this sentiment stands out, in the order of human feelings, as
-honourable not only to the heart that feels it, but to human nature: so
-that brought into touch with it, one's own heart is uplifted above the
-common world, and gladdened '_by the sense_,' as Byron said,[2] '_of the
-existence of Love in its most extended and sublime capacity and of our
-own participation of its good and of its glory._[3]
-
-My contention is that it _is_ this romantic Love that reveals itself in
-Charlotte's letters to M. Heger. And for this reason, I agree with Mr.
-Clement Shorter that they put her upon a higher pedestal than ever. For
-to have a heart capable of this great and glorious, albeit often
-tragical, romantic Love, that 'seeketh not its own,' and compared with
-which all other sorts of love, that _do_ seek their own, are as sounding
-brass and a tinkling cymbal is, _independently of deeds or works_,
-greatly to serve mankind. For it is to stand as a witness, amongst the
-meannesses of mortal and worldly things, to the existence of Something
-personal and immortal in the soul and heart of man, helping him '_to
-gild his dross thereby_.'[4] Something sovereign, that, quite
-independently of forms of belief, or fashions of opinion, '_rules by
-every school, till love and longing die_.' Something indestructible,
-confined to no epoch, ancient, mediæval or modern, but, '_that was, or
-yet the lights were set, a whisper in the void; that will be sung in
-planets young when this is clean destroyed_.' In other words, I esteem
-human nature honoured in Charlotte Brontë, and Charlotte Brontë honoured
-in these Letters, _because they are love-letters of a rare and wonderful
-sort amongst the most beautiful, although they are the most sad ever
-written_. If they were _not_ love-letters, but expressed the enthusiasm
-of a woman wanting comradeship with a great man, I should esteem them
-discreditable to any hero-worshipper. Because one should not pester
-one's hero with letters, nor conceive the conceit of comradeship with an
-object of worship. And it is not true that Charlotte's letters to
-Thackeray, George Henry Lewes and other men of letters after she became
-famous, had the same character as these love-letters written to M.
-Heger before her name was known; because in her letters to different
-celebrated writers, Charlotte talked about books or the criticism of
-books. But to M. Heger she throws open the secret chamber of her heart:
-she pours out its treasures of passionate feelings (as pure as they were
-passionate) at the feet of the man she loves; all she asks for from him
-in return is not to reprove her, nor refuse the offering; not to
-withdraw himself from her life altogether. To let her hear from him
-sometimes: not to leave her utterly alone, in the darkness, without any
-knowledge of what good or evil may befall one so dear to her.
-
-Unfortunately we do not possess the first Letters of this
-correspondence. The four Letters given by Dr. Paul Heger to the British
-Museum all belong to a period when the Professor, who had answered (one
-does not know precisely in what way) Charlotte's first epistles, had
-left off replying to her; and the consistent motive of these four
-appeals is for some tidings of him, some proof that the 'estrangement
-from her Master,' to which she says she will never 'voluntarily'
-consent, has not, in spite of her own unaltered devotion, irrevocably
-taken place.
-
-'Tell me about anything you like, my Master,' she writes, 'only tell me
-something! No doubt, to write to a former under-mistress (no, I will not
-remember my employment as under-mistress, I refuse to recall it), but to
-write to an old pupil, cannot be, for you, an interesting occupation. I
-realise this; but for _me_, it is life. Your last letter served to keep
-me alive, to nourish me during six months. Now I must have another one;
-and you will give me one. Not because you bear me friendship (you cannot
-bear me much!), but because you have a compassionate soul, and because
-you would not condemn any one to slow suffering, simply to spare
-yourself a few moments of fatigue! To forbid me to write to you, to
-refuse to reply to me, would be to tear from me the only joy that I have
-in the world; to deprive me of my last privilege, a privilege which I
-will never _voluntarily_ renounce. Believe me, my Master! by writing to
-me, you do a good action--so long as I can believe you are not angry
-with me, so long as the hope is left me of news of you, I can be
-tranquil, and not too sad. But when a gloomy and prolonged silence warns
-me of the estrangement from me of my Master, when from day to day I
-expect a letter, and when, day after day, comes disappointment, to
-plunge me in overwhelming grief; and when the sweet and dear consolation
-of seeing your handwriting, of reading your counsels, fades from me like
-a vain vision,--then fever attacks me, appetite and sleep fail: I feel
-that life wastes away.'[5]
-
-This passage is quoted from the Letter dated by Charlotte 18_th
-November_, without any indication of the year. Mr. Spielmann (who is
-responsible for the order given the Letters in the _Times_) esteems this
-one to be the last of the series; that is to say, to have been written
-ten months after the Letter dated by Charlotte 8 January, supposed by
-him to belong to the year 1845. With Dr. Paul Heger, I believe, on the
-contrary, that the Letter of the 18th November is the first of the
-series: and that it belongs to the year 1844; that is to say, was
-written ten months after Charlotte's return to England. This opinion
-seems to me established by the contents of the Letter, and by the
-account it gives of the conditions of affairs at Haworth, which were
-those that we find (if we consult Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte
-Brontë_) did prevail in November 1844, but not in November 1845, and
-still less in November 1846.
-
-     My father (she writes) is in good health, but his eyesight
-     is all but gone; he can no longer either read or write: and
-     yet the doctors advise waiting some months longer before
-     attempting any operation. This winter will be for him one
-     long night. He rarely complains: and I admire his patience.
-     If Providence has the same calamity in reserve for me, may
-     it grant me the same patience to endure it. It seems to me,
-     Monsieur, that what is most bitter in severe physical
-     afflictions, is that they compel us to share our sufferings
-     with those who surround us. One can hide the maladies of the
-     soul; but those that attack the body and enfeeble our
-     faculties cannot be hidden. My father now allows me to read
-     to and to write for him. He shows much more confidence in me
-     than he has ever done before; and this is a great
-     consolation to me.
-
-Charlotte's account in this Letter of her father's patient resignation
-and increased confidence in her under the trial, to a man of his
-independent and somewhat domineering temper, of compulsory reliance on
-the assistance of a daughter from whom he had exacted complete
-submission heretofore and from her childhood upwards, is confirmed in
-Mrs. Gaskell's biography by the testimony of other letters belonging to
-the first year of her return from Belgium. But by November 1845 Mr.
-Brontë's philosophy, before his own unmerited misfortune, had been
-troubled and transformed into acute misery and anxious forebodings by
-the downfall, both moral and physical, of his favourite amongst his
-children, Bramwell, the unhappy son--the only one--in this family of
-gifted daughters, whose perversion seems also to have had something of
-the irresponsibility of genius about it. Writing on the 4th November
-1845 to Ellen Nussey,[6] Charlotte says:--
-
-     I hoped to be able to ask you to come to Haworth. It almost
-     seemed as if Bramwell had a chance of getting employment;
-     and I waited to know the results of his efforts, in order to
-     say 'Dear Ellen, come and see us.' But the place is given to
-     another person. Bramwell still remains at home, and whilst
-     _he_ is here, _you_ shall not come.'
-
-Here is Mrs. Gaskell's account of Mr. Brontë's experiences in this
-period, that are not to be reconciled with the account given of his good
-health and philosophical patience and resignation to dependence upon
-Charlotte given by her a year earlier:
-
-     For the last three years of his life, Bramwell took opium
-     habitually, by way of stunning conscience: he drank,
-     moreover, whenever he could get the opportunity.... He slept
-     in his father's room; and he would sometimes declare that
-     either he or his father would be dead before the morning!
-     The trembling sisters, sick with fright, would implore their
-     father not to expose himself to this danger. But Mr. Brontë
-     was no timid man; and perhaps he felt that he could possibly
-     influence his son to some self-restraint more by showing
-     trust in him than by showing fear. The sisters often
-     listened for the report of a pistol in the dead of night,
-     till watchful eye and hearkening ear grew heavy and dull
-     with the perpetual strain upon their nerves. In the
-     mornings, young Brontë would saunter out saying, with a
-     drunkard's incontinence of speech, 'The poor old man and I
-     have had a terrible night of it; he does his best, the poor
-     old man, but it's all over with me.'
-
-One may safely affirm that if Charlotte had been writing in November
-1845 it would not have been only his patience under the trial of loss of
-sight that she would have found to admire in her father. In November
-1846 Mr. Brontë had successfully undergone the operation for cataract
-that saved him from blindness: and Charlotte herself, ten months after
-the overwhelming evidence of her 'master's estrangement,' given in his
-silence after her Letter of the 8th January, had saved her own soul
-from the malady she had endured without sharing her sufferings with any
-one; and was already writing _Jane Eyre_ ... so that the conclusion is
-surely forced upon us that the Letter of the 18th November belongs to
-the year 1844, and written ten months after her return to Haworth, 2nd
-January 1844, and represents the first, and not the last of these four
-Letters.
-
-
-[Illustration: REDUCED FROM A DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË OF ASHBURNHAM
-CHURCH SENT TO M. HEGER. The drawing showing the date 1846 was given to
-the author by Mlle. Louise Heger]
-
-
-It is important to establish this, because one has to read these Letters
-in their right order before one can understand the story they disclose
-of the long training in deferred hope, in expectation, crowned with
-disappointment, in vain pursuit of shadows that eluded her grasp, and of
-illusions that reveal themselves as forms of self-deceit only in the
-very hour when they have conquered belief; in other words, of the long
-training in personal suffering it took to create and fashion the genius
-of a writer whose magical gift was to be the power of transforming words
-into feelings.
-
-Carrying through the examination of these documents by the rule that
-recognises the Letter of the 18th November as written ten months after
-Charlotte's return to England, we discover in the opening sentence the
-fact that the last letter Charlotte had received from her Professor must
-have been in May of this same year; that is to say, four months after
-the sentimental leave-taking with her Professor, which sent Charlotte
-home to England with illusions about the extent to which her own
-passionate grief at their separation was shared by M. Heger. By November
-these illusions have been dispelled; Charlotte understands perfectly now
-(although this does not make her any more just to Madame Heger) that the
-'grief' of her 'Master,' that she had said she would 'never forget,
-never mind how long she might live,' was a very short-lived affair on
-his side; merely the transient regret of a teacher who will miss a
-favourite pupil from his class.
-
-'_Que ne puis-je avoir pour vous juste autant d'amitié que vous avez
-pour moi_,' she writes to him, '_ni plus, ni moins? Je serais alors si
-tranquille, si libre: je pourrais garder le silence pendant six mois
-sans effort_.'
-
-There is a note of bitterness in this. In what precedes it there is no
-bitterness, but we have one of the passages in these wonderful letters
-that seem to me to place them above all the other love-letters preserved
-in the world, as immortal records of the Romantic Love that honours
-human nature in the hearts that cherish it.
-
-'The six months of silence are over: we are now at the 18th of
-November,' she writes:--
-
-     I may, then, write to you, without breaking my promise. The
-     summer and winter have seemed very long to me: in truth, it
-     has cost me painful efforts to endure up to now the
-     privation I have imposed upon myself. You, for your part,
-     cannot understand this! But, Monsieur, try to imagine, for
-     one moment, that one of your children is a hundred and sixty
-     leagues away from you; and that you are condemned to remain
-     for six months, without writing to him; without receiving
-     any news from him; without hearing anything about him;
-     without knowing how he is;--well, then you may be able to
-     understand, perhaps, how hard is such an obligation imposed
-     upon me.
-
-In connection with the opening phrase, we must recognise in it the
-confirmation of an assertion made in my article in the _Woman at Home_
-published twenty years before these Letters were published, but which
-had for its authority the information given me by Dr. Paul Heger upon
-the occasion of a conversation, when he very kindly talked over with me
-the questions connected with events in his parents' life that, inasmuch
-as they happened before his birth, he knew as family traditions
-chiefly--but still as traditions derived from the only authentic sources
-of information that exist: Dr. Paul Heger's theory was that until
-Charlotte had left Bruxelles and commenced to write to his father
-letters in a tone of exaltation that announced an exaggerated
-attachment, Monsieur Heger himself had never suspected the existence of
-any such sentiment; and that he, and Madame Heger (?)--were disposed to
-regard it as an attack of morbid regret for the more animated life she
-had led in Bruxelles, and the dulness of her home surroundings. And
-that, acting upon this supposition, they had thought it advisable (and
-this in Charlotte's own interests chiefly) to let her know that they
-were both of them distressed and displeased by the tone of her letters;
-and that if she wished to keep up the correspondence, she must become
-more reasonable and temperate in her way of expressing herself; and
-that, as the exchange of letters between busy people became onerous,
-there must be only two letters every year at intervals of six months. We
-find Charlotte acknowledging this condition, as one that she had
-accepted, but that she complained of as a great 'privation': and she
-then goes on to explain (as only one taught by romantic, that is to say
-by unselfish, and unsensual, love, that 'does not seek its own,' could
-explain it) in what this 'privation' consists.
-
-Did any woman, neglected by the man she loves, ever discover a device,
-at once so passionate, and so poetically pure as Charlotte's, who makes
-the man who does not love her, but whom she knows is an adoring father,
-try to realise what she feels, so far away from him, and left without
-tidings _by asking him to picture what he would feel if separated by a
-hundred and sixty leagues from his little child, he were left without
-news of him?_
-
-But now if we consult honestly our own impressions, does this letter
-reveal that '_it is no cause of grief to Charlotte that M. Heger is
-married_'? Is it true that _there 'is nothing in it that any
-enthusiastic woman might not write to a married man with a family who
-had been her teacher_'?
-
-What the letter does reveal (thus it seems to me at least) is one
-supreme thing before all others: that the writer of it is past saving,
-by this time, from the destiny she prophesied for herself ten months ago
-in Bruxelles. '_My heart will break_,' Charlotte said then: when fate
-(in the garb of Madame Heger) thrust herself between her and her beloved
-Professor.
-
-And now, touching and eloquent as it all is, what escape is there from
-the conclusion that the writer of this letter _must_ break her heart?
-
-What else can happen? Let us recognise her plight. Here one has an
-entirely honourable, passionately tender, tenderly passionate, very
-serious woman, her mind dominated (as she says herself) by one
-tyrannical fixed idea; let us rather say by one tragical passion; and
-who sees her own life, and her claims upon the man she loves through the
-medium of this tragical passion: _and who gives her life an impossible
-purpose; and who makes impossible claims_. They are very small claims,
-she pleads. And so they are, very small in comparison with what she
-gives, her whole life's devotion poured out at the feet of her 'Master,'
-from whom she only asks in return that he will not forbid her worship;
-that, now and again, he will give her the joy of seeing his handwriting,
-and of knowing that he is well. But small as these claims are, they are
-unreasonable:--'_to the last degree "inconvenient" and impossible_,' as
-Madame would have said,--in the particular case of this 'Master'; a
-married man and an attached husband with five children, the Director of
-a Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles who has need to be especially circumspect;
-and who cannot discreetly, nor even honourably, allow a former
-under-mistress to address him passionate, romantic love-letters, even
-every six months. Nor can this loyal husband and self-respecting
-Catholic and Professor undertake to appear to sanction this
-indiscretion, by keeping her informed of his health and welfare at
-regular intervals. So that, building her heart's desires upon false
-hopes, that, from day to day, wear themselves out in disappointment, and
-looking for consolation to things necessarily withdrawn; and that she
-pursues in vain like 'fading visions,'--how is our poor Charlotte to
-find any escape from the heart-break that is the natural term of the
-path along which this Love, that has become her destiny, leads her? No
-way of escape is there for Charlotte: not in heaven above, nor on the
-earth beneath, nor in the waters under the earth. For no miracle can
-give her love a happy ending; say that even a thunderbolt fell from
-heaven to remove Madame Heger,--it would be extremely unjust--but admit
-that a murderous miracle be granted--even so, it would not alter the
-fact that M. Heger is not in love with Charlotte. And no earthly scheme
-either can bridge the separation--wider than the 160 leagues between
-Yorkshire and Brussels--that now severs Charlotte, breaking her heart in
-Yorkshire, from her Master in literature, carrying on, as stormily and
-triumphantly as when she assisted at them, his lessons in the
-class-rooms in the Rue d'Isabelle: those memory-haunted class-rooms she
-will never see again; because although we find her in these Letters
-speaking of projects of earning money that she may return to Bruxelles,
-if only to see her professor once again, one knows that there would be
-Madame to count with; and even Monsieur Heger's obstinate neglect to
-reply to these appealing Letters does not indicate any answering wish on
-his side to see his former pupil again. Nor yet does there exist in the
-waters under the earth any pool of magical power of healing sufficient
-to soothe these bitter regrets and reproaches; nor any well deep enough
-to drown rebellious desires and memories: for Charlotte has too splendid
-a soul to think of suicide; or to quench anguish by drugs. So that one
-knows that Charlotte's fate is sealed: and that we must follow her
-through these last steps to the end, with pity and admiration and love
-for her--but still not with injustice to others. Because no one outside
-of herself, not Madame Heger, nor Monsieur Heger, is responsible for
-what has happened, and what is going to happen; but only the Love that
-has Charlotte's soul in thrall, the Love that 'seeketh not its
-own,'--romantic, or if it be preferred, Platonic Love; who as the wise
-woman, Diotima, told Socrates, is 'not a god, but an immortal spirit,
-who spans the gulf between heaven and earth, carrying to the gods the
-prayers of men, and to the earth the commands of the gods.' Love, who is
-'the child of plenty and of poverty, often, like his mother, without
-house or home to cover him' (and who consequently is not highly esteemed
-by respectable householders). Love, the 'instinct of immortality in a
-mortal creature,' leading him amongst mortal conditions to where
-Charlotte is being led to,--the grave of hope,--_but not leaving hope
-there entombed, but raising it, not clogged with the pollution of
-mortality._
-
-All this, that the wise Diotima related, is a true parable of Charlotte
-Brontë. And the proof that Diotima was a good psychologist, and had
-based her opinions upon the study of facts, is found in the assertion
-that Love, although an immortal spirit, is _not a god_. Because a god
-sees clearly, and does not make mistakes: whereas Love, as every one
-knows, is often blind, and never very clear-sighted; and _is_ liable to
-make mistakes, and to be unjust even: and to attribute his own errors to
-other people. Thus Charlotte, under the dominion of Love, was unjust,
-and made mistakes: she attributed to Madame Heger disappointments and
-misadventures and pangs, that were not of Madame Heger's preparation at
-all, but were simply the imprudences of this 'Child of plenty and
-poverty,' who inherits from both parents and is so often extravagant and
-houseless, and consequently in bad odour with householders and the
-worshippers of 'convenience,' because 'he has no home to cover him.'
-Charlotte should not have attributed, for instance, malevolence or
-jealousy or the cruel pleasure of tantalising and torturing her in
-Bruxelles to Madame Heger, simply because, as the Directress of a
-Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles and wife of M. Heger, she did not want to
-take in Romantic Love as a boarder; nor to permit this 'Child of plenty
-and poverty' to disorganise the well-balanced domestic and conjugal
-relationships between herself and M. Heger. In all this Madame Heger was
-not persecuting Charlotte, but protecting her own rights. And if we
-examine the circumstances even in the narrative of the scene in the
-class-room between the Directress and her English teacher, and the scene
-of the farewell interview between the Professor and his pupil, where the
-Directress of the Pensionnat is put out of the room because she objects
-to this sentimental leave-taking, we shall find that recognising the
-true relationships between these three people, if Madame Heger behaved
-exactly as Madame Beck is said to have done, then there is not any fault
-whatever to be found with Madame Heger. Nay, one does not see how she
-could have been more considerate. Another false impression of
-Charlotte's--that Madame Heger intercepted her letters, and that M.
-Heger did not answer because he did not receive them--has no evidence to
-support it. Nor is this all; there is undeniable proof that the letter
-we have just considered (_which M. Heger did not answer_) _was_
-received by him: and that he was not very much affected by the
-passionate homage of his worshipper. 'On the edge of this letter he has
-made some commonplace notes in pencil;--one of them is the name and
-address of a shoemaker,' Mr. Spielmann tells us.
-
-There is a natural feeling of indignation against this masculine
-insensibility to a woman's tragical passion, even though one recognises
-that honour stood in the way of any responsive sentiment. But one must
-not forget M. Heger's special vocation and his daily occupations and
-preoccupations. Here you have a Professor of literature in a Pensionnat
-de Jeunes Filles who spends, week by week, several days in correcting
-and improving 'compositions' and exercises in 'style' of numberless
-schoolgirls, full of the eloquent sentimentality that belongs to young
-writers between the ages of fourteen and sixteen. Monsieur Heger had
-been Charlotte's master in literature, remember: and there is another
-fact to be realised also, one that upon the authority of my own
-knowledge of him, in the character of my own Professor, I am allowed to
-testify to: _he was before all things a born teacher, and one who saw
-the world as his class-room, and his fellow-creatures in the light of
-pupils_. Applying this knowledge of him to the criticism of what we know
-about his relations with Charlotte Brontë, we arrive at entirely
-different opinions to those formed by people who either see M. Heger
-through the medium of Charlotte's passion for him and as she painted him
-in _Villette_; or outside of any personal knowledge of him at all, as he
-appears to them judged in the light of the impression that he played
-with Charlotte's feelings: first of all encouraging by sentimental
-flattery her affection for him, and then, when he found that she had
-become inconveniently fond of him, behaving with cruel indifference.
-None of these decisions is based on a correct knowledge of M. Heger, nor
-of his true behaviour and character. The true M. Heger was not the Paul
-Emanuel who was _the lover of Lucy Snowe_, because he is very truthfully
-and admirably painted in the domineering but interesting,
-terror-striking but captivating, masterful and masterly Professor of
-literature, so full of talent, and fiery captivating ardour for
-beautiful thoughts nobly expressed. The real Professor was _not_
-tender-hearted; nor very tender in manner; nor even very pleasant and
-considerate; nor even kind, outside of his professorial character: and
-he had no sympathy whatever to spare for people who were not his pupils.
-And his sympathy for his pupils, _as his pupils_, led him to work upon
-their sympathies, as a way of inducing a frame of mind in them and an
-emotional state of feeling, rendering them susceptible to literary
-impressions, and putting them in key with himself, in this very fine
-enthusiasm of his, not only for enjoying literature himself, but for
-throwing open to others, and to young votaries especially, the worship
-of beautiful literature--as the record of the best that has been thought
-and said in the world.
-
-But the very exclusive literary temperament of M. Heger left him rather
-cold-blooded than particularly warm-hearted, where his pupils' feelings
-interfered with their good style in writing; or good accent when
-speaking; or with their sense of the first importance of a warm
-appreciation of the beauties of literature. If one reversed directly the
-description of Charlotte Brontë herself, as a writer whose _words became
-feelings_, one might justly say of M. Heger that for him, feelings were
-chiefly good with reference to their effects upon words, and the
-creation of beautiful language--so that Charlotte's love-letters to him
-would be no more than the '_Devoirs de Style_' of a former pupil sent
-him for criticism. The shoemaker's address may have been jotted down by
-accident, when he was running his eye down the page? If the further
-notes signified by Mr. Spielmann on this page, where poor Charlotte's
-heart's Secret lay exposed and quivering, had been '_Bon--mais un peu
-trop d'exaltation--la Ponctuation n'est pas soignée_,' no one who knew
-M. Heger would blame him for _voluntary_ unkindness. But upon this
-matter no more must be said at present: we have to return to Charlotte,
-and her Letters.
-
-The second in the order in which I am studying them (that seems to me
-unmistakably indicated by the context) would have been written--if we
-take the year 1845 as the date--eight, instead of six, months after the
-one, dated November, that refers to a preceding letter in the May of the
-same year--when Charlotte would have accepted the obligation laid upon
-her not to write again for six months. This Letter, dated 24th July,
-indicates by the opening sentence, not that she is writing outside of
-the appointed time, but _outside of her turn_: that is to say, it shows
-that M. Heger had not answered her November Letter; that she had waited
-for his reply, but could not wait longer, and so wrote a second letter,
-before M. Heger's reply to the first. The custom shows us that poor
-Charlotte is uneasily conscious that her former one in November may have
-given offence. She apologises for it, as we shall see; and works hard to
-write with cheerfulness in a more temperate tone:--
-
-     Ah, Monsieur! I know I once wrote you a letter that was not
-     a reasonable one, because my heart was choked with grief;
-     but I will not do it again! I will try not to be selfish;
-     although I cannot but feel your letters the greatest
-     happiness I know. I will wait patiently to receive one,
-     until it pleases you, and it is convenient to write one. At
-     the same time, I may write you a little letter from time to
-     time; you authorised me to do that.
-
-The effort she is putting upon herself in this Letter is evident. She
-has become reasonable; she does not reproach him for not writing, but
-only asks him to remember how much she desires it. She tells him of her
-plans, as she was recommended to do, instead of dwelling on her
-feelings. She humours and flatters his vanity and taste by her
-acknowledgment of all she owes him; and of her unfailing gratitude and
-wish to dedicate a book to him--she even sends a message to Madame!--
-
-     _Please present to Madame the assurance of my esteem_. I
-     fear that Maria, Louise and Claire will have forgotten me.
-     Prospère and Victorine never knew me, but I remember all
-     five of them, and especially Louise. There was so much
-     character, so much naïveté expressed in her little face.
-     Farewell, Monsieur--Your grateful pupil,
-
-     C. Brontë.
-
-
-     _July_ 24.--I have not begged you to write to me soon,
-     because I am afraid of troubling you, but you are too kind
-     to forget how much I desire it. Yes! I do desire it so much.
-     But that is enough. After all, do as you like, Monsieur, for
-     if I received a letter from you and I thought you wrote it
-     out of pity, it would hurt me very much.... Oh I shall
-     certainly see you some day. It must come to pass. Because as
-     soon as I earn any money, I shall go to Bruxelles--and I
-     shall see you again, if only for a moment.
-
-It is all of no avail! No answer does M. Heger vouchsafe. October comes
-round, and she writes again. This time she imagines that she has found a
-means of making her Letter reach its destination. In other words, she is
-convinced, or tries to be convinced, that it is all Madame Heger's fault
-again; she it is who will not allow her husband to receive Charlotte's
-Letters.
-
-     _October_ 24.--Monsieur--I am quite joyous to-day. A thing
-     that has not often happened during the last two years.[7]
-     The reason is that a gentleman amongst my friends is
-     passing through Bruxelles, and he has offered to take charge
-     of a letter for you, and to give this same letter into your
-     hands; or else his sister will do this, so that I shall be
-     quite certain that you receive it.
-
-Now comes the final blow to this faithful worshipper. Up to this hour,
-she has hoped and waited, waited and hoped. But all this time there has
-been the suspicion of Madame Heger--that has kept alive in her the
-belief in M. Heger's friendship, who (perhaps?) writes, although his
-letters never arrive: who (perhaps?) never receives her letters,
-although whenever she dares, and even in defiance of the terms laid down
-for her, she writes him letters where the vibration of her passionate
-attachment is felt. Now, however, he _has_ received her letter placed in
-his own hand. Had he written she would now have held in her turn the
-talisman of the beloved handwriting her eyes were weary with waiting to
-see again. But he remained obdurate and silent.
-
-     Mr. Taylor has returned (she writes): I asked him if he had
-     no letter for me. 'No: nothing.' Be patient, I told myself:
-     soon his sister will return. Miss Taylor came back: 'I have
-     nothing for you from Monsieur Heger,' she said; 'neither
-     letter, nor any message.'
-
-     Understanding only too well what this meant, I told myself
-     just what I should have told any one else in the same
-     circumstances: Resign yourself to what you cannot alter, and
-     before all things do not grieve for a misfortune that you
-     have not deserved. I would not allow myself to weep nor
-     complain. But when one refuses to oneself the right to tears
-     and lamentations in certain cases, one is a tyrant; and
-     natural faculties revolt; so that one buys outward calm at
-     the price of an inner conflict that cannot be subdued.
-
-     Neither by day, nor by night can I find rest nor peace: even
-     if I sleep, I have tormenting dreams, where I see you,
-     always severe, gloomy, angry with me. Forgive me, Monsieur,
-     if I am driven to take the course of writing to you once
-     more. How can I endure my life, if I am forbidden to make
-     any effort to alleviate my sufferings?
-
-She continues in this piteous strain. She pleads with him not to reprove
-her again as she has been reproved before, for exaggeration, morbidness,
-sentimentality. She tells him all this may be true--she is not going to
-defend herself--but the case is as she states it. She _cannot_ resign
-herself to the loss of her master's friendship without one last effort
-to preserve it.
-
-     I submit to all the reproaches you may make against me; if
-     my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall
-     remain without hope; if he keeps a little for me (never mind
-     though it be _very_ little) I shall have some motive for
-     living, for working.
-
-     Monsieur (she continues), the poor do not need much to keep
-     them alive; they ask only for the crumbs that fall from the
-     rich man's table, but if these crumbs are refused them,
-     _then_ they die of hunger! For me too, I make no claim
-     either to great affection from those I love; I should hardly
-     know how to understand an exclusive and perfect friendship,
-     I have so little experience of it! But once upon a time, at
-     Bruxelles, when I was your pupil, you _did_ show me a little
-     interest: and just this small amount of interest you gave me
-     then, I hold to and I care for and prize, as I hold to and
-     care for life itself....
-
-     ... I will not re-read this letter, I must send it as it is
-     written. And yet I know, by some secret instinct, that
-     certain absolutely reasonable and cool-headed people reading
-     it through will say:--'She appears to have gone mad.' By
-     way of revenge on such judges, all I would wish them is that
-     they too might endure, _for one day only_, the sufferings I
-     have borne for eight months--then, one would see, if they
-     too did not 'appear to have gone mad.'
-
-     One endures in silence whilst one has his strength to do it.
-     But when this strength fails one, one speaks without
-     weighing one's words. I wish Monsieur all happiness and
-     prosperity.
-
-     Haworth, Bradford, Yorkshire, 8_th January_.
-
-The Letter obtained no answer. And thus the end was reached. We now know
-where in Charlotte Brontë's life lay her experiences that formed her
-genius and made her the great Romantic--whose quality was that she saw
-all events and personages through the medium of one passion--the passion
-of a predestined tragical and unrequited love.
-
-
-END OF PART I.
-
-
-
-[1] I have to thank Mr. Clement Shorter, who has purchased the copyright
-of Charlotte Brontë's manuscripts, for his generous permission to quote
-from these letters freely for the purposes of my criticism.--(F.M.)
-
-[2] _Childe Harold_, note 9 to canto iii.
-
-[3] The author of _Childe Harold_ adds on this note as a comment upon
-what he has said of 'Love' as the inspiration of the greatest of all
-Romantics, J.-J. Rousseau:--
-
-  'His love was passion's essence--as a tree
-  On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
-  Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
-  Thus, and enamour'd, were in him the same.
-  But his was not the love of living dame,
-  Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,
-  But of Ideal beauty, which became
-  In him existence and o'erflowing teems
-  Along his burning page, distemper'd tho' it seems.
-
-  This breathed itself to life in Julie, this
-  Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;
-  This hallow'd too the memorable kiss
-  Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet,
-  From hers, who but with friendship his would meet:
-  But to that gentle touch, thro' brain and breast
-  Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat;
-  In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest
-  Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.'
-
-
-[4] Rudyard Kipling.
-
-[5] See Letter, 18 Nov. I am giving my own translation from the French
-of Charlotte's Letters in these extracts, not certainly on account of
-any dissatisfaction with Mr. Spielmann's English versions of them, but
-in order to avoid the risk of any infringement of Mr. Spielmann's
-copyright in his Introduction.
-
-[6] Mrs. Gaskell's _Life, p._ 290.
-
-[7] Charlotte had been a year and ten months in England in October 1845.
-This phrase, however, proves that the Letter belongs to this year and
-not to 1844, and consequently that the Letter that follows it, January
-8, is 1846.
-
-
-
-
-PART II
-
-SOME REMINISCENCES OF THE
-
-REAL MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER
-
-
-THIS SECOND PART IS
-
-DEDICATED TO
-
-MY BROTHER
-
-THE LATE ABBÉ AUSTIN RICHARDSON
-
-WHO DIED SUDDENLY, 20TH AUG. 1913
-
-
-  Dearest, before you went away
-    And left me here behind you,
-  How often would you talk to me,
-    And I, too, would remind you
-  Of stories in this book retold,
-    That for us two could ne'er grow old;
-  Of scenes that we could live through yet,
-    Just you and I,--and not forget:
-  And now I feel, since you are gone,
-    I wrote this book for you alone.
-
-
-
-
-PART II
-
-CHAPTER I
-
-THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE
-
-FACT FROM FICTION
-
-
-The purpose of the First Part of this study was to show that with the
-knowledge of the Secret of Charlotte Brontë, brought to us by Dr. Paul
-Heger's generous gift of these pathetic and beautiful Love-letters, the
-'Problem of Charlotte Brontë,' as so many very clever but inattentive
-psychological critics have stated it, has lost all claim to serious
-attention.
-
-The basis of the 'Problem' was the alleged 'dissonance' between
-Charlotte's personality and her genius--between her dreary, desolate,
-dull, well-tamed existence, uncoloured, untroubled by romance (as Mrs.
-Gaskell painted it), and the passionate atmosphere of her novels, where
-all events and personages are seen through the medium of one
-sentiment--tragical romantic love.
-
-We now know that the dissonance did not exist; that from her
-twenty-sixth year downwards, Charlotte's life was, not only coloured,
-but governed by a tragical romantic love: that, in its first stage,
-threw her into a hopeless conflict against the force of things and broke
-her heart: but that, because the battle was fought in the force, and in
-the cause, of noble emotions, saved her soul alive; and called her
-genius forth to life: so that it rose as an immortal spirit from the
-grave of personal hopes.
-
-Understanding this, we know that there is no 'Problem' of Charlotte
-Brontë: but that her personality and her genius and her life and her
-books were all those of a Romantic. But although there is no
-psychological Problem, a difficulty that concerns the historical
-criticism of Charlotte's life and her books does remain. And this
-difficulty has to be faced and conquered, not by speculations nor
-arguments, but by methods of enquiry.
-
-When we study Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece _Villette_ in comparison
-with what we now know about the romance in her own life, we recognise
-two facts: the first is that, _in this work especially_, she has painted
-with such power the emotions she has undergone that her words become
-feelings that lift and ennoble the reader's sensibility: and thus serve
-him--in the way that it belongs to Romantics to serve mankind.
-
-But the second fact we discover is that,--again, _in this book
-particularly_,--historical personages and real events are used as the
-materials for an imaginary story, in a way that has produced critical
-confusion: and what is graver still--has caused false and injurious
-opinions to be formed about historical people. And the difficulty we
-have to face is, not what amount of blame belongs to Charlotte for
-misrepresenting historical facts, nor even need we ask ourselves what
-reason she had for thus misrepresenting them. Because the reason becomes
-plain when we take the trouble to realise that the motive the writer of
-this work of genius had in view was one that concerned her own personal
-liberation from haunting memories, rather than any motive concerning
-the impressions she might produce.
-
-There can be no doubt that Charlotte's motive in _Villette_, judged as a
-method of personal salvation, was not only a permissible, but a noble
-one. It is the one that Pater attributed to Michael Angelo: '_the effort
-of a strong nature to attune itself to tranquillise vehement emotions by
-withdrawing them into the region of ideal sentiments':--'an effort to
-throw off the clutch of cruel and humiliating facts by translating them
-into the imaginative realm, where the artist, the author, the dreamer
-even, has things as he wills, because the hold of outward things_' (such
-a stern and merciless one in the case of Charlotte Brontë!) '_is thrown
-off at pleasure_.'
-
-But, judged as a literary and historical method, was Charlotte Brontë's
-manner of treating the real Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in
-the Rue d'Isabelle a justifiable or fair one? Can she be held without
-fault in this; that in Paul Emanuel and in Madame Beck she painted
-Monsieur and Madame Heger in a way that rendered them visible to every
-one who knew them; and then placed them in fictitious circumstances
-that altered the character of their actions and feelings, in such a way
-as to misrepresent their true behaviour? It seems to me that we must
-admit that the authoress of the _Professor_ and of _Villette_ adopted an
-unjust literary and historical method in so far as these real people are
-concerned: and that in the case of Madame Heger especially, passion and
-prejudice betrayed her: and rendered her guilty of a fault that must be
-recognised as a very grave one. But when this fault has been recognised
-and admitted, it seems to me a conscientious critic's duty does not
-compel him to scold this woman of genius for having the passions of her
-kind. A great Romantic is not an angel: and in this case the main facts
-about Charlotte are not her shortcomings as a celestial being, but her
-transcendent merits as an interpreter of the human heart. For my own
-part, I confess that after reading Charlotte's Love-letters, I am in no
-mood to look for faults in her, nor even to lend much attention to some
-faults that, without looking for them, one is bound to recognise. For
-what a thankless and unseemly, as well as what an unprofitable, sort of
-criticism is that represented in ancient days by the youngest amongst
-Job's Friends, who had such a delightfully expressive name, Elihu, the
-son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram! Elihu's criticism of
-Job (the man of genius, plunged into dire misfortune, not by any fault
-or folly of his own, but by the will of the Higher Powers, who desired
-to prove his virtue and to call forth his genius), is exactly the same
-method of criticising men and women of genius in the same case as Job,
-practised by Elihu's intellectual descendents, Buzites of the kindred of
-Ram, in all countries and in every age, down to England in the twentieth
-century. The fundamental doctrine of this critical method was, and is,
-that '_great men are not always wise_,' and that it is the vocation of
-smaller men to teach them wisdom, without 'respecting their persons or
-giving them flattering titles' (truly, as a matter of fact, by calling
-them names--knaves, hypocrites, sentimental cads, blackguards, etc.). In
-other words, the rule with these Buzites is that the main purpose of
-criticising great people is _to find fault with them_; to surprise them
-in their 'unwise' moments, to concentrate attention upon the faults they
-may, or may not, have committed in these moments; and to build upon
-these occasional real, or imaginary, faults, psychological and
-pathological theories about the madness, wickedness, or folly of people
-capable of them. And to conclude that there is 'very much to reprobate
-and a great deal to laugh at' in these men and women of genius--and that
-the fact that they had genius, and that as witnesses to the 'instinct of
-immortality in mortal creatures' they have served and honoured mankind,
-and also have bequeathed to us treasures of ideal beauty, is a mere
-accident, and may be left unnoticed.
-
-But let not _my_ portion ever be with these fault-finders, who '_darken
-counsel by words without knowledge_,' as the original Elihu was told,
-'out of the Whirlwind,' by the Supreme Critic; 'in whose stead' the son
-of Barachel had arrogated to himself the right to scold and scoff at
-Job; and to tell him that his misfortunes were all the result of his
-bad character and of his uncontrolled emotions. I refuse, then, to
-recognise as a question of vital importance Charlotte's forgetfulness of
-historical exactitude in _Villette_; and I do not myself understand how
-any one (except a Buzite) who has read these Letters given to us by Dr.
-Paul Heger, and especially the last one, that received no answer, can
-help feeling that the suffering the writer of the Letters must have
-undergone, in the unbroken silent solitude that followed her unanswered
-appeal, must have made the hold upon her memory of 'outward things' so
-hard to bear, that to break that hold, to live in the realm of
-imagination free from it, _having things as she would_, justified almost
-any method of self-liberation.
-
-Still the fact of the critical confusion of the personages in the novel
-with the historical Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue
-d'Isabelle does create difficulties in the way of forming right
-opinions. And to remove them, we have to follow the plan already
-recommended,--to make sure of our facts, before calling in the aid of
-psychological arguments. And in this case, to see the position clearly,
-we must disentangle from the imaginary story in _Villette_ the real
-personages and events woven into the fabric of a parable where, as I
-have said, they appear amongst fictitious circumstances and produce
-consequently false impressions. In other words, we have to recover a
-clear knowledge of the true Monsieur Heger before we can determine where
-'Paul Emanuel' resembles, and where he differs from, the Professor,
-_whom Charlotte loved: but who never showed any particle of love for
-Charlotte, such as Paul Emanuel bestowed on Lucy Snowe_. And then we
-have to re-establish in her true place, as Monsieur Heger's wife and the
-mother of his five children, the true Directress of the Pensionnat in
-the Rue d'Isabelle--who must be contrasted, rather than compared, with
-the crafty, jealous and pitiless Madame Beck of the novel, selfishly and
-cruelly interfering with the true course of an entirely legitimate and
-romantic attachment between her English teacher and her cousin, the
-Professor of literature. And the relative positions of these two
-Directresses clearly seen, we have to ask ourselves, Whether the real
-Madame Heger is proved to have had the base and detestable character of
-the hateful Madame Beck? and whether she really _was_, in any voluntary
-or even involuntary, way, the direct cause of poor Charlotte's anguish,
-suspense and final heart-break? And whether, given the positions and the
-different views of life and sense of duty of the different people whose
-destinies become entangled in this tragical romance, we can find fault
-with any person concerned in these events,--unless, indeed, we follow
-Greek methods, and drag in the Eumenides? Or, else, suppose it a
-parallel case with Job's: and decide that it was the will of the Higher
-Powers to prove Charlotte's virtue and to call forth her genius? But in
-so far as mere mortals are concerned, we have to see whether anything
-else could have happened, and whether poor Charlotte was not bound to
-break her heart?
-
-So that the purpose of the Second Part of this study of the 'Secret of
-Charlotte Brontë' really lies outside of the 'Secret' itself, and
-becomes an effort to know 'as in themselves they really were,' and
-independently of their relationships with Charlotte, the Professor whom
-she loved (probably much more than he deserved), and the Directress of
-the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle--whom she certainly hated, without
-any reasonable cause for this hatred, although this hatred had a natural
-cause--that if only we will use psychology for the purpose of
-penetrating facts, and not for playing with such fictions as that _it
-was 'no serious grief to Charlotte that Monsieur Heger was married'_ we
-may easily discover. After all, one must not ask for entire
-'reasonableness' from Romantics, who see personages and events through
-the medium of one great Passion. And one must not demand from them
-absolute impartiality, when judging the impediment that divides them
-from the object of this passion.
-
-We are not judges then in this case, but enquirers into the facts of the
-personality and true characters of the Director and Directress of the
-Bruxelles school and of their environment, as the influences that so
-largely created the Romantic atmosphere where Charlotte's genius lived
-and moved and had its being. And, by the special circumstances of my own
-life, I am able to assist in a way that is not (so I am tempted to
-believe) possible to any other living critic. The difficulty that stands
-in the way of most modern investigators is that long ago the historical
-people with their environment 'have become ghostly.' Long ago, for most
-readers of _Villette_, the once famous Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles in
-the Rue d'Isabelle, with its memory-haunted class-rooms, with its
-high-walled garden in the heart of a city whose voices reached one, as
-from a world far away, and 'down whose peaceful alleys it was pleasant
-to stray and hear the bells of St Jean Baptiste peal out with their
-sweet, soft, exalted sound,' have vanished out of life. _Yes--but out of
-my life they have not vanished!_ For me--the historical Monsieur and
-Madame Heger exist quite independently of all associations with the
-imaginary personages Paul Emanuel and Madame Beck. For me--the old
-school, the class-rooms, the walled garden, with its ancient pear-trees
-that still 'faithfully renewed their perfumed snow in spring and
-honey-sweet pendants in autumn,' remain--as they were planted vivid
-images and visions in my memory half a century ago, when, as a
-schoolgirl, I knew nothing about Charlotte Brontë nor _Villette_: but
-when I sat, twenty years after Charlotte, in the class-rooms where she
-had waited for M. Heger, on the eve of her departure from Bruxelles,
-myself an attentive pupil of her Professor, and a witness, half
-terrified, and half exasperated, of his varying moods. And when, too, I
-saw, rather than heard, Madame Heger, moving noiselessly, where M.
-Heger's movements were always attended with shock and excitement; only
-to me, Madame Heger appeared always a friendly rather than an adverse
-presence--an abiding influence of serenity that reassured one, after
-sudden recurrent gusts of nerve-disturbing storms.
-
-And I would point out that the value of my testimony about the personal
-impressions I derived, quite independently of any knowledge of Charlotte
-Brontë's residence in what was for me _my_ school, and of her
-enthusiasm for _my_ Professor, or her dislike of _my_ schoolmistress, is
-enhanced both by the resemblances and by the differences of our several
-points of view. Thus--like Charlotte--I was an English pupil and a
-Protestant in this Belgian and Catholic school. Like her--my vocation
-was to be that of a woman of letters. And although, when she was brought
-under M. Heger's influence, she was a woman of genius, already well
-acquainted with good literature, and not without experience as a writer,
-whereas I was only an unformed girl, with very little reading and no
-culture: and merely by force of an inborn desire to follow a certain
-purpose in life that filled me with happiness, even in anticipation,
-justified in supposing that I had a literary vocation at all, and
-although no doubt I have not turned my advantages to account as
-Charlotte did, yet I myself owe to M. Heger, not only admirable rules
-for criticism and practice, that have always claimed and still claim my
-absolute belief, but also I owe to him, as she did, a full enjoyment of
-beautiful thoughts, beautifully expressed, and of treasures of the mind
-and of the imagination, that, lying outside of the recognised paths of
-English study, I might never have found, nor even have recognised as
-treasures, had I not been cured of insularity of taste by M. Heger.
-
-So that upon this point I am able to say of M. Heger what Charlotte
-said: he was the only master in literature I ever had; and up to the
-present hour I esteem him, in this domain of literary composition, the
-only master whose rules I trust.
-
-But if my judgment of M. Heger, as a Professor, coincides with
-Charlotte's, my judgment of him, outside of this capacity, does not show
-him to me at all as the model of the man from whom she painted Paul
-Emanuel. In other words, I never found nor saw in the real Monsieur
-Heger the lovableness under the outward harshness,--the depths of
-tenderness under the very apparent severity and irritability,--the
-concealed consideration for the feelings of others, under the outer
-indifference to the feelings of any one who ruffled his temper; nor yet
-did I ever discover meekness and modesty in him, under the dogmatic and
-imperious manner that swept aside all opposition. In fact, I never found
-out that M. Heger wore a mask. But, irritable, imperious, harsh, not
-_unkind_, but certainly the reverse of tender, and without any
-consideration for any one's feelings, or any respect for any one's
-opinions, thus, _just as he seemed to be, so in reality, in my opinion,
-M. Heger actually was_. And what one must remember is that Charlotte's
-point of view, from which she formed the opinion that M. Heger _was_
-tender-hearted, and modest and meek, was the point of view of a woman in
-love; and this standpoint is not one that ensures impartiality.
-
-My own point of view, between 1859 and 1861, was that of an English
-schoolgirl, under sixteen, of a Belgian schoolmaster, over fifty, who in
-his capacity of a literary Professor, was almost a deity to her; but
-who, outside of this capacity, was not a lovable, but a formidable man:
-a 'Terror,' in the sense children and nursery-maids give the term; that
-is to say, some one who is sure to appear upon the scene when one is
-least prepared to face him, and who is constantly finding fault with
-one. Now a 'Terror,' in this popular sense of the term, although he is
-not a lovable, is not necessarily a hateful personage. There may belong
-to him an interest of excitement, and even a secret admiration for his
-cleverness in fulfilling his role of taking one unawares and finding
-something in one to quarrel about. And most certainly this interest of
-excitement, and even of a sense of amusement, entered into my sentiment
-for M. Heger, whom I recognised as a double-being, an admirable literary
-Professor, but an alarming and irritating personality. But although I
-never hated him, I yet had some special grievances against this
-'Terror,' not only because he had a trick of surprising me in weak
-moments, and of finding out my worst sides, but also because he was
-really, in my own particular case, unjust; and full of prejudice and
-impatience against my nationality, and personal idiosyncrasies that were
-not faults; and that I couldn't help. Thus he stirred up in me
-rebellious protests, that could not be uttered; because how was an
-English schoolgirl of fifteen to protest against the injustice of a
-Belgian 'Master,' in his own country, and his own school: who was a man
-past fifty, too; and what was more, in his capacity of literary
-Professor, if not quite a deity, at least, in my own opinion, the keeper
-of the keys of palaces where dwelt the Immortals?
-
-And that my opinion of M. Heger's personality, as that of a 'Terror' (in
-the childish and popular sense) did really show me the man apart from
-the Professor very much as he really was, is confirmed by the first
-impression he made upon Charlotte herself before the glamour of romantic
-love had interfered with her critical perspicacity. Here is the original
-description of M. Heger, in the early days of her residence in
-Bruxelles:
-
-'There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken,' she wrote to
-Ellen Nussey, 'M. Heger, the husband of Madame. He is Professor of
-rhetoric: a man of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in
-temperament, a little black being, with a face that varies in
-expression. Sometimes he borrows the lineaments of a tom-cat: sometimes
-those of a delirious hyena: occasionally, but very seldom, he discards
-these perilous attractions and assumes an air not above one hundred
-degrees removed from mild and gentleman-like. He is very angry with me
-just now, because I have written a translation which he stigmatises as
-_peu correct_. He did not tell me so, but wrote the word on the margin
-of my book and asked me, in very stern _phrase_, how it happened that my
-compositions were always better than my translations, adding that the
-thing seemed to him inexplicable. The fact is that three weeks ago in a
-high-flown humour he forbade me to use either dictionary or grammar when
-translating the most difficult English composition into French. This
-makes the task rather arduous, and compels me every now and then to
-introduce an English word, which nearly plucks the eyes out of his head
-when he sees it. Emily and he don't draw well together at all.'
-
-I am quoting this view of M. Heger's personality, taken by Charlotte
-Brontë before she became a partial witness, because, by and by, when I
-am giving my own reminiscences, it will be found that in 1842 M. Heger
-was very much the same Professor whom I knew in 1861.
-
-And Madame Heger? Here too my impressions are obtained from a point of
-view unquestionably more impartial than Charlotte Brontë's. And it will
-be found that, when the alteration of clear power of vision that
-personal prejudices make has been realised, my opposite judgment of the
-Directress of the Pensionnat to the judgment of the authoress of
-_Villette_, is not the result of any difference in the _facts_ of Madame
-Heger's characteristics and behaviour, but in the difference between the
-standpoints from which we severally judge them.
-
-Charlotte's standpoint was the one of the devotee, of the great spirit
-who is neither a god nor a mortal, but the 'Child of plenty and poverty,
-who is often houseless and homeless'--and who cannot well see 'as in
-herself she really is,' the Mistress of the house; who prudently, _not
-necessarily with cruelty_, closes the doors of her home against
-intruders--that standpoint also is not one conducive to impartial
-judgments.
-
-My own point of view was that of a girl on the threshold of womanhood,
-who saw in Madame Heger an embodiment of two qualities especially, that,
-perhaps because I did not possess them and could never possess them
-(passionate as I was by nature and with strong personal likings and
-dislikings), inspired me with a sentiment of reverence and wonder, as
-for a remote perfection, that, though unattainable, it did one good to
-know existed somewhere; just as it does one good, with feet planted on
-the earth, to see the stars. The qualities I saw in Madame Heger were
-serene sweetness, a kindness without preferences, covering her little
-world of pupils and teachers with a watchful care. _Tranquillité,
-Douceur, Bonté:_ the French words express better than English ones the
-commingled qualities I felt existed in Madame Heger as she moved
-noiselessly (as Charlotte Brontë has described), whilst the more
-brilliant and gifted Professor's movements were always stormy.
-
-When relating these reminiscences of Monsieur and Madame Heger and of
-the old school and garden, as I myself treasure them, and quite
-independently of their associations with Charlotte Brontë, I shall not
-be losing sight of the purpose that justifies this record (as an
-endeavour to disentangle fact from fiction) if, in so far as the facts
-that concern my own experiences are concerned, I ask now to be allowed
-to relate them in a different tone--that is to say, not any longer in
-the tone of a literary critic, nor as one supporting any thesis or
-argument, but simply as a story-teller 'who has been young and now is
-old.' And who, before the darkening day has turned to night, calls to
-remembrance scenes and personages long since vanished out of the world,
-but still alive for me, bathed in the light that shines upon the
-undimmed visions of my youth--although to almost every one else now
-alive these scenes have become 'as it were a tale that is told.'
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER II
-
-MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE
-BRONTË'S PROFESSOR[1]
-
-'Madame,--quelquefois, donner, c'est semer'--_Speech
-made to my Mother by M. Heger_.
-
-
-In 1859 this memorable thing happened:--I was introduced by my mother to
-M. Heger as his future pupil. I was fourteen years of age: but I
-remember everything in connection with this event as though it had
-happened yesterday. We were staying at Ostend, where my mother had taken
-my brother and myself for a long summer holiday, because she believed we
-had been previously overworked at our former schools, from which she had
-removed us. She was convinced that we both of us stood in need of
-sea-air, exercise and healthy recreation, before we could take up our
-studies again, after the strain we had undergone. Upon this point my
-brother and I were entirely of one mind with our mother.
-
-But after a holiday of three months, we had also begun to feel, with
-her, that this state of things could not go on for ever, and that--as
-she expressed it--'something had to be done with us.' What was done with
-us was the result of circumstances that I cannot but regard as
-fortunate, in my own case at any rate. They brought into my life, at a
-very impressionable age, influences and memories that have always been,
-and that are still, after more than half a century, extraordinarily
-serviceable and sweet to me.
-
-The first of these fortunate circumstances was the renewal (due to an
-accidental meeting at Ostend) of my mother's friendship with a relative
-whom she had lost sight of for a great many years; who had married a
-Dutch lady and settled in Holland. The eldest daughter of these
-re-discovered cousins was an exceptionally charming girl of nineteen;
-and upon enquiry my mother found out that she had been educated at a
-school in Brussels, _situated in the Rue d'Isabelle, and kept by a
-certain Madame Heger_. How it came to pass that, only four years after
-the publication of _Villette_, and two years after Mrs. Gaskell's _Life
-of Charlotte Brontë_, it did not occur to my mother to identify this
-particular Brussels school with the one where the Director was the fiery
-and perilously attractive 'Professor Paul Emanuel' and where the
-Directress was painted as the crafty and treacherous 'Madame Beck,' I
-really cannot say; but, so it was. There can be no doubt that it was
-solely because the account rendered by her delightful young kinswoman of
-the school where she had spent three years was thoroughly satisfactory
-to my mother, and because the unaffected and accomplished girl herself
-was an excellent proof of the happy results of the education she had
-received, that my mother made up her mind that the best thing that could
-be 'done with me,' was to send me to Madame Heger's school. She had
-entered into correspondence with this lady, and the plan had developed
-into a further arrangement, that my brother was to be placed with a
-French tutor recommended by Madame Heger, and who was the Professor of
-History at her establishment. All these conditions were very nearly
-settled, when M. Heger came to visit my mother at Ostend; to talk
-matters over and to make final arrangements.
-
-Of course from the point of view of my own humble interest I recognised
-that the visit of this Brussels Professor was an event of great
-importance. I was fully conscious of this, because my cousin had told me
-a great deal about M. Heger, explaining that _he_ was the ruling spirit
-in the Pensionnat; that he was rather a terrible personage; and that _if
-he took a dislike to one,--well, he could be very disagreeable_. I had
-received so much advice upon this particular subject from my cousin that
-I had talked the matter over very seriously with my brother afterwards,
-and asked him what he thought I ought to do in order to avoid the
-misfortune of offending M. Heger. My brother's advice was
-sound:--'Don't let the man see you are afraid of him,' he said, 'and
-then, whatever you do, don't show off.'
-
-Keeping these counsels in mind, after M. Heger's arrival, I sat upon the
-extreme edge of the rickety sofa that filled the darkest corner in the
-little salle-à-manger of our Ostend apartments over the Patissier's shop
-in the Rue de la Chapelle--I remember the very name of the Patissier; it
-was Dubois--watching and listening eagerly to the conversation of the
-Professor with my mother, who, strange to say, did not seem to be in the
-least afraid of him; nor to recognise that he was in any way different
-to ordinary mortals! And I must say, looking back to that September
-afternoon to-day, and realising our attitude of mind, my mother's and
-mine, towards this interesting personage to us, but interesting solely
-in his character of _my_ future teacher, there does seem to me something
-amazing--so amazing as to be almost amusing--in our total
-unconsciousness of his already well-established real, or rather ideal
-claims as a personage immortalised in English literature, by an
-illustrious writer who, four years before my birth, had been his pupil;
-and whose romantic love for him, whilst it had broken her heart, had
-served as the inspiration of her genius; so that her literary
-masterpiece was precisely a book where the very school I was going to
-inhabit was painted, with extraordinary veracity, in so far as outward
-and local points of resemblance were concerned.
-
-As for my own ignorance of all these circumstances there is nothing
-strange in that. Fifty-four years ago a schoolgirl of my age was not
-very likely to have read _Villette_. But what one may pause to inquire
-is whether if by any accident the book _had_ come into my hands, and
-thus revealed to me my true position, should I have gone down on
-my bended knees to my mother, or to express the case more exactly,
-should I have flung my arms round her dear neck, and prayed, '_Don't
-send me to this school; I am afraid of Professor Paul Emanuel; I
-loathe Madame Beck; I shall never make friends with these horrid
-Lesbassecouriennes?_' Well, really, I don't think I should have done
-anything of the sort! At fourteen one adores an adventure. It seems to
-me probable that the excitement of going to the same school, and
-learning my lessons in the same class-rooms, and treading the paths of
-the same garden, and being instructed by the same teachers as a writer
-of genius, who had left these scenes haunted by romance, would have made
-me hold under all apprehensions of the Lesbassecouriennes as
-school-fellows, of the perfidious Directress with her stealthy methods
-of espionage, of the explosive, nerve-wrecking Professor, always
-breaking in upon one like a clap of thunder. Yes; but though held under,
-the apprehension would have troubled my inner soul a good deal all the
-same; and this would have been a pity. Because, in so far as the real
-Directress and real Belgian schoolgirls whom I was going to know in the
-Rue d'Isabelle went, these apprehensions would have been superfluous and
-misleading.
-
-But now if there were no danger of my finding in the real Pensionnat any
-spiritual counterparts of either the fictitious Madame Beck, or of the
-perverted Lesbassecouriennes pupils, was it equally certain that, if I
-had read _Villette_, I should not have recognised and been justified in
-recognising in Monsieur Heger the original model and living image of
-that immortal figure in English fiction, '_the magnificent-minded,
-grand-hearted, dear, faulty little man_'--Professor Paul Emanuel?
-
-We shall perhaps be able to decide this question better at the end of
-these reminiscences than here. But what must be realised is, that the
-very fact that lends some general interest to my mother's first
-impressions and my own about M. Heger is chiefly this: that it expresses
-observations made from a purely personal standpoint; out of sight of any
-literary views about 'Paul Emanuel,' or historical judgments upon his
-relations with Charlotte Brontë. The perfectly simple purpose we had in
-view was to see clearly what sort of a Professor M. Heger was going to
-prove, and whether I was going to do well as his pupil, and get on
-satisfactorily, amongst these foreign surroundings.
-
-My mother formed a most favourable opinion of our visitor, and decided
-that I was fortunate in obtaining such a Professor. What had especially
-impressed her was a sentence delivered by M. Heger, with a masterly
-little gesture, that, as she herself said, entirely won her over to his
-opinions upon a question where elaborate arguments might have left her
-unconvinced. And I may observe here, that this belonged to M. Heger's
-methods, not so much of arguing, as of dispensing with arguments. His
-mind was made up upon most subjects, and as he had got into the habit of
-regarding the world as his class-room, and his fellow-creatures as
-pupils, he did not argue; he told people what they ought to think about
-things. And in order to make this method of settling questions not only
-convincing, but stimulating, to his most intelligent pupils, he held in
-reserve a store of these really luminous phrases, that he would use as
-little Lanterns, flashing them, now in this direction, now in that, but
-always with a special and appropriate direction given to the
-illuminative phrase, so that it lit up the point of view upon which he
-desired to fix attention. The particular sentence that conquered my
-mother's admiration and acquiescence in M. Heger's point of view was the
-one I have made the heading of this chapter. Here was how he contrived
-to introduce it. After discussing the plan of _my_ studies, and the
-arrangements for my being taken to the English church by my brother
-every Sunday, and allowed to take walks with him upon half-holidays (to
-all of which of course I listened with passionate attention), they
-passed on to discuss the terms asked by the tutor whom the Hegers had
-recommended. My mother had been told by her Dutch cousin that they were
-exorbitant terms; and, as a matter of fact, I believe they were exactly
-twice the amount charged by the Hegers themselves: '_I am not a rich
-woman_,' my mother had said, apologetically, '_and I have put aside a
-fixed sum for my children's education; I doubt if I can give this_.' ...
-Then did the Professor see, and seize, his opportunity: '_Madame,'_ he
-said, with a gesture, '_quelquefois, donner, c'est semer_.' My mother,
-dazzled with this prophetic utterance, remained speechless and
-vanquished. In the evening of the same day I heard her quote to the
-Dutch cousin, who did not approve of her consent to these charges,
-'_what that clever man, Professor Heger) said so well_,' as though it
-had been unanswerable. In the course of the next two years I often heard
-the same luminous phrase used, with equal appropriateness, to light up
-other propositions. (I have heard M. Heger use it in a sense where it
-became a different formula for expressing a fundamental doctrine of
-Rousseau, thus, '_Instruire, ce n'est pas donner, c'est semer_,' but I
-never heard the words without going back to the first impression, and to
-the vision it called up. I would see again the little _salle-à-manger_
-in the Rue de la Chapelle at Ostend, I would watch the masterly gesture
-of the Professor's hand when he delivered his triumphant sentence, that
-is not an argument, but is worth more; I would see the look of
-admiration and sudden conviction come into my dear mother's face; I
-would feel myself sitting upon the little rickety sofa in the dark
-corner, _and I would shudder with the foreknowledge of what was coming_,
-for, woebetide me that I should have to tell it, this first interview
-_did not leave with me the same impression of confidence in M. Heger as
-my future teacher and guardian that it did with my mother;_ it left with
-me, on the contrary, the miserable conviction that the very worst thing
-that could have happened had happened; that M. Heger had taken a
-vehement dislike to me, and consequently that all hope of happiness for
-me in the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle was over and done with.
-
-And the worst of it was, that it was all my own fault; or rather, to be
-just, it was my misfortune.
-
-For I had had a really very bad time of it, sitting on that rickety
-little sofa. My mother, who had only too flattering an opinion of me in
-every way, had meant to say the kindest things about me to M. Heger, and
-I knew this perfectly. But unfortunately, although she spoke French with
-the greatest fluency and self-confidence (because as she was a very
-charming woman, and as Frenchmen are always polite in their criticism of
-the French of charming English women, she had been very often
-complimented upon her command of the language),--unfortunately, I say,
-her French was really English, literally translated; and every one who
-has experience of what false meanings can be conveyed by this sort of
-French will realise what I had suffered, because, though I only spoke
-French badly at this time, I understood the language better than my
-mother. And this is how I had heard myself described to my future
-Professor. My mother had _wished_ to say that I was more fond of study
-and of reading than was good for the health of a girl of my age; but
-what she _actually_ said was that I was fond of reading things that were
-not healthy or suitable (_convenable_) for a young girl. Again, she had
-_meant_ to say that as I had worked too hard, she had let me run wild a
-little; and that consequently I might find it difficult to get into
-working habits again; but that as I had a capital head of my own, and
-plenty of courage, I should, no doubt, soon get into good ways again.
-But instead of all these flattering things (that might have been rather
-irritating too, only a Professor of experience knows how to forgive a
-parent's partiality), I had heard this fond mother of mine say that her
-daughter had recently contracted the habits of a little savage; and that
-it would require courageous discipline, as she was very headstrong, to
-bring her into the right way again. It will be understood that to sit
-and listen to all this about oneself was anguish. But, carefully
-watching M. Heger's face, I had a notion that he had found out there was
-some mistake. Still I was depressed and bewildered; and in dread of what
-I was going to say, when the time came, as I knew it must, when he would
-say something to me, and I should have a chance of answering for myself.
-And the misfortune was, that _when_ the critical moment came, I wasn't
-expecting it; because, here, at least, what the author of _Villette_
-says of Professor Paul Emanuel was true of M. Heger--everything he did
-was sudden; and he always contrived to take one by surprise.
-
-It was immediately after he had won his triumph over my mother, and in
-the moment when I myself was under the spell of admiration for his
-talent, that he turned upon me, in a sort of flash, smiling down upon me
-(very red and startled to find him so near), and nodding his head with
-an irritating look of amusement as his penetrating eyes searched my
-doleful face. '_Aa-ah_,' he said, in a half-playful, but as it sounded
-to me, more mocking, than kindly tone, '_Aa-ah_' (another nod of the
-head), 'so this is the little Savage I have to discipline and vanquish,
-is it? And she is headstrong (_têtue_). Tell me, Mees, am I to be too
-indulgent? or too severe? (_Dois-je être trop indulgent? ou trop
-sévère?_') Now, if only I had made the natural reply, the one obviously
-expected from me--the one any girl in my position would have made, and
-which I myself should have made if I hadn't been addressed as 'a little
-savage,' and if I hadn't been smarting under the sense that he must have
-the worst possible opinion of me, and that I ought to vindicate my
-honour in some way,--if only, in short, I had remembered my brother's
-wholesome advice, '_Don't show off_,' that is to say, if only I had
-said, amiably and nicely, with a timid little smile, '_Trop indulgent,
-s'il vous plait, Monsieur_,' THEN all would have been well with me; M.
-Heger would have continued to smile; we should have exchanged amiable
-glances and parted the best of friends.... But of what use are these
-speculations? What I _did_ reply to his question of whether he was to be
-too indulgent or too severe was--'_Ni l'un ni l'autre, Monsieur; soyez
-juste, celà suffit_' ... and I listened to the broadness of my own
-British accent, whilst I said it, in despairing wonder! M. Heger's
-smiles vanished; there came what I took to be a 'look of undying hatred'
-into his face--it was not perhaps so bad as all that, but ... well, I
-certainly hadn't conquered his favour. He said something disagreeable
-about Les Anglaises being over wise, too philosophical for him, which my
-mother thought was a compliment to my cleverness. But I knew what I had
-done, and that it could never be undone, henceforth ...
-
-Well, but the case really was not quite so desperate perhaps?
-
-
-[1] This chapter is reproduced from the _Cornhill_ by the kind
-permission of Messrs. Smith, Elder and Co.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER III
-
-MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW
-THEM; AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I
-KNEW THEM
-
-
-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.
-
-
-[Illustration: MADAME HEGER AT SIXTY. (She was thirty years younger when
-Charlotte knew her) From a portrait given to the author by Madame
-Heger's daughter (Author's _Copyright_)]
-
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER IV
-
-MY SECOND INTERVIEW WITH M. HEGER.
-THE WASHING OF 'PEPPER.' THE
-LESSON IN ARITHMETIC
-
-
-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.
-
-
-[Illustration: THE "ALLÉE DÉFENDUE"]
-
-
-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.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER V
-
-THE STORY OF A CHAPEAU D'UNIFORME
-
-
-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.
-
-
-[Illustration: THE GALERIE AND GARDEN IN WINTER (The Allée Defendue is
-on the left. The old pear-tree, whose lower branches still blossomed in
-spring, is on the right)]
-
-
-'When it's dry,' he told me, 'you'll easily get that off with a bit of
-bread.'
-
-This consoled me for the time being: but he was wrong as to the question
-of facts. Bread had no effect upon that blot. It remained an island, or,
-to speak more correctly, a coast-line, on the white chip, to the end of
-that _chapeau d'uniforme_'s existence. But one dusted the stain over
-with white powder before putting on one's Bonnet, and hoped no one
-noticed it? So far as I know, no one did. But let it not be supposed
-that I escaped moral punishment: I, who had once boasted in my pride
-that nothing was less indifferent to me than my Sunday Bonnet, wore this
-one uneasily to the end of the term, always conscious that the tell-tale
-stain was there, and might suggest questions as to its origin.
-
-Nor did I escape scot-free from M. Heger's hands, although he did behave
-with a certain generosity, for he kept the secret. But he used his own
-method of punishment.
-
-Happy in the confidence given me by my brother's assurance that I should
-easily get rid of the rain-blot, I went back to the Rue d'Isabelle, in
-some anxiety about M. Heger, but _nearly_ persuaded that, after all,
-perhaps, with his umbrella to think of and grasp, and the hurry he was
-in, he _very likely_ hadn't seen us. But when the pupil's door was
-opened in answer to my ring, and I was hoping to hurry through the
-corridor to the staircase leading to the dormitories, I found M. Heger
-waiting for me. He barred my path and looked down at me with his
-penetrating, mocking eyes,--that, although I do not like to contradict
-Charlotte, I still think had more green and steel, than violet-blue,
-colour in them.
-
-'A-ah,' he said with his long-drawn sigh, 'you are attentive at my
-lessons, Mees; do you now listen with the same attention to the sermon
-of the Minister at your Temple?'
-
-Here was my opportunity; of course I ought to have said, '_No,
-Monsieur, I don't listen to any one with so much attention as I do to
-you: no one interests me so much_.' When I had got upstairs and had
-taken off the _chapeau d'uniforme_, I realised that this was what any
-rational being would have said. But it was too late then--all I did say
-was, '_Je ne sais pas, Monsieur_' (a bad French accent too).
-
-'A-ah,' he repeated, tightening his mouth, 'now I should like to see
-whether you profit by the instructions of your Minister: Thus I shall be
-glad if you will write me a _résumé_ in French of the sermon you heard
-to-day at the Temple. It will be a good exercise for you in the French
-language. And also I shall enjoy the happiness of knowing this wise
-Minister's advice. It is understood, you will give me the _résumé_ of
-this sermon to-morrow.'
-
-'_Oui, Monsieur_.'
-
-All through the evening recreation hours, and at night when I fought
-against sleepiness in my bed, I worked over the composition of that
-sermon. It is true that I did fall asleep in the middle of it myself;
-but that does not prove it was a dull sermon, for I took it up again in
-the morning with renewed zest. I gave up my whole recreation hour after
-_déjeuner_ to writing it out. And I believed it to be as good a sermon
-as was ever preached. And there was no vanity in this belief: because it
-was not my own sermon, but one I had originally heard preached in my
-childhood in an old village church, and the arguments in favour of being
-good and simple had taken hold of my imagination, partly on account of
-the associations with the place where I heard it. Well, but now, can my
-readers deny that when I say M. Heger was a more irritating than lovable
-man, I have sound reasons for my statement? _After ordering me to write
-that sermon, and when I had stolen several hours from my sleep, and
-given up two recreations to obey him, he never asked for it!_ And when I
-told him I had written the sermon and that it was ready for him, he
-merely looked down upon me with a strange twinkle in his eyes, and said,
-'_A-ah, c'est bien. Vous l'avez donc bien retenu, ce fameux sermon? tant
-mieux, tant mieux_.'
-
-
-[1] _Villette_, chapter viii.
-
-
-
-
-CHAPTER VI
-
-MADAME HEGER'S SENTIMENT OF THE JUSTICE
-OF RESIGNATION TO INJUSTICE
-
-
-At the end of these reminiscences I have now to relate the incident that
-stands out in my memory as, not only the most bitter experience I had
-ever, up to this date, undergone of personal injustice in my brief life
-of fifteen years, not only, what was of great moral importance to me, my
-first lesson in the philosophy of refusing to torment oneself in order
-to punish one's tormentors, but also the incident that revealed to me a
-secret sorrow hidden away under Madame Heger's serenity; and that
-convinces me, now, that the tragical romance of Charlotte Brontë was not
-to her, as it must have been to M. Heger, misunderstood, and regarded as
-an event of small importance; but that it 'entered into her life,' and
-was to her a very serious trouble.
-
-One day in June, I am not able to remember now upon what especial
-occasion, nor in honour of what event, all the school was given an
-entire holiday: and, for its better enjoyment, the girls were invited by
-a former pupil in the Rue d'Isabelle, who had married and possessed a
-fine château and a large garden within walking distance of Bruxelles, to
-spend the whole day in her house and garden, where a mid-day collation
-was prepared for them. I remember very little about the day's
-enjoyments--the cruel impressions that followed the pleasant holiday
-have effaced from my memory almost everything that preceded them. I
-know, however, that all was sunshine and good humour: that my companions
-whom I had trusted as friends were as friendly to me as ever; and that
-with my two chosen companions, the philosopher Marie Hazard and the
-other still dearer friend, who was a philosopher in a different sense,
-as a profound Nature-worshipper,--where _I_ was supposed to be a
-philosopher in a sense of my own as a worshipper of ideas--talked
-'philosophy' wisely and well--in our own estimation, and ate red
-gooseberries. As we talked other girls discovered these
-gooseberry-bushes also, and came in flocks: so we three withdrew, and
-sat down under some shady tree, and were very happy and at peace. Near
-us, on a low cane chair, sat one of the under-mistresses, a Frenchwoman,
-whom I liked extremely, and who also liked me: her name was Mlle.
-Zélie--she was too young to have been one of the mistresses known to
-Charlotte Brontë twenty years before. She may have been twenty-six: or
-she may have been thirty.
-
-As she sat there, doing embroidery, and watching all the time a swarm of
-girls picking gooseberries,--we three, who had left off picking them,
-were at rest upon the grass,--there came, suddenly, a servant in great
-haste sent from the Rue d'Isabelle by Madame Heger, with a letter:
-neither Monsieur nor Madame had arrived yet, they were to be there in
-time for the collation in the afternoon. The letter was an urgent order
-to Mlle. Zélie that the girls were not to _touch the fruit in the
-kitchen garden_--this stipulation had been made by the generous hostess,
-who had invited all this company to a feast of cakes and cream and good
-things of every description, but who wanted her gooseberries and
-currants for jam. Here of course was cause of great dismay: although the
-bushes had not been entirely stripped, yet certainly thirty or forty
-girls amongst the gooseberry-bushes alone had made their mark. We three
-philosophers had trifled with one bush perhaps; but our share in the
-depredation was comparatively slight. A bell was rung, and the message
-read aloud. I am convinced from that moment onwards no one touched any
-fruit:--still the mischief had been done; it was obvious to the naked
-eye that the gooseberry-bushes had been attacked.
-
-The person who seemed most distressed was poor Mlle. Zélie: she blamed
-no one, but repeated constantly, 'Why then did not Madame warn me? Never
-should I have permitted it, had I not supposed that it was understood
-that these gooseberries, without value for that matter, were intended
-to be eaten. It seemed to me, in the absence of instructions, so
-natural.'
-
-And a chorus of girls answered: 'We thought it too, Mademoiselle: never
-would we have touched a gooseberry had we understood.'
-
-There the matter remained. We were not particularly unhappy: as a matter
-of fact all the gooseberries in the garden could have been purchased for
-five francs in Bruxelles. No harm had been done the bushes: it was a
-_mal entendu_--what would you have? The only person who seemed to take
-it to heart was poor Mlle. Zélie.
-
-'Quel malheur,' she kept repeating. 'Quel malheur! mais aussi, pourquoi
-Madame ne m'a-t-elle rien dit?'
-
-We continued, Marie Hazard and myself, sitting under our shady tree; our
-third philosopher, the Nature-worshipper, always good at decoration, had
-been called off to assist at laying out the tables, and arranging
-flowers; groups of other girls were sitting in circles on the grass or
-walking about arm in arm, when--suddenly arrived upon the scene M.
-Heger. He came up with an amiable expression: but in a moment the look
-changed to one black as night: he had seen the tell-tale signs of the
-depredations inflicted on the gooseberry-bushes.
-
-'Who is responsible for this?' he asked, '_c'est une bassesse!_ Mlle.
-Zélie, what does this signify? Were you not told the fruit was to be
-respected?'
-
-Poor Mlle. Zélie stood there quivering with terror.
-
-'Unhappily,' she said, 'Madame's letter arrived too late: without bad
-intention, these young girls imagined themselves free to eat
-gooseberries: from the moment it was known that it was forbidden, I am
-sure there was no infraction of the rule: but alas! what was done, was
-done. I regret it profoundly: and so I am sure do you, is it not so, my
-children?' she asked, turning to Marie Hazard and myself:--there was a
-clear and empty space around us--every other girl had somehow vanished.
-
-'Yes, Mademoiselle, we are very sorry,' both of us answered at once.
-
-M. Heger swooped round upon us in his wrath.
-
-'And so,' he said, 'it is _you_, is it; you two who have so much pride,
-both of you; who are so little sensitive to the counsels of your
-teachers, you, who are so superior in your own esteem, who are the
-guilty ones? It is you two, and you alone in the entire Pension, who
-have been capable of this indignity? And see what ruin you have made!
-Are you not ashamed--what gluttony!'
-
-'Mais non, Monsieur, non,' pleaded Mademoiselle Zélie, 'these young
-girls are not alone responsible; many others also took the fruit; you
-must not blame them for everything.'
-
-'Is that so, Mademoiselle Hazard? Is that so, Mees?'
-
-'Il ne faut pas nous demander cela,' said I, with my usual bad accent in
-agitated moments. 'C'est aux autres qu'il faut le demander.'
-
-'Mais oui,' he said, 'and this is what I intend to do; Mlle. Zélie, do
-me this pleasure: fetch me the _élèves_ who were here just now: call
-them together. I must get to the bottom of this. Je dois approfondir
-cela.'
-
-Mlle. Zélie was some time about it: but in the end, she returned with a
-good company of girls, forty or fifty at least; amongst them nearly all
-of those who had been most busy amongst the gooseberry bushes. They
-stood round us in a sort of circle; Marie Hazard, myself, and M. Heger.
-
-M. Heger delivered a little speech: he explained, and enlarged upon, the
-confidence that our kind hostess had placed in us; she had thrown open
-her garden to us; she had prepared a feast for us; she had made only one
-condition--respect my gooseberry-bushes. Was it possible, could one
-suppose it possible, that any one could be found base enough, greedy
-enough, to ignore her wishes?
-
-'We were not told,' said Marie Hazard; 'This is not reasonable--one
-would not have touched a gooseberry had one known. Is one a child of six
-then, to love gooseberries to this extent?'
-
-'Mlle. Hazard, it is not to _you_ I address myself,' said M. Heger. 'I
-have no question to ask you. You admit, and indeed it is not possible
-for you to deny, that you have committed this act of
-gluttony--inexcusable in a child of six. It is to you all, my dear
-pupils, outside of these two, who I know are guilty, that I ask it, and
-with confidence--amongst you all, have any of you been guilty of this
-indignity?'
-
-Dead silence. Mlle. Zélie was fidgeting about, snapping her fingers
-nervously. But she said nothing.
-
-M. Heger again addressed the girls round him, and there was a note of
-triumph in his voice:--
-
-'Cela suffit,' he affirmed, 'I shall ask no more. If any of you are
-guilty, you know it in your consciences: you know now what it remains
-for you to do. For me, I believe, and I love to believe, that the only
-pupil in this school capable of this unworthy conduct is a foreigner.'
-
-'Pardon, Monsieur,' said a voice at my elbow, 'je suis Belge; et moi
-aussi j'ai mangé des groseilles.'
-
-M. Heger bowed towards her profoundly.
-
-_Je fais une exception en votre faveur_, _Mademoiselle Hazard_,' he
-said: and then he walked away.
-
-I remained at first almost stupefied: the first shock rendered me unable
-to distinguish between reality and fiction. I began to doubt my senses:
-was I really, were Marie Hazard and myself, the only girls in the school
-who had rifled the gooseberry-bushes? Did it mean that, if not
-deliberately base, in some way there was a peculiar deficiency in
-delicacy and honour in my constitution, rendering me capable of doing
-base things without knowing it? Was it true that in this foreign country
-I had disgraced my own? This was my first impression, confusion of mind;
-because up to this date I had never known nor suffered from real
-injustice. Here was an entirely new experience. And at first it baffled
-me. I suppose I must have shown this desperation in my face: for M.
-Heger was no sooner out of sight than attempts were made to console me:
-but I was beyond consolation. Mlle. Zélie came first; she laid a
-soothing hand on my shoulder.
-
-'Do not afflict yourself, my child,' she said. 'This is a
-misunderstanding: I shall explain everything to Madame Heger.'
-
-Then several girls came bustling up, rather shamefacedly, assuring me
-that it was nothing: '_Quelle affaire_,' they ejaculated. '_Et tout cela
-à propos de quelques groseilles!_'
-
-'It has nothing to do with the gooseberries,' I said; 'you are all
-cowards, and I detest you; why couldn't you say you took them too?'
-
-'What good would it have been, with M. Heger? We shall all go to Madame
-and tell her everything. She will see how it is at once. _Voyons, Chou:
-ne pleures pas_.'
-
-'_Je ne pleure pas; vous mentez_:' and this was both impolite and
-incorrect: I _was_ crying, but not ordinary tears, because they scalded
-one.
-
-What happens invariably with people who insist upon their own private
-grievances too much, and too long, happened in my case that afternoon:
-at first I had been an object of sympathy, but when I refused it, and
-was ungracious, I became a bore. The case was stated to me in reasonable
-terms:
-
-'Say that we should have done differently and were cowardly. It was not
-out of ill-will to you, but because we were afraid of M. Heger, with
-whom one must not reason when he is in a bad humour, as every one knows.
-You and Marie Hazard, for instance, who must always be in the right with
-him, in what way does it serve you? Voyons: be frank; at least: _cela
-vous réussit-il?_ Listen then: we will make it all plain with Madame
-Heger. Mlle. Zélie will tell her we knew nothing when we ate those
-gooseberries; we thought they were there for us--that it belonged to the
-feast to eat this fruit: they were not so very good, these gooseberries
-after all: it was a politeness on our part, not greediness. Every one
-nearly ate gooseberries. When we were told it was a mistake, we ate no
-more gooseberries, and were sorry. La petite Anglaise and Marie Hazard
-did as the others did: and here is the whole history. Now all this is
-known already to almost every one. It will be known to Madame Heger
-before we go home to-night. What then do you want? Look at Marie Hazard:
-she is in the same case as you are, and does not afflict herself.'
-
-'Marie Hazard is at home here, and I am not at home. I am English; and I
-am told by M. Heger before you all, that because I am English I am
-capable of baseness.'
-
-'And what does that do to you?' asked Marie Hazard, herself, turning
-upon me with her cruel reasonableness. 'English or Belgian, one is not
-capable of baseness, and one has not deserved any blame: that is what is
-serious; the rest signifies nothing. One must not be a patriot to this
-extent. It is not reasonable. If even you had been in the wrong about
-those gooseberries, do you truly imagine to yourself that the honour of
-England would have been affected by it?'
-
-Just _because_ this was so reasonable and true, it stung me to the soul.
-'_Ma chère et bonne amie_,' wrote Rousseau to Madame d'Epinay in the
-days of their friendship, when explaining why he had burnt a letter to
-her that seemed to him more reasonable than kind: '_Pythagore disait
-qu'il ne faut jamais attiser le feu avec une épée. Cette sentence me
-paraît être la plus importante et la plus sacrée des lois de l'amitié_.'
-I knew nothing about the sayings of Pythagoras, nor the writings of
-Rousseau in those days. But it did seem to me opposed to the sacred laws
-of friendship, to remind me, in this moment, that it was absurd in me to
-drag patriotism into this question.
-
-'Leave me alone,' I said, turning my back upon them, 'you tire me, all
-of you; none of you understand me.'
-
-Although I sulked the whole afternoon, and was, as I deserved to be,
-left to sulk, as 'insupportable,' I yet came round to the conviction
-before we returned, that everything had been explained, and that even M.
-Heger understood that an injustice had been done me; and that although,
-of course, no apology could be looked for from such an obstinate man,
-still _he knew he had been in the wrong_ and was secretly repentant. But
-I was to be undeceived. After our return to the Rue d'Isabelle, the
-lecture du soir in the refectory was given, as was the usual plan on
-holidays, by M. Heger, seated at the head of the room, with Madame Heger
-on his right hand, and a table before them, placed between the two long
-lines of tables with benches stretching the length of the room against
-the walls, and two ranges of chairs on the opposite side of the tables
-facing the benches, where sat all the pupils. Having finished the
-'reading,' M. Heger summed up in a few words the sentiments that 'he was
-sure all there must feel of gratitude to their hostess, once an inmate
-of this school; and who had contrived this little fête for her
-successors. He asked their consent to a message of thanks that was to be
-sent her; and he wound up his expression of confidence in the enjoyment
-every one had derived from this holiday, by stating the satisfaction of
-Madame Heger and himself at the good conduct of every one; and then came
-this sentence:--There was only one regrettable exception to be made to
-the perfect behaviour and sense of respect due to the lady who had
-thrown open her house and garden to them, and this exception, he was, at
-any rate, pleased to recognise, was not amongst those brought up in the
-sentiments of religion and convenience cherished by almost all of them:
-and hence though one had to deplore the fault, in the case of a
-foreigner (_une étrangère_) one was more disposed to regard it with
-indulgence.'
-
-Marie Hazard rose from her seat:--but there really was no time for any
-protest or objection. There was a shuffling of chairs, a movement of
-benches. Monsieur and Madame Heger walked out of the Refectory by a
-folding door behind them that opened into a passage leading to their own
-part of the house; and the pupils filed out, under the surveillance of
-the mistress in charge, by the opposite door towards the staircase
-leading to the Oratory, for evening prayers. I alone remained sitting on
-my bench, in my usual place in the Refectory, about half-way down the
-right-hand line of tables. No one paid any attention to me, until the
-room was nearly empty, and then the mistress at the door looked round,
-and seeing me sitting there, said, 'Make haste, Mees; you will be late
-for prayers: what _are_ you doing?'
-
-I remained sitting there. She looked at me a moment; evidently didn't
-like my looks; shrugged her shoulders, agitated her hands, said--
-
-'One cannot wait for you any longer mademoiselle, _vous êtes notée_,'
-and vanished.
-
-I do not know now, and I hardly think I knew then, what I meant by the
-resolution that was the only one firmly present to me, that no one,
-nothing, should move me from the place where I was sitting in the
-Refectory: that there I was going to remain all night, and for ever if
-necessary, until this wrong was redressed, and until just excuses were
-made to me. What had at first been a new and astonishing discovery to
-me, that injustice could be done, and that people whom I respected and
-even loved, could be unjust to me, had now become a well-established and
-common fact, and I saw injustice everywhere and felt no use in living at
-all, because I had become convinced that people would always be unjust
-to me, _always_; it was the common rule of the world evidently. What was
-I to do then? Resist, perish in resisting? Very possibly, but not
-submit.
-
-There I sat at fifteen years of age, on the bench, with my elbows
-planted on the Refectory table, and my burning, throbbing head between
-my hands, _in the frame of mind in which Anarchists are made._
-
-But the influence was already approaching that was to transform anarchy
-into the ideal socialism of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, where the bitter
-bitter rage of rebelliousness against the wrong done oneself becomes the
-generous sympathy with all injustice throughout the world: '_Ce premier
-sentiment de l'injustice est resté si profondément gravé dans mon âme,
-que toutes les idées qui s'y rapportent me rendent ma première émotion;
-et ce sentiment, relatif à moi dans son origine, a pris une telle
-consistance en lui-même, et s'est si bien détaché de tout intérêt
-personnel, que mon coeur s'enflamme au spectacle ou au récit de toute
-action injuste, quel qu'en soit l'objet, et en quelque lieu qu'elle se
-commette, comme si l'effet en retomboit sur moi_.'
-
-The lesson that the author of the _Confessions_ learnt at an even
-earlier age than I did was taught me by a Victim of injustice who
-continued throughout her life so courageously undisturbed by it in
-kindness and consideration for others, that her sensibility to it became
-a less powerful feeling in her than her compassion for the suffering
-and passionate woman who had wronged her.
-
-I cannot say how long I had sat in the Refectory, when I saw the folding
-doors at the head of the room open, and quietly and composedly as usual,
-Madame Heger entered and approached me. She sat down on the chair
-opposite my bench on the opposite side of the table.
-
-'My child,' she said, 'you are wrong to take so seriously the reproach
-addressed to you by M. Heger as the result of a mistake. Mlle. Zélie has
-explained to M. Heger and to me the accident. It was a pity, no doubt,
-that this happened: but you have not any more blame than the others. All
-is forgotten and forgiven. But you, my child, are wrong in this. Why do
-you remain here, when prayers are already over, and without permission?
-You know well it is forbidden.'
-
-I broke out passionately complaining that I could not be expected to
-obey rules when I was unjustly treated: I could bear anything else, but
-I could not support injustice.
-
-'Pas l'injustice,' I protested, 'j'obéirais a tout, je supporterais
-tout: mais, pas l'injustice, non, madame, non, je ne saurais supporter
-l'injustice.'
-
-'Cependant, mon enfant, il faut savoir la supporter. Que faire?
-_Seriez-vous la seule personne au monde qui ne connaîtrait pas
-l'injustice?_'
-
-I shook my head obstinately: I made a show of resistance: but I was
-already under Madame Heger's influence. A tremendous change had taken
-place in me. I was no longer an Anarchist. It had already come to me as
-a conviction that there was nothing grand, but rather something mean, in
-refusing to bear anything that my other fellow-creatures had to bear,
-that better and nobler people than I had borne.
-
-'It saddens me,' continued Madame Heger--'(_Cela m'attriste_) to see a
-young girl like you, who soon must enter life, and who takes the habit
-of saying, "I cannot support this, everything else you like, _but not
-this_": or "I will renounce everything else, _but not that_." It does
-not depend upon us, my child, what we must support, nor what we may,
-because _les convenances_ or the interests of others demand it, have to
-renounce. Amongst the many pupils I have known, there have been some
-passionate like yourself and exalted, who have said like you to-day, I
-cannot support injustice, who have seen injustice, where there was no
-intention to be unjust; who have refused counsel with anger and
-impatience, and who in their refusal to bow to necessary obligations
-have been themselves unjust. And they have been unhappy in their lives;
-most unhappy. _Dominated by some fixed idea, the slave of some desire
-that cannot be accomplished,_ they have seen enemies in those who would
-have been their friends. They have created for themselves a sad fate;
-and I know one of them who died of it (_j'en connais une qui en est
-morte_).'
-
-Something in Madame Heger's voice surprised me, for her even tones
-quavered and broke. I looked up suddenly, her face was ashen white and
-her lips blue. I was struck to the heart. I knew not why, but in some
-way I instinctively felt that, through my fault, she was in pain: I was
-full of remorse. The table was between us, or I should have thrown
-myself upon my knees before her. My emotion had the usual effect upon my
-French accent. 'Forgive me, oh forgive me,' I wanted to say, 'I am
-ashamed of myself.' I said, 'Pardong, O pardong, j'ai honte de moi.'
-
-As it happened, nothing could have been better timed than my relapse
-into English barbarism. In a moment Madame's unusual emotion was under
-control: the soft colour returned to her cheek and lips, she shook her
-head gently, and said in her ordinary voice--
-
-'You _must_ take care of your accent, my child. One says "pardon," not
-"pardong "; and one does not say "J'ai honte de moi," but one says "Je
-suis honteuse," or "J'ai honte."
-
-'But I see you are now in a good disposition,' she went on, 'and I am
-pleased to see it. Thus then, go quietly to bed without disturbing your
-companions, and I will send Clothilde to you with some flower-of-orange
-water that will tranquillise this hot head. Good night, and be very wise
-in the future: and all will be well.'
-
-Ever since I have known the story of Charlotte Brontë I have had the
-firm conviction of what was in Madame Heger's mind when she spoke to me
-of one who had imagined enemies in friends, and who, complaining of
-injustice, had been unjust. But since I have read Charlotte's Letters,
-the unmistakable proof is that Madame Heger, so far as my memory serves
-me after all these years, actually quoted the very words of one of these
-letters, about one dominated by a fixed idea, and the slave of vain
-desires.
-
-So then we may decide finally, that Madame Heger was not Madame Beck.
-And of M. Heger we may decide that he was not Paul Emanuel either; for
-Paul Emanuel having learnt that he had committed an injustice, would
-have called his whole school together, and in full class-room repaired
-his involuntary fault. But the real M. Heger did nothing of the sort.
-For a time there was a great coldness towards him in my heart. But in
-the hours of his lessons he remained, as ever, the 'Professor' of
-unrivalled merit.
-
-Summing up what may be gathered from these reminiscences, I think the
-facts that can be affirmed are these:--
-
-No moral likeness, but a physical resemblance, between Madame Heger and
-the portrait of Madame Beck. A strong and lifelike resemblance, between
-Paul Emanuel and M. Heger, up to the point when the Professor Paul falls
-in love with Lucy Snowe. After this event, a dwindling resemblance
-between the Professor in _Villette_, and the real Professor in the Rue
-d'Isabelle, who was never in love with Charlotte Brontë, and who was the
-lawful and attached husband of the Directress of the Pensionnat.
-
-But when Professor Paul Emanuel becomes the docile disciple of Père
-Silas, when he is caught in the 'Jesuitical cobwebs of mother Church,'
-then he ceases to resemble the real man in the very least. M. Heger's
-role in life was not that of a disciple but of a Master of other people,
-and a very arbitrary and domineering Master too, for whom the world was
-his class-room. He was under the thumb of no priest, nor spiritual
-director. As for Jesuitical 'cobwebs,' the notion of M. Heger caught in
-any cobweb is absurd!
-
-Every one knows what happens when a bumble-bee in its courses comes in
-contact with a cobweb. It is a mere incident in the career of the
-bumble-bee--but it is a disaster for the cobweb.
-
-
-
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