Charlotte Brontë
Page 48
On Tuesday last: Henry Nussey’s diary, Nussey Collections, BL Egerton 3268A, entry for 28 February 1839.
I have no personal repugnance…[Your future wife’s] character…take a worthy man…You do not know me: CB to Henry Nussey, 5 March 1839, LCB 1, 185.
Received an unfavourable report: Henry Nussey’s diary, Nussey Collections, BL Egerton 3268A, entry for 8 March 1839.
I felt that though I esteemed Henry…I was aware: CB to EN, 12 March 1839, LCB 1, 187–8.
ten to one: CB to EN, 12 March 1839, LCB 1, 187.
after the manner of his Countrymen…at home you know Ellen …[W]ell thought I: CB to EN, 4 August 1839, LCB 1, 198.
an opening…as Clerk…open a wider field…and in time: PB to John Driver Esqr., 23 February 1838, LPB, 116.
sisterly ways: Margaret Hartley’s recollection, as reported in W. W. Yates, “The Brontë Family: A Suggestion. Two Years in the Life of Branwell Brontë,” Dewsbury Reporter, 25 November 1893, quoted in Art of the Brontës, 330: “I recollect his sister Charlotte coming, and remember her sisterly ways. She stayed a day, and I believe that was her only visit. They left the house together, and he saw her off by the Keighley coach.”
very like what a frank, wealthy, Conservative gentleman: CB to EJB, 8 June 1839, LCB 1, 191.
I used to think: CB to EJB, 8 June 1839, LCB 1, 191.
[She] does not know my character: CB to EN, 30 June 1839, LCB 1, 194.
the greatest possible quantity of labour: CB to EJB, 8 June 1839, LCB 1, 191.
mental liberty: CB to EJB, ?July 1839, LCB 1, 195.
look on and listen: CB to EJB, 8 June 1839, LCB 1, 191.
to my astonishment: CB to EN, 30 June 1839, LCB 1, 193.
extraordinarily benevolent people…certainly on one occasion: SHB 1, 177.
had no gifts…in a very morbid condition…if she was invited to walk: SHB 1, 177.
I love ’ou: Life, 136.
brave defeat…doubters: EN Reminiscences, LCB 1, 605.
[S]he was quite overpowered: EN Reminiscences, LCB 1, 606.
No doubt it is terrible: “Caroline Vernon,” TGA, 266–7.
The young lady’s feelings: “Caroline Vernon,” TGA, 275.
But how do I wish him to regard me?…I wonder whether I love him?…I’m very wicked: “Caroline Vernon,” TGA, 290.
She did not want him to love her in return: “Caroline Vernon,” TGA, 303.
standing for upwards of a quarter of a year…No, be assured: “Caroline Vernon,” TGA, 271.
a very similar idea: “Gerald Emerald extended his hand—which at the moment of writing still remains in that position,” Vladimir Nabokov, Pale Fire (Harmondsworth, 1962), 211.
A Rowland for your Oliver: PCB, 271.
The Major…swashing and martial: see EN’s notes to Anne Brontë’s letter of 4 October 1847, LCB 1, 545 n6.
the great spirits of the walking party…very thirsty: EN’s note to CB’s letter of 17 March 1840, SHB 1, 201.
became alarming for the length of time required: EN’s note to CB’s letter of 17 March 1840, SHB 1, 201.
one of her best drawings: the drawing, in BPM, is not signed, nor is the sitter identified, but Juliet Barker has made a convincing case for it being the portrait of William Weightman by CB that EN refers to in her annotations of CB’s letters: “I recall the taking of Mr. Weightman’s portrait by Charlotte” (SHB 1, 201n); see Juliet R. V. Barker, “A Possible Portrait of William Weightman,” BST, 19:4 (1987). However, Barker’s assumption that the pencil drawing was one of two pictures of Weightman by CB, one painted and one drawn, seems to me unlikely. CB’s references to “the painting of Miss Celia Amelia Weightman’s portrait” in her letter to EN of 17 March 1840 (LCB 1, 211) could easily refer to a work by some other member of her family (Anne or Branwell would be likely candidates), painting Weightman at the same time as CB drew him.
He sits opposite to Anne: CB to EN, 20 January 1842, LCB 1, 279.
the evident wandering instability: CB to EN, end of June 1840, LCB 1, 222.
thorough male-flirt…perfectly conscious: CB to EN, 14 July 1840, LCB 1, 223–4.
She thought you a fine-looking girl: CB to EN, 17 March 1840, LCB 1, 211.
Several young gentlemen: CB to Hartley Coleridge (draft), December 1840, LCB 1, 237.
standing alone: “her nature stood alone,” CB, “Biographical Notice of Ellis and Acton Bell” (1850), LCB 2, 746.
making him frantic in action…unresisting endurance: EN, quoted by Wise and Symington in SHB 2, 274–5.
[Charlotte] dared not speak to interfere: this and the other quotes in this paragraph are from Life, 214–15.
as if it came from thy Grandmother…have the romantic folly: CB to EN, 20 November 1840, LCB 1, 232–3.
Did you not once say to me…On one hand don’t accept…not quite in earnest: CB to EN, 20 November 1840, LCB 1, 234.
instantly conceived a sort of contempt…the contempt, the remorse: CB to EN, 20 November 1840, LCB 1, 234.
We are such odd animals…supplanted by a stranger…Human feelings are queer things…excited Aunt’s wrath: CB to EN, 21 December 1839, LCB 1, 206.
variable nature…strong turn for active life: CB to EN, ?28 December 1839, LCB 1, 207.
A most calm, sedate, sober, abstemious…as to the young ones!: BB to John Brown, 13 March 1840, SHB 1, 198–9.
visibly the worst for drink: Timothy Cockerill, “A Brontë at Broughton-in-Furness,” BST, 15:1 (1966).
a strong case…[Branwell] left Mr. Postlethwaites: see Barker, 334–5.
merit enough to commend: a draft letter from Hartley Coleridge to BB, [n.d.]; see LCB 1, 238 n1.
demi-semi novelette: this and all the other quotes in this paragraph are from CB to Hartley Coleridge, 10 December 1840, LCB 1, 239–41.
It is no easy thing: “Farewell to Angria,” TGA, 314. Manuscript at BPM, Bonnell 125. The date of this item is not easy to guess at. Christine Alexander places it with the “Roe Head” fragments, “about 1839” (TGA, 557, note to page 314), while Keith C. Odom has suggested a much later date, around 1850 (“Dating Charlotte Brontë’s Villette: A Reappraisal,” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 82:3 [1998]). On the reverse of the paper, and clearly predating “Farewell to Angria” because the writing is torn through, is a list of names and addresses, including “Mr. Squeers/Dotheboys-Hall/Greta-Bridge/Yorkshire” (see note to p. 41). Dickens’s Nicholas Nickleby was first published as a serial in 1838–9.
I wish [the Misses Wooler] or somebody else: CB to EN, 20 August 1840, LCB 1, 226.
it is indeed a hard thing: CB to Henry Nussey, 9 May 1841, LCB 1, 255.
the heavy duty: CB to EN, 7 August 1841, LCB 1, 266.
Of pleasing exterior: CB to WSW, 3 July 1849, LCB 2, 226.
sitting apart from the rest of the family…who desired to escape notice: Interviews, 44.
seemed to be qualified: Francis A. Leyland’s recollection, Interviews, 40.
some topic that he was acquainted with: William Heaton’s recollection, Interviews, 40.
almost involuntarily: Francis A. Leyland’s recollection, Interviews, 41.
dramatise…stir Miss Brontë up: EN Reminiscences, LCB 1, 609.
a remarkably taciturn, still, thoughtful nature: CB to WSW, 31 July 1848, LCB 2, 94.
I shall never forget: William Heaton’s recollection, Interviews, 40–41.
it looks like getting on: CB repeating back EJB’s remark, CB to EJB, ?2 April 1841, LCB 1, 251.
nightmare…malignant yet cold debauchery…lost…to all I really liked: BB to Francis H. Grundy, 22 May 1842, SHB 1, 263.
distantly courteous…distant and distrait…the reverse of attractive: Francis H. Grundy, “The Decline and Fall of Branwell Brontë” (1879), quoted in Interviews, 46–7.
A scheme is at present in agitation…I guess that at the time appointed: EJB Diary Paper, 30 July 1841, LCB 1, 262.
nothing definite is settled about it yet: AB Diary Paper, 30
July 1841, LCB 1, 264.
an eligible situation: CB to EN, 19 July 1841, LCB 1, 260.
The sentence containing this suggestion: in the same letter of 19 July 1841. Margaret Smith’s conjectural reading of the deleted sentence is “Can events be so turned as that you shall be included as an associate in our projects?”; see LCB 1, 261 and 262 n9.
those who had already mastered the elements: “Captain Henry Hastings,” Gérin (ed.), Five Novelettes, 243.
I hardly know: CB to EN, 7 August 1841, LCB 1, 266.
estrangement from one’s real character: CB to EN, 7 August 1841, LCB 1, 266.
SEVEN In a Strange Land, 1842
simple earnest tone…These are the daughters: Life, 171.
solely frequented by men: Life, 285.
Above my head: Villette, 48.
she seemed to think…I don’t remember: Life, 172.
not a beautiful, scarcely a picturesque object: Professor, 47.
Oo somay noo a prazong?: this and the other phrases following, copied from Surenne’s New French Manual, 1840, are in PB’s “MS Notebook of French Phrases” at BPM. “[They] must be fully mastered, and ready—semper,” he wrote on the first page. The notebook is usually on display in the museum.
a letter to the press: LPB, 139.
higher than the Pensionnat’s chimneys: see Life, 173.
famous for their yield: see Ruijssenaars, The Pensionnat Revisited, 38.
£23.10s: PB, “MS Notebook of French Phrases,” BPM.
the difference in Country & religion: CB to EN, May 1842, LCB 1, 284.
of precisely the same cast of mind…there are 3 teachers…no less than seven masters: CB to EN, May 1842, LCB 1, 284.
always an immense favourite: Frederika Macdonald, “The Brontës at Brussels,” Woman at Home (July 1894), 286.
Wappers’s epic painting: Épisode des journées de septembre 1830 sur la place de l’Hôtel de Ville de Bruxelles now hangs in the entrance hall of the Musée des Beaux Arts in Brussels.
There is one individual: CB to EN, May 1842, LCB 1, 284.
less disagreeable than some of the others: “moins désagréable qu’aut autres,” Louise de Bassompierre’s reminiscence, in “Two Brussels Schoolfellows of Charlotte Brontë,” BST, 5:23 (1913). Mademoiselle de Bassompierre was still alive in 1913, and two of CB’s other schoolfriends, Laetitia and Frances Wheelwright, died in 1911 and 1912 respectively.
a diminutive, short-sighted, retiring personage: “Two Brussels Schoolfellows of Charlotte Brontë,” BST, 5:23 (1913).
an unsociable, unattractive, unsympathetic disposition…as God made her: “Two Brussels Schoolfellows of Charlotte Brontë,” BST, 5:23 (1913).
Emily, though so much the taller: Life, 189.
addressing the wall: see Life, 173.
garroted silence: one of the Jenkinses’ sons described the task of walking CB home as “a purgatorial process…from her invincible tactiturnity,” Thomas Westwood to Lady Alwyne Compton, 21 November 1869, A Literary Friendship: Letters to Lady Alwyne Compton 1869–1881, from Thomas Westwood, 3.
If the national character of the Belgians: CB to EN, ?July 1842, LCB 1, 289.
deformity of person: The Professor, 84.
“British English” girl: The Professor, 86.
attuned to the same key: Frederika Macdonald, “The Brontës at Brussels,” Woman at Home (July 1894), 283. ECG also describes Heger’s teaching methods at length in Life, Chapter 11.
don’t draw well together at all: CB to EN, May 1842, LCB 1, 285.
the valuable points of [Emily’s] character: CB to EN, ?July 1842, LCB 1, 289.
absolutely repelled people: ECG to Maria Martineau, c. 19 August 1855, J. A. V. Chapple and Alan Shelston (eds.), Further Letters, 138, reporting a letter to her from ABN, now lost. Arthur Nicholls didn’t meet Emily until 1845 and the remark is likely to be coloured by his own later feelings about Emily (and hers for him), but must have been based on a third party’s recollections or opinion—possibly Charlotte’s.
the newly acquired qualities: Mary Taylor to EN, 16 February 1843, LCB 1, 309.
Imagine Emily: Mary Taylor to EN, 16 February 1843, LCB 1, 309.
choose a time: Lonoff, 142.
fear and threats: EJB argues that all God’s creatures—human and animal alike—have a divine spark, but those inclined to sinfulness need to be threatened unremittingly with damnation in order to retain and nurture it, the inclination to disobey being so strong. Those who let the divine spark die out face “a moral chaos without light and without order, a hideous transfiguration of the image in which they were created” (Lonoff, 156), a premonition of the harsh moralism of Wuthering Heights.
unusual in a man…She should have been a man…rendered her obtuse…egotistical and exacting: Life, 177.
What importance should be given: CH’s note on “Le Nid” (Sue Lonoff’s translation), Lonoff, 42.
& that sets all things straight: CB to EN, May 1842, LCB 1, 285.
she smiled, at first incredulously: The Professor, 103.
sullen tempers are shewn: The Professor, 100.
glories chiefly: The Professor, 101.
large languid eyes…allowed himself: Zoë Heger to “K,” April 1884, Edith M. Weir, “New Brontë Material Comes to Light,” BST, 11:59 (1949).
we do not separate: Zoë Heger to “K,” 9 January 1889, Edith M. Weir, “New Brontë Material Comes to Light,” BST, 11:59 (1949).
One day when summoned to the bed: “I gave, at first, Attention close,” PCB, 334.
a thrilling clasp…another heart: “Frances,” PCB, 306. This poem was included in Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell (1846).
some part of each day: CB to EN, ?July 1842, LCB 1, 289.
I am going to shut my eyes…well; not only in health…[I]f you can’t see: Mary Taylor to EN, shortly before 24 September 1842, LCB 1, 293.
the same suffering and conflict ensued…Once more she seemed sinking: CB, “Prefatory Note,” “Selections from Poems by Ellis Bell,” LCB 2, 753.
nothing to listen to…nothing to look at: BB to Francis H. Grundy, 22 May 1842, SHB 1, 264.
one of my dearest friends: BB to Francis H. Grundy, 25 October 1842, SHB 1, 272–3.
expressed his entire dependence: PB, “A Funeral Sermon for the late Rev. William Weightman, M.A.,” Brontëana, 259.
I’ll weep no more thine early doom: AB, “I will not mourn thee, lovely one” (December 1842), Edward Chitham (ed.), The Poems of Anne Brontë: A New Text and Commentary (London, 1979), 88.
watching—nursing—cherishing her…I hastened to Kokleberg: CB to EN, 10 November 1842, LCB 1, 302.
Every trivial accident: Mary Taylor to EN, 30 October and 1 November 1842, LCB 1, 296.
most spirited and beautiful: Genevieve Wigfall reporting her sight of Brontë relics to EN, 10 December 1889, quoted in Art of the Brontës, 385.
as near as convenient: Elizabeth Branwell’s will, SHB 1, 277.
such agonising suffering…the guide and director…gloomy visions: BB to Francis H. Grundy, 29 October 1842, SHB 1, 273.
any day a small share-holder…every paragraph & every advertisement: CB to MW, 23 April 1845, LCB 1, 390.
love of work and their perseverance…almost fatherly affection…and our distress: CH to PB, 5 November 1842, Margaret Smith’s translation, LCB 1, 300.
the best teacher we have in Belgium…and to gain the assurance and aplomb…This is not a question: CH to PB, 5 November 1842, Margaret Smith’s translation, LCB 1, 300.
selfish folly…a total withdrawal…irresistible: CB to EN, 14 October 1846, LCB 1, 503.
quiet simple statement of her wish: Life, 197.
I had no accident: CB to EN, 30 January 1843, LCB 1, 308.
pretty much as she has since described it: Life, 197.
Down the sable flood we glided: Villette, 51.
EIGHT The Black Swan, 1843
extremely difficult to manage…Instead of showing anger: Frederika Macdonald, “The
Brontës at Brussels,” Woman at Home (July 1894), 286.
was known to be very clever: Frederika Macdonald, “The Brontës at Brussels,” Woman at Home (July 1894), 287.
I surrender my unfortunate head…she likes me well enough: CB to Mary Dixon, early 1843, LCB 1, 313.
an ugly woman: Mary Taylor to ECG, 30 July 1857, Interviews, 114: “It must upset most people’s notions of beauty to be told that the portrait at the beginning [of The Life of Charlotte Brontë] is that of an ugly woman. I do not altogether like the idea of publishing a flattered likeness. I had rather the mouth and eyes had been nearer together, and shown the veritable square face and large disproportionate nose…”
A small chalk, ink and wash drawing: in BPM.
disinterred your portrait…I was comforted…If it were a little slenderer: CB to Mary Dixon, 16 October 1843, LCB 1, 336.
[S]he seems content at least: Mary Taylor to EN, 16 February 1843, LCB 1, 310.
M. Emanuel was not a man to write books: Villette, 381.
nothing but masking and mummery: CB to EN, 6 March 1843, LCB 1, 311.
I had learned to read: “I gave, at first, Attention close,” PCB, 335.
they get on with wonderful rapidity: CB to EN, 6 March 1843, LCB 1, 311.
I believe that all true poetry…I believe that genius: Lonoff, 244–6.
Without study, no art: Lonoff, 248–9.
His eyes pierced through the quartz: Thomas Westwood to Lady Alwyne Compton, 21 February 1870, A Literary Friendship: Letters to Lady Alwyne Compton 1869–1881, from Thomas Westwood, 15.
I will not and ought not to intrude: CB to EN, 6 March 1843, LCB 1, 311.
if I could always: CB to EN, 6 March 1843, LCB 1, 311.
These people are wiser than I am…Not that it is a crime to marry: CB to EN, ?April 1843, LCB 1, 315.
I am convinced she does not like me: CB to EJB, 29 May 1843, LCB 1, 320.
the people here are no go…the phlegm that thickens their blood…the black Swan…not quite an exception: CB to BB, 1 May 1843, LCB 1, 316–17.
misanthropic and sour…as fanatically as ever: CB to BB, 1 May 1843, LCB 1, 316–17.
I was surprised: CB to BB, 1 May 1843, LCB 1, 316–17.
these times, so critical and dangerous: PB to the Reverend John Sinclair, 4 August 1843, LPB, 148.