The Key to the Brontë Works: The Key to Charlotte Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights,' 'Jane Eyre,' and her other works.

(Rose Yorke) was in New Zealand when Charlotte Brontë died. Her fondness for travel is mentioned in the Shirley chapter named. The male members of this family were thought by Currer Bell most characteristic Yorkshire folk, hence the name of Yorke. I mention Yorke Hunsden as one of the Yorkshire-Hégers of Miss Brontë's method of dual portraiture. I believe this important character in The Professor will be found, like his fellows, to be entirely a Taylor-Héger. The name for Hunsden was apparently dictated by the Taylors' connection with Hunsworth, and it may be noted his Christian name of Yorke came to be later the surname of Mr. Taylor as portrayed in Shirley. But the Héger element was always superior to the Yorkshire element in Charlotte Brontë's heroes. The latter might provide useful and necessary external characteristics, but the "intensitives" were the lines she drew from her model, M. Héger. Of him as M.

a melancholy, almost suffering expression of countenance; his physiognomy was fine et spirituelle. This "melancholy almost suffering expression of countenance" she thus described was evidently once a marked characteristic of M. Héger's physiognomy. A reference to it occurs in M. de Morville, whom I identify as a phase of M. l'expression de légère souffrance habituelle à sa physionomie, d'ailleurs si ouverte, s'est compliquée d'une sorte de contrainte lorsqu'il se trouve au milieu de sa famille. de Morville semble profondément attristé. it might only be a bilious caprice. arch girl. Regarding these facial metamorphoses Charlotte Brontë wrote similarly concerning M. [49] I remark that M. Héger's harshness evidently had impressed Charlotte Brontë considerably at first, and thus reflects her thoughts on this point in the introduction of the phases she gives of him in her books. impatient, yet formal in Mr.

interested in a this moment I am not I continued the man who seemed disposed to accost conversation with more exaggeratedly her." myself. proceeding was piquant. I felt interested to see how he would go on. We read of Rochester:--"The frown, the roughness of the stranger set me at my ease"; and in Villette, we read of M. Héger as M. the darkness, the manner displeased me. I preferred him before all humanity," which explains why Charlotte Brontë wrote of Rochester:--"The sarcasm that had repelled, the harshness that had startled me once, were only like keen condiments in a choice dish," and explains why she admits to the piquancy in exploiting the possibilities of Heathcliffe's startling harshness. And again, as further evidence of the influence of M.

Héger over her Yorkshire Hunsden, we find this character in the close of The Professor implicated with a mysterious "Lucia," whom he would have married but could not, which Lucia we discover to have meant really the original of the Lucy Snowe of Villette--Charlotte Brontë herself. It is obvious that while Currer Bell, for "story" and other purposes, made use of a composite method in presenting a portrait, she drew from characters who possessed much in common: as with the composite character of the Rev. Mr. Helstone, meant for her father, a clergyman, but presenting also a phase of another clergyman, the Rev. Hammond Roberson; and as with Dr. John Bretton, a composite character drawn from the two Scotsmen, Mr. Smith her publisher, and the Rev. A. B. Nicholls, who subsequently became her husband. Doubtless, characteristics in the Taylors were similar to some of M. Héger's.

Perhaps the fact that they spoke French and sojourned on the Continent, accentuated to her these characteristics. In a letter, Miss Brontë described all the Taylors as "Republicans." And so of Yorke Hunsden in The Professor, Chap. and family standing." Thus, in Shirley, Chap. , in which work that character appears stripped of the Héger element, as Mr. sarcasm. Mr. Viâ Yorke Hunsden of The Professor and Mr. Yorke of Shirley the reader has returned to a character who typified more than any other of Charlotte Brontë's Yorkshire-Héger portrayals the merciless, strong and shrewd-natured Taylor--Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights.

But the Yorkshire element in Heathcliffe was a caricature and an exaggeration for the purposes of the "cuckoo story," resulting from the tale Montagu tells of a foundling; and the emphasis laid on his barbarity was largely a result, too, of the consideration I mention in the chapters entitled "The Recoil," which consideration had to do with the Héger phase of Heathcliffe. The fact that evidence shows Heathcliffe to have been, like Hunsden and Rochester, a composite character drawn from a dual model--the Taylor-Héger model--traceable in origin absolutely to Charlotte Brontë's idiosyncratic estimate of two male characters who are shown to have seriously interested her, in itself sufficiently demonstrates her authorship of Wuthering Heights, and is indeed of great interest.

[51] Having herself suffered thus, there was a temptation--at what I elsewhere call the dark season of Charlotte Brontë's inner life, at the season of the recoil--to present in her work Wuthering Heights the Yorkshire-Héger with the hypochondria of her Yorkshire model, and let his demon be the original of her Catherine Earnshaw--be herself. To this temptation Charlotte Brontë gave no opposition, much to her regret later. Herewith we have the origin of Heathcliffe's miserable hypochondria and monomania--his digging for Catherine in the grave till his spade scraped the coffin, in Wuthering Heights, Chap. a devil to me! I've been the sport of that intolerable torture! It racked me! through eighteen years!" Mr. the brows not contracted, but raised next the temples; diminishing the grim aspect of his countenance, but imparting a peculiar look of trouble, and a painful appearance of mental tension towards one absorbing subject.

In the light of the foregoing, therefore, we may understand the truth of Charlotte Brontë's narration in The Professor, Chap. a prey to hypochondria. I had her to myself in secret; she lay with me, she ate with me, showing me nooks in woods, hollows in hills, where we could sit together, and where she could drop her drear veil over me, and so hide sky and sun, grass and green tree; taking me entirely to her death-cold bosom and holding me with arms of bone. freed from the dreadful tyranny of my demon. Both by reason of Mrs. Gaskell's suspicion that she had drawn from them in the portrayals of the heroes of her first books and by reason of the undeniable evidence of her works, we must accept the Taylors as the originals of most that was "Yorkshire" in Charlotte Brontë's Yorke Hunsden, Heathcliffe, Rochester, and Yorke, understanding the term in Currer Bell's implication of "independent," "hard," and "open-spoken." But M.

Héger contributed what Charlotte Brontë calls in Chap. of Villette, in speaking of him as M. [52] In the succeeding chapters I deal more particularly with the relation of Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights, to Rochester of Jane Eyre, and I promise my readers to present therein most important and sensational revelations. CHAPTER X. HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE" ONE AND THE SAME: Without herewith further entering into the question as to the original of the morose and harsh characters who were the heroes of Charlotte Brontë's novels, I will at once show she had drawn from the same model in both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. I have given in the foregoing chapter the introduction of Lockwood to Heathcliffe and that of Jane to Rochester side by side. _ Heathcliffe. Rochester. Most people would have thought Heathcliffe is a dark-skinned Mr.

one erect and handsome figure; and inevitably shared the rather morose. in my secret soul that tells me it is nothing of I knew his kindness to me was the sort: I know by instinct his balanced by unjust severity to reserve springs from an aversion others. to showy displays of feeling--to and when he looked up a morose, manifestations of mutual almost a malignant, scowl kindliness. equally under one cover, and esteem it a species of impertinence to be loved or hated again. No, I am running on too fast; I bestow my own attributes over liberally on him. Heathcliffe and Rochester are both black-avised, stubborn of countenance, negligent as to external appearance, moody, proud in carry, and morose. Charlotte Brontë tells us of one that on external judgment "most people would have thought him" possessed of a disqualification, and of the other that "some people might suspect him" of having a disqualification.

his kindliness to me was balanced by unjust severity to others." I find the singular expression indicated by the "hell's light" epithets applied to Heathcliffe's eyes was an expression Charlotte Brontë had apparently noticed in the original of this character. Rochester's eyes in Jane Eyre have "strange gleams," and we are told "his eye had a tawny--nay, a bloody light in its gloom," and so forth. in his eye, and closed again before one could fathom the strange depth partially disclosed; that something which used to make me fear and shrink, as if I had been wandering among volcanic-looking hills, and had suddenly felt the ground quiver and seen it gape. _ His cheeks were sallow and half-covered with black whiskers, the brows were lowering, the eyes deep-set and singular. I remembered the eyes. His upright carry suggested his having been in the army [M. looked intelligent.

A half-civilized ferocity lurked in the depressed brows and eyes full of black fire, but it was subdued, and his manner was even dignified, though too stern for grace. In view of the general evidence that Heathcliffe, like Rochester, was drawn by Charlotte Brontë from M. Héger, her Brussels friend the professor, it is not surprising that Heathcliffe's was "a deep voice and foreign in sound." Her reference in Wuthering Heights to his Spanish extraction reminds us of M. Paul Emanuel's "jetty hair and Spanish face" in Villette, and of course it is well known M. Paul Emanuel was drawn by Currer Bell from M. Héger. CHAPTER XI. CATHERINE AND HEATHCLIFFE OF "WUTHERING HEIGHTS" AS JANE AND ROCHESTER OF "JANE EYRE." We have already seen Catherine in Wuthering Heights represented Charlotte Brontë as intimately portrayed by herself in the work, and that Heathcliffe was drawn by her from the original of the Rochester of Jane Eyre.

So faithfully did Charlotte Brontë tell again in Jane Eyre the history of her life in relation to her family and M. Héger, that she gives the main lines of her biography in both works. I will show them side by side. For the literal parallels when not given in this chapter see the index. _ Opening scene: A rainy day in Opening scene: A rainy day in Catherine's (Charlotte Brontë's) Jane's (Charlotte Brontë's) childhood. She is treated childhood. She is treated unkindly by the rest of the unkindly by the rest of the household. It is impossible to household. go out on account of the rain. aloof from the family group. family.

Nevertheless, though banished, Nevertheless, though banished Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) herself, Jane (Charlotte Brontë) makes herself snug in a recess makes herself snug in a recess behind a curtain, and believes behind a curtain, and believes herself secure, when Hindley herself secure, when John Reed Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë), (Branwell Brontë), coming up coming up from his paradise on from his paradise on the hearth, the hearth, makes her come out makes her come out of the recess of the recess precipitantly, precipitantly. He hurls the book after she has hurled the book she was reading. Little Jane she was reading. sees a tyrant in Hindley He tells her that he is the Earnshaw (Branwell Brontë). of the house. Later, Catherine complains to Later, Jane complains to herself herself of her brother Hindley's of John Reed's (Branwell's) (Branwell's) tyrannies. He has tyrannies. behaviour.

Little Catherine (Charlotte Little Jane (Charlotte Brontë), Brontë), although she was held although she was held to be to be passionate, and was passionate, and was treated treated harshly and almost as an harshly and almost an outsider outsider by the rest of the by the rest of the household, household, finds a kind, but finds a kind, but apparently apparently unsympathetic, friend unsympathetic, friend in a in a woman-servant, Nelly Dean, woman-servant, Bessie, who has a who has a remarkable gift of remarkable gift of narrative, narrative, like Tabitha Aykroyd, like Tabitha Aykroyd, whom whom Charlotte Brontë loved, and Charlotte Brontë loved, and who who came to the Haworth came to the Haworth parsonage parsonage when Charlotte was when Charlotte was about nine about nine years of age. But years of age. mistrusted her. of frenzy. locked.

In a paroxysm of alarm, In a paroxysm of alarm, Jane Catherine (Charlotte Brontë) (Charlotte Brontë) summons summons Mrs. Dean (Tabitha Bessie (Tabitha Aykroyd) Aykroyd) frantically, and with a frantically, and with a piercing piercing scream. The latter scream. unsympathetic. overhears this. She had desired She finds Bessie (Tabitha Mrs. with a basin in her hand. Catherine (Charlotte) relates Jane (Charlotte) relates her her fears of the locked room: fears of the locked room: How How she thought it haunted; she she thought it haunted; she showed fear of the mirror, and showed fear of the mirror, and describes excitedly to Mrs. Dean describes excitedly to Bessie (Tabitha) her terrifying (Tabitha) her terrifying sensations previous to her sensations previous to her losing consciousness, and how losing consciousness. of fit. Mrs.