Brontës

by Juliet Barker

  68. Grundy, 45, 79. As Harriet Martineau acknowledged, it was not easy even for established authors to obtain publication for their protégés: ‘I know this; – that I have always been anxious to extend to young or struggling authors the sort of aid which would have been so precious to me in that winter of 1829–1830, and that, in above twenty years, I have never succeeded but once … from the time of my own success to this hour, every other attempt, of the scores I have made, to get a hearing for young or new aspirants has failed’: HM, Autobiography, edited by Gaby Weiner (London, 1988), 146.

  69. PBB to Francis Grundy, 25 Oct 1842: MS n.l. [L&L, i, 273].

  70. BO, 25 Aug 1842 p.5; HG, 20 Aug 1842 pp.5–7. The Chartists had a 6–point programme, ‘The People’s Charter’, calling for universal male suffrage, equal electoral districts, removal of property qualification for MPs, payment of MPs, secret ballots and annual general elections.

  71. BO, 18 Aug 1842 p.6; HG, 20 Aug 1842 p.7; 27 Aug 1842 p.2; BO, 25 Aug 1842 p.5.

  72. Ibid., 8 Sept 1842 p.5; Reid, 194 quoting the landlord of the Black Bull.

  73. PB to John White, 22 Sept 1842: MS BS 189 pp.2–3, BPM [LRPB, 137].

  74. PB, A Funeral Sermon for … Weightman, 12–13 [Brontëana, 259]. Weightman’s illness cannot be precisely dated but he performed his last official duty, a baptism, on 14 August 1842, confirming Charlotte’s comment that his illness, like Martha Taylor’s, was of about a fortnight’s duration: Baptisms, Haworth; CB to EN, [10 Nov 1842]: MS at Harvard [LCB, i, 302].

  75. William Weightman, Funeral Card, 6 Sept 1842: MS BS x, F, BPM; Burials, Haworth.

  76. PB, A Funeral Sermon for … Weightman, 3, 16 [Brontëana, 252].

  77. William Weightman, memorial in Haworth church. The obituary was published in LI, 8Oct 1842 p.7. Patrick’s newly published sermon was praised as ‘plain and touching in its language, simple yet expressive, [and] pays a well-deserved tribute to the memory of the preacher’s beloved and lamented fellow labourer’. Weightman him-self is described as ‘admired and beloved for his sterling piety, his amiability, and cheer-fulness, and the loss of so zealous and useful a Minister of Christ is deeply felt by those among whom he lived and laboured’: LI, 29 Oct 1842 p.7.

  78. PBB to Francis Grundy, 25 Oct 1842: MS n.l. [L&L, i, 272–3].

  79. PBB to Francis Grundy, 29 Oct 1842: MS n.l. [L&L, i, 273].

  80. CB to EN, [10 Nov 1842]: MS p.1, Harvard [LCB, i, 302]; Burials, Haworth; Elizabeth Branwell, ‘Last Will & Testament, 30 Apr 1833: MS (copy) in MS PROBATE, Borthwick [L&L, i, 277]. The fact that Aunt Branwell chose to be buried in the church, rather than the Methodist burial ground, is evidence of the fact that she had become a member of the Church of England. Though her decision could be attributed to sentiment, her choice of executors was not, and reflects her impeccable Anglican credentials: Patrick Brontë, Theodore Dury vicar of Keighley and George Taylor of Stanbury, one of the Haworth church trustees. As Dury had left Keighley by the time she died, he sought and obtained a release from his executorship.

  81. CB to EN, [10 Nov 1842]: MS p.1, Harvard [LCB, i, 302].

  82. Ibid., p.2 [LCB, i, 302]; MT to EN, 1 Nov 1842: MS in Berg [Stevens, 39–40]; CB to EN, [10 Nov 1842]: MS p.2, Harvard [LCB, i, 302].

  83. Constantin Heger to PB, 5 Nov 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 299–300].

  84. Ibid., 300.

  85. CB to EN, [?22 Nov 1842]: MS p.2, Harvard [LCB, i, 303]; CB to EN, [25 Nov 1842]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 304].

  86. AB, In memory of a happy day in February, Feb–10 Nov 1842: MS Bon 134 pp.2–3, BPM [Chitham, 82–3].

  87. AB, To Cowper, 10 Nov 1842: MS MA 28 pp.2–3, PM [Chitham, 84–5].

  88. CB to EN, [25 Nov 1842]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 304]. Anne did not come back for the Christmas holidays, having taken time off for Aunt Branwell’s funeral.

  89. AB, To –, Dec 1842: MS MA 28 pp.4–6, PM [Chitham, 87–8].

  90. See, for example, AB, The Captive’s Dream, 24 Jan 1838 and ‘The lady of Alyerno’s hall’, 10 July 1838: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.3–5, PM [Chitham, 62, 66–8]. Another love poem whose ms is lost, ‘Farewell to thee! but not farewell’, regarded as a ‘Weightman poem’ by WG AB, 188 and Chitham, 76–7, was actually published as a song in AB, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, 157. This suggests to me that it had nothing to do with Weightman since Anne is unlikely to have wanted to use so personal a poem in a public work of fiction. In any event, it negates Chitham’s argument that AB, To –, Dec 1842 (see above, n.89), was ‘suppressed’ and deliberately omitted from Poems 1846 because it was autobiographical.

  91. BO, 8Dec 1842 p.8.

  92. Ibid., 5Jan 1843 p.5; Keighley Saturday Observer, 31 Dec 1842 p.8. Hoffman had played in Keighley at the beginning of December: BO, 8Dec 1842. 1067 NOTES TO PAGES 480– 5

  93. Ibid., 29 Dec 1842 p.5. Charlotte may have been referring to this incident when she jokingly sent her ‘Regards to the fighting gentry’ in CB to EJB, 29 May 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 320].

  94. Elizabeth Branwell, ‘Last Will & Testament, 30 Apr 1833: MS (copy) in MS PROBATE, Borthwick [L&L, i, 277]. Aunt Branwell left her Indian workbox to Charlotte, her workbox with the china top and an ivory fan to Emily, her watch and eyeglass with their chains &c to Anne and her japanned dressing case to Branwell. Their aunt’s rings, spoons, books, clothes etc. were all to be divided among the 3 sisters as their father thought fit. Eliza Kingston was the only daughter of Elizabeth’s sister Jane, who had married John Kingston and left him in America, returning with Eliza to live in Penzance. Like the Brontës, she had no financial security and was therefore a beneficiary of her aunt’s will. Branwell was deliberately omitted, not because he was out of favour, but because he was expected to earn his own living.

  95. Probate of the will was finally granted on 28 December 1842, William Morgan administering the oath to the executors as a commissioner for the Archbishop of York. The estate was sworn to be worth less than £1500: Elizabeth Branwell, probate papers, 21 Nov–28 Dec 1842: MS in MS PRO-BATE, Borthwick. The will directed that the money from the estate was to be invested until the youngest legatee was 21. Patrick’s inventory of the residue of the estate included 10 whole and 4 half-shares in the York and North Midland Railway Company (£1087), a promissory note (£30), a gold watch – presumably Anne’s legacy – (£10) and remaining books and jewellery (£20). A note added that one half railway share and all the money in Bolitho & Sons’ Bank of Chiandower, near Penzance, had been spent on funeral, probate and other expenses and that shares valued at £124 in certain Cornish mines were found to be worthless. Branwell’s japanned dressing box was valued ‘not above’ 5s. The remaining valuables were listed thus: A gold eyeglass £1; 1 Garnet ring 5s; 1jet ring 5s; 1agate ring 7s; 1pair of small gold earrings 5s; 7 silver teaspoons £18s; 2 silver tablespoons 18s; a silver knife and fork 15s; a silver butter-knife 5s; 2small jet brooches 3s: PB, Inventory of the residue of the late Miss Elizabeth Branwell’s property, 30 Jan 1843: MS in private hands.

  96. CB to EN, [c.6 Jan 1843]: MS at Harvard and CB to EN, [?14 Jan 1843]: MS Gr. E5, BPM [LCB, i, 306, 308].

  97. CB to EN, 30 Jan [1843]: MS at TC [LCB, i, 308].

  98. CB Villette, 61.

  99. ECG, Life, 197.

  100. CB to EN, 30 Jan [1843]: MS at TC [LCB, i, 308].

  101. ECG, Life, 197–8.

  102. CB to EN, 6Mar [1843]: MS BS 50.4 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 311].

  103. Ibid., p.3; Abraham Dixon snr to Mary Dixon, 24 July 1843: MS HAOBP 2001/13, BPM.

  104. CB to EN, 6Mar [1843]: MS BS 50.4 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 311]. At the bottom of the letter Charlotte drew a revealing caricature of herself (see plate 28), as a short, ugly figure with a head too big for her body, waving goodbye across the Channel to Ellen, who is lady-like prettiness personified. Ellen’s name has been struck out and replaced with ‘Mrs O. V[incent].’ and she is hand-in-hand with a bespectacled man in a top hat who is labelled ‘The Chosen’. A more compellingly graphic illustra-tion of the difference Charlotte perceived between her
self and her pretty friend could not be imagined.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MONSIEUR HEGER

  1. See, for example, EJB, ‘All blue and bright, in glorious light’, 24 Feb 1843; ‘Lie down and rest – the fight is done’, 18 Dec 1843; ‘Where beams the sun the brightest’, 1May 1843, and ‘In the earth, the earth thou shalt be laid’, 6Sept 1843: MS Add 43483 pp.27–9, 55, 42, 43, BL [Roper, 135–8, 143, 139–40, 141–2]; EJB, ‘yes holy be thy resting place’, [July 1843]: MS Bon 127 p.6v, BPM [Roper, 203–4]. For a useful discussion on the influence of Brussels on Emily see David Musselwhite, PartingsWeldedTogether: Politics and Desire in the Nineteenth Century Engish Novel (London, 1987), 75–108.

  2. MT to EN, 16 Feb 1843: MS p.1, Berg [Stevens, 43].

  3. EN to Meta Gaskell, n.d.: MS no.11, bound vol. of miscellaneous letters of EN, Brotherton. See also Scruton, 130 quoting Martha Brown.

  4. CB to EJB, 29 May 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 319]. Charlotte may have attempted to find another teacher as a printed circular advertising German lessons from Madame Hock, ‘Une Dame Allemande, qui connaitle français et l’anglais’, of No.35, Rue de la Montagne, was among Charlotte’s effects: MS in private hands.

  5. CB, Cahier of German Translations, 25 Apr 1843: MS Bon 117, BPM; Charlotte’s translations of 4 poems by Schiller, ‘Des Mädchens Klage’, ‘Der Alpenjäger’, ‘Ritter Toggenburg’ and ‘Nadowessische Totenklage’, are bound with CB, [William Wallace and other essays], [1843]: MS Ashley 160, BL [VN CB, 365–70]; CB, Cahier Translations from English to German, May 1843: MS Bon 118, BPM. There are only 4pages of German in this notebook, though at least 2 further pages have been torn out: the rest was later used by Charlotte for drafting her own poetry.

  6. For Charlotte’s translation of Scott’s Lady of the Lake, canto iii, 16 see CB, ‘coronach pour un montagnard écossais’, [Spring 1843]: MS in Brotherton, bound with CB, ‘l’Immensité de Dieu’, [1843]: [VN, CB, 364–5]. Her translation of Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage, canto iv, 140–1 is in CB, [William Wallace and other essays], [1843]: MS Ashley 160, BL [VN CB, 365–70]. Charlotte’s translations of Louis Belmontet’s ‘Les Orphelins’ as ‘The Orphans’, Feb 1843, and Auguste Barbier’s ‘L’Idole’ as ‘Napoleon’, Mar 1843, are in CB Cahier of English Translations: MS MA 2696 R-V pp.1–5, 6–9, PM [VN, CB, 485–7, 355–6]. Draft lines for ‘Napoleon’ are CB, ‘Thy France O straight-haired Corsican’ and ‘O Corsican thou of the stern contour’, [Mar 1843]: MS Bon 116 pp.1–2, BPM [VN, CB, 488–9].

  7. Manchester Athenaeum Album (1850), 9–12.

  8. Astonishingly, the importance of these devoirs and their subject matter was not recognized until the publication of Sue Lonoff, ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Belgian Essays: The Discourse of Empowerment’, Victorian Studies, 32 no.3. (Indiana, 1989), 387–409.

  9. See above, p.453.

  10. CB, La Chute des Feuilles, 30 Mar 1843: MS in private hands [Lonoff, 242–5]. The original poem by Millevoye is one of the items in CB, Copy Book, [1842–3]: MS Bon 115 pp.14–16, BPM.

  11. CB, La Chute des Feuilles, 30 Mar 1843: MS in private hands [Lonoff, 246–7].

  12. Constantin Heger, observation, ibid., 246–9. I am grateful to Allegra Huston for suggesting the analogy between Calvinism and Charlotte’s concept of genius.

  13. CB, La Mort de Napoléon, 31 May [1843]: MS BS 20 p.2, BPM [Lonoff, 270–1].

  14. Ibid., 272–3.

  15. Lonoff, ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Belgian Essays’, 396.

  16. CB, La Mort de Napoléon, 31 May [1843]: MS BS 20 p.2, BPM [Lonoff, 278–9].

  17. Lonoff, ‘Charlotte Brontë’s Belgian Essays’, 396.

  18. CB, Lettre d’un Pauvre Peintre à un grand Seigneur, 17 Oct 1843: MS p.3, Berg [Lonoff, 360–1]

  19. Ibid., 6–7 [Lonoff, 362–3].

  20. Ibid., 10–11 [Lonoff, 366–7].

  21. CB to Constantin Heger, 24 Oct 1844: MS Add 38732(B) p.4, BL [LCB, i, 371] says she has 2copies of Heger’s speeches in her little library of books he had given her. For the copy he gave Emily see above, p.1064 n.41.

  22. CB, Lettre d’un Pauvre Peintre à un grand Seigneur, 17 Oct 1843: MS p.10, Berg [Lonoff, 364–5].

  23. CB, The Professor, 122–3.

  24. CB, Villette, 504–5; CB, Shirley, 485–90. Moore also makes Shirley recite Bossuet’s ‘Le Cheval Dompté’, which Charlotte had copied into her own notebook: MS Bon 115, 38–9, BPM.

  25. Constantin Heger to unidentified, n.d.: MS n.l. [Edith Weir, ‘New Brontë Material Come to Light’, BST:11:59:256–7].

  26. Mr Westwood to unidentified, 21 Nov 1869–21 Feb 1870: MS 52,298 pp.3–4, Brown. Westwood’s wife’s cousin was also a former pupil and ‘just one of those intellectual pupils whom he was wont to single out for preference’. Heger had not only told her Charlotte’s story but also shown her Charlotte’s letters. ‘He is a finished specimen of a Jesuit,’ Westwood commented, ‘but with all that a worthy & warm-hearted man … He remembers her with affection, Madame Beck with wrath.’: ibid, pp.4, 2.

  27. CB to EN, 6 Mar [1843]: MS BS 50.4 p.2, BPM [LCB, i, 311].

  28. Ibid., p.2[LCB, i, 311].

  29. CB to EN, [?Apr 1843]: MS HM 24432 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 315].

  30. Ibid., p.2[LCB, i, 315].

  31. CB to PBB, 1May 1843: MS Ashley 161 pp.2–3, BL. [LCB, i 316–7].

  32. Ibid., pp.3–4[LCB, i, 317]; Das Neue Testament (London, 1835): HAOBP:bb98, BPM, inscribed on flyleaf in a mock-gothic script by Charlotte ‘Herr Heger hat mir dieses Buch gegeben Brussel Mai 1843 CB’. The gift coincides with, and may have prompted, Charlotte’s resumption of German lessons.

  33. CB to EJB, 29 May 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 320].

  34. CB to EJB, 2 Sept 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 329], where Charlotte says ‘Mdlle Blanche’s character is so false and so contemptible I can’t force myself to associate with her. She perceives my utter dislike and never now speaks to me – a great relief.’

  35. CB to EJB, 29 May 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 320].

  36. CB to EN, [?late June 1843]: MS 2696 R-v pp.3–4, PM [LCB, i, 325].

  37. Abraham Dixon snr to Mary Dixon, 24 July 1843: MS E2002.13, BPM. Jenkins’s duties appear to have been taken at least temporarily by either his brother, David Jenkins, incumbent of Pudsey, or more likely, his nephew, who was curate of Batley. At the beginning of August Charlotte heard ‘a voice proceed from the pulpit’ of the Chapelle Royale ‘which instantly brought all Birstal and all Battley before my mind’s eye’: though she could not see him, it was Jenkins, who later called round with news that Ellen’s sister Sarah had died and that Ellen herself had gone to Harrogate: CB to EN, 6 Aug 1843: MS BS 50.6 pp.1–2, 4, BPM [LCB, i, 327–8].

  38. CB to EN, 13 Oct [1843]: MS HM 24433 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 354]. Susanna Mills is not mentioned in any correspondence but she wrote to the South Wales Echo in May 1901 to say she had been a contemporary of Charlotte, Emily and the Wheelwrights at the school. She offered no insights or memories of them, though she did say that she remem-bered them well: C.K. Shorter, The Brontës: Life and Letters (London, 1908), i, 233 n. For Maria Miller see CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, [c.23 June 1852]: MS n.l. [LCB, iii, 54]. Maria was particularly friendly with Laetitia Wheelwright at the school and the family considered her to be the model for Ginevra Fanshawe in Villette: Green, ‘The Brontë-Wheelwright Friendship’, i, 33.

  39. CB to EN, 6Aug 1843: MS BS 50.6 pp.1–2, BPM [LCB, i, 327].

  40. CB to EJB, 2Sept 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 329–30].

  41. Ibid., 330.

  42. CB, Villette, 199–200.

  43. Ibid., 201–2.

  44. CB to EJB, [1 Oct 1843]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 331]. Tiger was the family cat.

  45. CB to EN, 13 Oct [1843]: MS HM 24433 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 334].

  46. CB, Villette, 440; CB, Cahier d’Arithmétique, Sept 1843: MS Bon 119, BPM, in which Charlotte noted that her Professor was Heger: only 8 pages were completed, suggesting that the lessons did not last long.

  47. Charlotte’s last 2dev
oirs were written in October: CB, Athènes sauvée par la Poësie, 6Oct 1843: MS Bon 120, BPM; CB, Lettre d’un Pauvre Peintre à un grand Seigneur, 17 Oct 1843: see above, pp.490–1. A fair copy revision of the first essay is the last piece of work she produced for Heger: CB, Athènes sauvée par la Poësie, 22 Dec 1843: MS in Bonnell Coll, PM.

  48. CB to EN, 13 Oct [1843]: MS HM 24433 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 334]; CB note inside the back cover of Russell’s General Atlas of Modern Geography (London, n.d.): MS 2696 R-V, PM.

  49. CB to Mary Dixon, 16 Oct 1843: MS p.2, Princeton [LCB, i, 336]; CB to EN, [?late June 1843]: MS 2696 R-V p.2, PM [LCB, i, 324], to which Charlotte adds ‘This opinion is for you only, mind –’. See also, CB to EN, 13 Oct [1843]: MS HM 24433 p.2, Huntington [LCB, i, 334].

  50. CB to EJB, 19 Dec 1843: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 339].

  51. CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, [Dec 1843]: MS in Kentucky; Abraham Dixon snr to Mary Dixon, 30 Dec 1843: MS Dixon 13, BPM. The note, ‘Denk op my on ik zal op u denken N Vrindinne Pensez à moi et je penserai toujours à Vous Votre amie Charlotte’, purports to be Charlotte’s autograph but appears to me to be in another hand. The Dixon letter was given to Charlotte to deliver to Mary in England, thus avoiding the huge postal charges incurred by sending from Belgium.

  52. CB to EN, 23 Jan 1844: MS in Law, photograph in MCP, BPM [LCB, i, 341].

  53. Ibid.

  54. Ibid. Charlotte later apparently corresponded on affection terms with Mathilde, a former pupil, belying her claims to have loathed all her Belgian students: Mathilde to CB, [?July 1844]: MS ix, M, BPM [LCB, i, 352–4]. It was addressed to ‘Mademoiselle Charlotte Brontë Angleterre’ so must have been in a properly addressed package of letters from Brussels. Though found in Charlotte’s writing desk it is possible that this was not a genuine letter but actually a school exercise.

  55. CB to PB, [?2June 1843]: MS n.l. [LCB, i, 321].

  56. BO, 9 Mar 1843 p.5; Burials, Haworth. On 12 March Smith simply signed his name; seven days later he signed it again adding the title ‘curate’.