Brontës
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As if to justify this view she pauses to admire a beautiful flower, only to find that its heart has been eaten out by a caterpillar, which, in disgust, she crushes beneath her foot. A moment later a brilliant butterfly flutters past and realization dawns.
The created should not judge his Creator, here is a symbol of the world to come. Just as the ugly caterpillar is the origin of the splendid butterfly, so this world is the embryo of a new heaven and a new earth whose poorest beauty will infinitely exceed your mortal imagination; and when you see the magnificent outcome of what seems so humble to you now, you will despise your blind presumption in accusing Omniscience for not destroying nature in its infancy.25
This could hardly be a more eloquent statement of Christian belief; Emily’s optimism is reflected in the fact that she chose to call her essay ‘The Butterfly’, while Charlotte called hers ‘The Caterpillar’.
Two months later, in October, Emily and her sister each wrote an essay entitled ‘The Palace of Death’. Both followed their original source quite closely, describing a scene where Death, tired of the golden time when men died only of old age, chooses a new minister. Rejecting the claims of Ambition and War (or, in Emily’s case, Fanaticism), with their attendant trains of Rage and Vengeance, Envy and Treason, Famine, Pestilence, Sloth and Avarice, Death chooses Intemperance. In Charlotte’s case the choice is made because ‘War and Ambition are only your children; all the demons that destroy mankind are born of you.’26 Emily, also compelled to choose Intemperance by her source, gave her a stirring speech to justify her candidature of Death:
I have a friend before whom all this assembly will be forced to give way; she is called Civilisation: in a few years’ time she will come to inhabit this earth with us and every age will augment her power and in the end she will turn Ambition out of your service, she will harness Anger with the law; she will snatch the weapons from the hands of Fanaticism; she will chase Famine out among the savages; I alone will grow and flourish under her reign.27
Death, recognizing the truth of this statement, makes Intemperance her Vice-Roy. An apparent belief in the power of civilization to tame the savageries of mankind, which was not uncommon in the nineteenth century, is thus given a cynical twist: Intemperance becomes the vice particularly associated with civilization, flourishing outside the state of nature, and it alone will continue to kill.
If Emily’s Brussels essays give us a unique insight into her beliefs, Charlotte’s are equally revealing. Their most obvious feature, as Mrs Gaskell observed, was their faith – something which contemporaries believed to be sadly lacking in her letters and her published novels.28 The emphasis on faith may have owed something to the air of religion which pervaded the Pensionnat Heger. The prospectus had nailed its colours to the mast: ‘The course of instruction’, it declared, was ‘based on Religion.’ Monsieur Heger, in particular, was held to be ‘profoundly and openly religious’, expressing the zeal of his piety in his membership of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, through which he devoted his leisure hours to teaching the poor and the sick.29 Charlotte was not, however, simply trying to please her master. Monsieur Heger himself recognized that she ‘was brought up on the Bible’30 and there was nothing sycophantic in her defiantly Protestant stance in a Catholic school. Many of her essays were overtly on religious topics; ‘Anne Askew’, ‘Evening prayer in a camp’, ‘The death of Moses’, ‘Portrait of Peter the Hermit’ and ‘The Caterpillar’, all written in 1842, fall into this class.
On the other hand, many of the essays apparently on unrelated subjects were coloured by Charlotte’s obvious Christian faith. Her description of the ritual immolation of a Hindustani widow is an excuse to attack every aspect of a barbaric practice: the widow, going voluntarily to her death, is upheld as much by pride as religion; the funeral procession is a savage, noisy and pagan display; all the wealth of the Hindustanis, she declares, is not worth a single ray from that star of Bethlehem which the Magi once saw in the East. A sick girl recovers her health in response to fervent prayer and even the sight of a normally timid bird defending its eggs on its nest is a symbol of God’s presence in his works.31
Monsieur Heger was a ruthless critic, attacking not only technical mistakes, such as incorrect sentence structure and clumsy translations, but also trying to stamp upon his pupils the importance of adopting a style. He was a man with an eye for detail: a single infelicitous word or phrase merited vicious underlining and he was pitiless in his paring away of unnecessary verbiage. This was something that Charlotte, especially, needed greatly; though the Angrian obsession had implanted a love of writing in her blood, she had not yet learnt to control her runaway imagination or to impose discipline on her pen. Monsieur Heger was the first person to offer her objective criticism of her style and suggest ways of improving it. At the end of an early essay, ‘The Nest’, written on 30 April, he appended a piece of advice:
What importance should be given to details, in developing a subject? You must sacrifice, without pity, everything that does not contribute to clarity, verisimilitude and effect. Accentuate everything which sets off the main thought, so that the impression you give is highly coloured, graphic; It is sufficient if the rest remain in its place but in the background. This is what gives to prose style, as to painting, unity, perspective, and effect. Read Harmonie XIV of Lamartine: The Infinite: We will analyse it together from the point of view of its details.
May 4 C Heger32
Most of the time, Monsieur Heger confined his advice to stringently critical remarks. A good example occurs in Charlotte’s exercise on ‘Peter the Hermit’, written on 31 July. Woolly phrases are tightened up: men ‘destined to be’ instruments of great change become ‘predestined’; an irrelevant phrase incurs a marginal note ‘why this expression?’; when she refers to ‘Picardy in France’, he writes ‘unnecessary when you are writing in French’; an adjectival phrase about an illusion ‘which he could never attain’ is cut with the words ‘unnecessary when you say illusion’; an elaborate metaphor about the nature of certain men who, like Samson, can break the cords that bind them even when sleeping, is also cut, this time with the forceful comment ‘you have begun to talk about Peter, you are into the subject, go straight to the end’.33 Under such rigorous criticism of her every word and phrase, Charlotte soon learnt the importance of craft and began to appreciate that mere flow of words – her worst fault since childhood – was not enough.
It is difficult to tell what effect Monsieur Heger’s criticism had on Emily’s writing since there now exists so little of her prose from either before or after Brussels to compare. Most of his annotations on her essays were confined to picking her up on her grammar and underlining or scoring through her literal translation of English words and phrases. There are remarkably few comments on her style. This may suggest that Emily had not yet advanced beyond the point at which her faults in language became less important than her argument, but it is more likely that it actually indicated she had fewer problems in this area. Her essays, like her surviving poems,34 were more concise and direct in their approach than Charlotte’s and, whatever her faults of translation, Monsieur Heger found much to admire in her power of reasoning and expression. He later confided to Mrs Gaskell that he rated Emily’s genius as ‘something even higher’ than Charlotte’s. She had, he said, ‘a head for logic, and a capability of argument, unusual in a man, and rare indeed in a woman’. The force of this gift, however, he believed to be much impaired by her ‘stubborn tenacity of will which rendered her obtuse to all reasoning where her own wishes, or her own sense of right, was concerned.’ His assessment of her character was both penetrating and revealing.
She should have been a man – a great navigator. Her powerful reason would have deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old; and her strong imperious will would never have been daunted by opposition or difficulty; never have given way but with life.
Monsieur Heger also believed that her imaginative powers would have been best d
isplayed in writing history, where ‘her view of scenes and characters would have been so vivid, and so powerfully expressed, and supported by such a show of argument, that it would have dominated over the reader, whatever might have been his previous opinions, or his cooler perceptions of its truth’.35 Charlotte seems to have shared this opinion, later telling her publisher that she considered ‘Ellis Bell’, her sister’s pseudonym, ‘somewhat of a theorist’.
now and then he broaches ideas which strike my sense as much more daring and original than practical; his reason may be in advance of mine, but certainly it often travels a different road. I should say Ellis will not be seen in his full strength till he is seen as an essayist.36
As we are almost totally dependent on Charlotte’s pen for a portrait of Emily, it is interesting to see that Monsieur Heger’s assessment of her character seems to have been shared by the few people she came in contact with in Brussels. She not only seems to have set out with absolutely no intention of making friends, but was so uncompromisingly self-centred that she incurred positive dislike. For some months after their arrival in Brussels, the sisters were regularly invited to the Jenkins’ house for Sundays and half-holidays. Eventually, however, Mrs Jenkins stopped asking them as it obviously gave them more pain than pleasure to be invited. Her two sons, John and Edward, who were given the task of escorting the Brontës to the Chaussée d’Ixelles, found them awkward and shy and hardly exchanged a word with them during the journey. Once in her home, Mrs Jenkins found them equally difficult.
Emily hardly ever uttered more than a monosyllable, and Charlotte was sometimes excited sufficiently to speak eloquently and well – on certain subjects –but, before her tongue was thus loosed, she had a habit of gradually wheeling round on her chair, so as almost to conceal her face from the person to whom she was speaking.37
Charlotte, though willing enough to repay the kindness of her hosts by making an effort at conversation, was afflicted by that ‘mauvaise honte’ of which she had complained to Ellen Nussey. Emily simply had no wish to please and no interest in doing so. She was quite capable of eloquence when the mood took her: when Monsieur Heger proposed his reading plan to the sisters he had to cut short Emily’s protest – she ‘would have entered into an argument on the subject’.38 When her interests were threatened or excited she would defend herself with vigour, but social intercourse she considered a waste of time.
Charlotte was prepared to make other concessions for the sake of harmony. She despised her fellow pupils as much as Emily did, telling Ellen:
If the national character of the Belgians is to be measured by the character of most of the girls in this school, it is a character singularly cold, selfish, animal and inferior – they are besides very mutinous and difficult for the teachers to manage – and their principles are rotten to the core – we avoid them – which is not difficult to do – as we have the brand of Protestantism and Anglicism upon us.39
She was, however, prepared to learn from them. It was evidently in Brussels that Charlotte learnt to adapt her dress to suit her tiny figure. She abandoned her old-fashioned dresses with their high waists and large sleeves and collars and began to wear plainer clothes, neatly waisted with narrow sleeves and small, contrasting, embroidered collars. In this she was clearly imitating the Belgian girls and her future heroines, from Frances Henri to Lucy Snowe, would all win approval for the neatness and plain simplicity of their dress even if they lacked the advantages of personal beauty. By contrast, Emily obstinately refused to abandon her old style of dress, persisting in wearing leg-of-mutton sleeves, which had long gone out of fashion and which did not suit her tall, ungainly frame. Her petticoats too, lacking fullness, made her skirts cling to her legs, accentuating her height and thinness. The oddity of her figure and dress brought taunts from her school-fellows, bringing the angry response, ‘I wish to be as God made me.’40
Despite her defiant stance, Emily made rapid progress in French, German, music and drawing at the Pensionnat Heger. ‘Monsieur & Madame Heger begin to recognize the valuable points of her character under her singularities’,41 Charlotte told Ellen thankfully, so the most difficult part of Charlotte’s original plan could now be put into practice. Their half year in Brussels was almost exhausted, but she seems to have persuaded Madame Heger to keep them on as pupils in return for some teaching duties. No doubt she told Patrick and Aunt Branwell, as she told Ellen, that the offer had originated from Madame Heger, but the suggestion – so neatly fulfilling her plans for extending their foreign residence – almost certainly came from Charlotte herself.
Madame Heger has made a proposal for both me and Emily to stay another half year – offering to dismiss her English master and take me as English teacher – also to employ Emily some part of each day
Charlotte can have had no real hesitation in staying. Though she was occasionally homesick, on the whole she was thoroughly happy, indulging her natural bent for acquiring knowledge to the full. How happy Emily was cannot be judged, nor whether the prospect of remaining six more months in Brussels filled her with dread or delight. She had certainly suffered at first, just as she had at Roe Head. ‘Once more she seemed sinking,’ Charlotte observed, ‘but this time she rallied through the mere force of resolution: with inward remorse and shame she looked back on her former failure, and resolved to conquer in this second ordeal. She did conquer: but the victory cost her dear.’ It was not only force of character that carried Emily through. Somehow she managed to find time for her lifeline, Gondal, writing three poems whose titles and content suggest that they were part of a longer, prose Gondal story.43
Madame Heger appears to have decided to break her new teachers in gently. They took up their duties in August, at the beginning of the two month long ‘grandes vacances’. Only six or eight boarders, beside the Brontës, remained at the school, though their numbers were supplemented by the five daughters of Dr Thomas Wheelwright, an English surgeon who, when his eyesight failed, had given up his London practice to come to Brussels in July 1842. The Wheelwrights had taken up residence in a flat in the Hotel Cluysenaar, in the Rue Royale, only ten minutes’ walk from the Pensionnat Heger. Being newly arrived, the doctor was anxious that his daughters, who were aged six to fourteen, should use the school holidays to prepare themselves for the forthcoming term.44 They were the Brontës’ first pupils in Brussels.
Emily taught music to the three youngest girls, Fanny, Sarah Ann and Julia, thereby earning their everlasting dislike. Their eldest sister, Laetitia, who was later to become one of Charlotte’s friends, shared her sisters’ antipathy.
I am afraid my recollections of Emily Brontë will not aid you much. I simply disliked her from the first … She taught my three youngest sisters music for four months to my annoyance, as she would only take them in their play hours, so as not to curtail her own school hours, naturally causing many tears to small children, the eldest ten, the youngest not seven.
Again Emily displayed that self-centredness which allowed her to ride rough-shod over her young pupils’ feelings. Such was the young Wheelwrights’ loathing of Emily that they refused to invite the sisters to their home, even though they liked Charlotte and found her invariably kind and friendly. Nor could they invite one without the other: ‘Charlotte was so devotedly attached to her, and thought so highly of her talents’ that it would only have caused offence to exclude her sister.45
Only one person seems to have had a good word to say about Emily and that was Louise de Bassompierre, a sixteen-year-old Belgian girl, who was in the first class with the B
rontës. Because there were only about a dozen pupils in this class, she got to know both of them quite well. In sharp contrast to the prevailing opinion, she preferred Emily to Charlotte, finding her more sympathetic, kinder and more approachable. That a friendship did exist between the two, however unlikely it may seem, is borne out by the fact that Emily presented her with a signed drawing, a dramatic and detailed pencil study of a storm-damaged pine tree.46
Having won the consent of their father and aunt to remain a further six months in Brussels, Charlotte and Emily seem to have settled quickly into their new teaching roles. At the end of September Mary Taylor could report quite truthfully to Ellen Nussey:
Charlotte & Emily are well; not only in health but in mind & hope. They are content with their present position & even gay & I think they do quite right not to return to England though one of them at
While everything was going better than could have been expected for Charlotte and Emily in Brussels, affairs were proceeding less smoothly at home. Patrick had returned from the Continent to find Haworth in a very depressed condition. It was an indication of the terrible state of trade and the depth of personal suffering caused that one of the most respected cotton spinners in the township, Thomas Lister, of Hollings Mill near Stanbury committed suicide at the end of April.48 A few days later, one of Patrick’s oldest friends, Thomas Andrew, who had been the Haworth surgeon for the past twenty-four years, died. His funeral, conducted by Patrick on 3 May, was a remarkable manifestation of the esteem and affection in which he was held. So many people came to pay their last respects that the corpse had to be taken out of his house and displayed in the public street: Patrick led the procession of mourners to the church and conducted the burial service. What made Andrew’s loss even greater was the fact that he had been particularly skilled in treating the typhus fevers which were endemic among the poor. ‘His kindness to the poor was almost unexampled’, declared one eulogist, for he had treated hundreds of people over the years, charging them a pittance for his services and often nothing at all.49 His death at the height of the worst depression in trade that anyone could remember was a particular loss to the suffering poor and it was decided that a memorial should be erected in Haworth Church to his memory. Branwell, still at home and glad to do an old friend a favour, suggested that J. B. Leyland should be commissioned to produce the memorial. It was a good excuse to invite Leyland to dine at the parsonage and, in the evening, he appeared before the monument committee. Later Branwell felt compelled to admit: