like a snowdrop: reported by ECG, Life, 450.
surpassed anything I remember: CB to Catherine Wooler, 18 July 1854, LCB 3, 278.
a pretty lady-like girl: CB to MW, 10 July 1854, LCB 3, 276.
like a gentleman’s country-seat: CB to MW, 10 July 1854, LCB 3, 276.
the passages look desolate and bare…quiet, kind and well-bred: CB to MW, 10 July 1854, LCB 3, 276.
English order and repose: CB to MW, 18 July 1854, LCB 3, 278.
It seems [Mrs. Bell] was brought up in London: CB to MW, 10 July 1854, LCB 3, 276.
I must say I like my new relations…I pray to be enabled: CB to MW, 10 July 1854, LCB 3, 276.
such a wild, iron-bound coast: CB to Catherine Winkworth, 27 July 1854, LCB 3, 279.
take the matter in my own way…I did not want to talk: CB to Catherine Winkworth, 27 July 1854, LCB 3, 279–80.
seemed to go mad—reared, plunged…I saw and felt her kick…I had my thoughts about the moment: CB to Catherine Winkworth, 27 July 1854, LCB 3, 280.
Papa has not been well…longing, longing intensely: CB to EN, ?28 July 1854, LCB 3, 282.
The wish for his continued life: CB to MW, 22 August 1854, LCB 3, 286–7.
Each time I see Mr. Nicholls: CB to MW, 22 August 1854, LCB 3, 287.
one of the greatest curses: CB to MW, 6 December 1854, LCB 3, 305.
[M]y husband flourishes: CB to EN, 7 September 1854, LCB 3, 288.
I am afraid there is not any portrait: EN to T. Wemyss Reid, 24 November 1876, MS Berg Collection.
I did not expect perfection: CB to MW, 22 August 1854, LCB 3, 286.
settled and content: CB to EN, 21 November 1854, LCB 3, 303.
May God make me thankful for it!: CB to MW, 15 November 1854, LCB 3, 301.
If you had not been with me…The Critics will accuse you…O I shall alter that…I always begin two or three: ABN to GS, 11 October 1859, John Murray archive, quoted in appendix, “Emma,” The Professor, 225–6.
during the last 6 weeks: CB to EN, 9 August 1854, LCB 3, 283–4.
[Arthur] often says: CB to EN, 11 October 1854, LCB 3, 293.
Arthur has just been glancing over this note: CB to EN, ?20 October 1854, LCB 3, 295.
Dear Ellen—Arthur complains: CB to EN, 31 October 1854, LCB 3, 296–7.
My dear Mr. Nicholls: EN to ABN, November 1854, LCB 3, 297.
Strange chances do fall out: CB to EN, 7 November 1854, LCB 3, 298.
Mr. N continued his censorship: EN pencil note on EN to ABN, November 1854, LCB 3, 297.
Arthur wishes you would burn my letters…[H]e never did give the pledge: LCB 3, 299 n3.
Don’t conjecture—dear Nell: CB to EN, 19 January 1855, LCB 3, 319.
a natural cause…the baby that was coming: Life, 454.
a long walk over damp ground: Life, 454.
so aggressively…It was as if someone had taken over: Sarah Button, “Pregnancy Sickness Nearly Killed Me,” Guardian Weekend, 11 October 2014.
She, who was ever patient: Life, 454.
I do fancy that if I had come: ECG to John Greenwood, 12 April 1855, ECG Letters, 337.
I dare say I shall be glad sometime: Life, 454.
in a few weeks she will be well again: ABN to EN, 1 February 1855, LCB 3, 323.
Let me speak the plain truth: CB to Amelia Taylor, ?late February 1855, LCB 3, 327.
how long she was ill and in what way: CB to EN, on or after 21 February 1855, LCB 3, 326.
anything that will do good: CB to Amelia Taylor, ?late February 1855, LCB 3, 327.
No kinder better husband: CB to Laetitia Wheelwright, 15 February 1855, LCB 3, 325.
the best earthly comfort: CB to EN, on or after 21 February 1855, LCB 3, 326.
Our poor old Tabby: CB to EN, on or after 21 February 1855, LCB 3, 326.
In case I die without issue: “Last Will and Testament of Charlotte Nicholls,” copy in Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, MA 2695.
spoonsful of wine & water: CB to EN, ?early March 1855, LCB 3, 328.
a wren would have starved: Life, 454.
I am reduced to greater weakness: CB to EN, ?early March 1855, LCB 3, 328.
a low wandering delirium…and even for stimulants: Life, 455.
Oh! I am not going to die, am I?: Life, 455.
and we only to look forward to: PB to EN, 30 March 1855, LCB 3, 330.
crying in agonized tones: John Lock and Canon W. T. Dixon, A Man of Sorrow, 477.
Coda
“Currer Bell is dead!…a pang will be felt…hold their place: Harriet Martineau, obituary of Charlotte Brontë, Daily News, April 1855, Critical Heritage, 301 and 305.
My Daughter, is indeed, dead: PB to ECG, 5 April 1855, LPB, 227.
my beloved and esteemed son-in-law: “Patrick Brontë’s Will,” 20 June 1855, Appendix XVI, LPB, 372.
every particular: ECG to John Greenwood, 4 April 1855, ECG Letters, 336.
no one is living: ECG to GS, 31 May 1855, ECG Letters, 345.
long or short…just as you may deem: PB to ECG, 16 June 1855, LPB, 232.
as Juliet Barker has pointed out: Barker, 780–81.
her wild sad life, and beautiful character: ECG to GS, 4 June 1855, ECG Letters, 347.
his feeling was against it’s being written: ECG to EN, 24 July 1855, ECG Letters, 361.
a pirated French translation of Villette: probably the 1855 translation which descendants of the Hegers brought to Haworth on a visit in 1953; see LCB 3, 85 n1.
[H]e is sure she would keep them: “I promised M. Héger [sic] to ask to see his letters to her; he is sure she would keep them, as they contained advice about her character, studies, mode of life. I doubt much if Mr. Nicholls has not destroyed them.” ECG to EN, 9 July 1856, ECG Letters, 394.
people who wanted to shake the hand: according to the obituary of Mary Anna Nicholls, The Times, 2 March 1915.
quaint Yorkshire accent and excellent sponge cake: “Reminiscences of a Relation of Arthur Bell Nicholls,” BST, 15:79 (1969).
so that future worshippers: “An American Visitor at Haworth, 1861,” BST, 15:2 (1967).
even after Mrs. Gaskell’s detailed biography…Could I, without the consent: CH to EN, 7 September 1863, SHB 4, 249–50. The translation is by the editors of SHB: Heger’s original letter, in French, is on pp. 247–9.
“copyright” and “permissions”: ABN had been manoeuvred into transfering copyright on “the materials of the biography” to GS and ECG, though he was not happy about it: “it seems to be taken for granted that I am to do so, tho’ why it should, I know not, as I never entered into any arrangement with Mrs. Gaskell,” ABN to GS, 3 December 1856, quoted in Barker, 795.
truer than the biography…the one true love of [Charlotte Brontë’s] life: Thomas Westwood to Lady Alwyne Compton, 21 February 1870, A Literary Friendship: Letters to Lady Alwyne Compton 1869–1881, from Thomas Westwood, 15.
M. Paul Emanuel has quite a bundle of them: Thomas Westwood to Lady Alwyne Compton, 21 November 1869, A Literary Friendship: Letters to Lady Alwyne Compton 1869–1881, from Thomas Westwood, 11.
told the whole story…He told the story…and, I am sorry to say: Thomas Westwood to Lady Alwyne Compton, 21 February 1870, A Literary Friendship: Letters to Lady Alwyne Compton 1869–1881, from Thomas Westwood, 16.
they began to release: see, for instance, the publication of EJB’s “Filial Love” in Woman at Home (September 1894), “reproduced in facsimile from manuscript in possession of the Héger [sic] family in Brussels.”
Doctor Heger regrets: carte-de-visite of Mademoiselle C. Heger, Berg Collection, NYPL, Brontë C. 247123b (my translation). The card’s original envelope is pasted inside Clement Shorter’s copy of Villette, also in the Berg Collection, and marked “From Paul Emanuel’s Daughter.”
He was sitting near the table: Shirley, 194.
hears Rochester’s voice: Life, 337.
cries, and sobs, and wailings…as of the dearly-beloved: Life, 337.
Meta M
ossman: she, her sister, mother and aunt were all former pupils at the Pensionnat Heger and were a Yorkshire family, related to the Taylors. See Edith M. Weir, “The Hegers and a Yorkshire Family,” BST, 14:3 (1963).
although it is true…In thinking it over: CH to “L” [Meta Mossman], Letter V, Edith M. Weir, “New Brontë Material Comes to Light,” BST, 11:4 (1949).
Select Bibliography
Unless otherwise stated, references are to the Oxford World’s Classics editions of the Brontë novels, in their most recent paperback issues.
Charlotte Brontë
Jane Eyre, edited by Margaret Smith, with an introduction and revised notes by Sally Shuttleworth (Oxford 2008)
The Professor, edited by Margaret Smith and Herbert Rosengarten, with an introduction by Margaret Smith (Oxford, 2008)
Shirley, edited by Herbert Rosengarten and Margaret Smith, with an introduction and notes by Janet Gezari (Oxford, 2008)
Villette, edited by Margaret Smith, with an introduction and revised notes by Sally Shuttleworth (Oxford, 2008)
Emily Brontë
Wuthering Heights, text edited by Ian Jack, with an introduction and additional notes by Helen Small (Oxford, 2009)
Anne Brontë
Agnes Grey, edited by Robert Inglesfield and Hilda Marsden, with an introduction and additional notes by Sally Shuttleworth (Oxford, 2010)
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, edited by Herbert Rosengarten, with an introduction and additional notes by Josephine McDonagh (Oxford, 2008)
A Literary Friendship: Letters to Lady Alwyne Compton 1869–1881, from Thomas Westwood (London, 1914)
Adamson, Alan H., Mr. Charlotte Brontë: The Life of Arthur Bell Nicholls (Montreal, 2008)
Alexander, Christine, The Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1983)
———, and Sellars, Jane, The Art of the Brontës (Cambridge, 1995)
———, and Smith, Margaret (eds.), The Oxford Companion to the Brontës (Oxford, 2006)
Allott, Miriam (ed.), The Brontës: The Critical Heritage (London, 1974)
Anon., “The Recently Discovered Letters from Charlotte Brontë to Professor Constantin Heger,” BST, 5:24 (1914)
Anon., “The Reverend Arthur Bell Nicholls,” BST, 15:79 (1969)
Anon., “Two Brussels Schoolfellows of Charlotte Brontë,” BST, 5:23 (1913)
Atkins, William, The Moor: Lives, Landscape, Literature (London, 2014)
Barker, Juliet R. V., “The Brontë Portraits: A Mystery Solved,” BST, 20:1 (1990)
———, “Subdued Expectations: Charlotte Brontë’s Marriage Settlement,” BST, 19:1–2 (1986)
Barnard, Robert, “Dickens and the Brontës,” BST, 25:2 (2000)
Barrett, Sarah, A Room of Their Own: 80 Years of the Brontë Parsonage Museum 1928–2008 (Kendal, 2008)
Bellamy, Joan, “More precious than rubies”: Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë, Strong-minded Woman (Beverley, 2002)
Bentley, Phyllis, The Brontës and Their World (London, 1969)
Bostridge, Mark, “Charlotte Brontë and George Richmond,” BST, 17:86 (1976)
———, Florence Nightingale: The Woman and Her Legend (London, 2008)
Brontë, Patrick, The Cottage in the Wood; or, The Art of Becoming Rich and Happy (Bradford, 1815)
———, Cottage Poems (Halifax, 1811)
———, The Rural Minstrel: A Miscellany of Descriptive Poems (Halifax, 1813)
Chadwick, Ellis H., “A Gift from M. le Professeur Constantin Heger to Charlotte Brontë,” The Nineteenth Century and After (April 1917)
———, In the Footsteps of the Brontës (London, 1914)
Chapman, Maria Weston (ed.), Harriet Martineau’s Autobiography (3 vols.; London, third edition, 1887)
Chapple, J. A. V., assisted by John Geoffrey Sharps, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Portrait in Letters (Manchester, 2007)
Chapple, J. A. V., and Shelston, Alan (eds.), Further Letters of Mrs. Gaskell (Manchester, 2003)
Chitham, Edward (ed.), The Poems of Anne Brontë: A New Text and Commentary (London, 1979)
———, and Winnifrith, T. J., Brontë Facts and Brontë Problems (London, 1983)
Clark, Cumberland, Charles Dickens and the Yorkshire Schools (London, 1918)
Cochrane, Margaret and Robert, My Dear Boy: The Life of Arthur Bell Nicholls, B.A., Husband of Charlotte Brontë (Beverley, 1999)
Davies, Stevie, Emily Brontë: Heretic (London, 1994)
Depage, Henri, La Vie d’Antoine Depage 1862–1925 (Brussels, 1956)
Dinsdale, Ann, Old Haworth (Keighley, 1999)
———, The Brontës at Haworth (London, 2006)
Easson, Angus, “Two Suppressed Opinions in Mrs. Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë,” BST, 16:4 (1974).
Feaver, William, The Art of John Martin (Oxford, 1975)
Fermi, Sarah, “The Brontës at the Clergy Daughters’ School: When Did They Leave?” BST, 21:6 (1996)
———, “Mellaney Hayne: Charlotte Brontë’s School Friend,” BST, 27:3 (2002)
Foister, S. R., “The Brontë Portraits,” BST, 18:5 (1985)
Frank, Katherine, A Chainless Soul: A Life of Emily Brontë (Boston, 1990)
Fraser, Rebecca, The Brontës: Charlotte Brontë and Her Family (New York, 1988)
Gérin, Winifred, Charlotte Brontë (Oxford, 1967)
———, Emily Brontë (Oxford, 1971)
——— (ed.), Charlotte Brontë, Five Novelettes, transcribed from the original manuscripts and edited by Winifred Gérin (London, 1971)
Gordon, Lyndall, Charlotte Brontë: A Passionate Life (London, 1994)
Hargreaves, G. D., “The Publishing of Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell,” BST, 15:79 (1969)
Hatfield, C. W., “Charlotte Brontë and Hartley Coleridge, 1840” (includes “Ashworth”), BST, 10:1 (1940)
Holgate, Ivy, “The Structure of Shirley,” BST, 14:2 (1962)
Hook, Ruth, “The Father of the Family,” BST, 17:2 (1977)
Hopewell, D. G., “Cowan Bridge,” BST, 6:31 (1921)
Ingham, Patricia, The Brontës (Authors in Context) (Oxford, 2006)
Kay, Brian, and Knowles, James, “Where Jane Eyre and Mary Barton were Born,” BST, 15:2 (1967)
Kellett, Jocelyn, Haworth Parsonage: The Home of the Brontës (Keighley, 1977)
Lane, Margaret, The Brontë Story (London, 1953)
Lever, Sir T., “Charlotte Brontë and George Smith: An Extract from the late Sir Tresham Lever’s Unpublished Biography of George Smith,” BST, 17:87 (1977)
Leyland, Francis A., The Brontë Family, with Special Reference to Patrick Branwell Brontë (2 vols.; London, 1886)
Liddington, Jill, “Anne Lister and Emily Brontë 1838–1839: Landscape with Figures,” BST, 26:1 (2001)
Lock, John, and Dixon, Canon W. T., A Man of Sorrow: The Life, Letters and Times of the Rev. Patrick Brontë (London, 1965)
Lonoff, Sue, “An Unpublished Memoir by Paul Heger,” BST, 20:6 (1992)
——— (ed.), Charlotte Brontë and Emily Brontë: The Belgian Essays (Yale, 1996)
Macdonald, Frederika, “The Brontës at Brussels,” Woman at Home (July 1894)
———, The Secret of Charlotte Brontë (London, 1914)
MacEwan, Helen, The Brontës in Brussels (London, 2014)
Miller, Lucasta, The Brontë Myth (London, 2001)
Morden, Barbara C., John Martin: Apocalypse Now! (Newcastle, 2010)
Oram, Eanne, “Brief for Miss Branwell,” BST, 14:4 (1964)
Palmer, Geoffrey, Dear Martha: The Letters of Arthur Bell Nicholls to Martha Brown (1862–1878), described and transcribed by Geoffrey Palmer (Keighley, 2004)
Ratchford, Fannie Elizabeth, The Brontës’ Web of Childhood (New York, 1941)
Ray, Gordon N. (ed.), The Letters and Private Papers of William Makepeace Thackeray, collected and edited by Gordon N. Ray (4 vols.; London, 1946)
Robinson, Mary, Emily Brontë (1883)
Ruijssenaars, Eric, Charlotte Brontë’s Promised Land: The Pe
nsionnat Heger and Other Brontë Places in Brussels (Keighley, 2000)
———, The Pensionnat Revisited: More Light Shed on the Brussels of the Brontës (Leiden, 2003)
Seaward, Mark R. D., “Charlotte Brontë’s Napoleonic Relic,” BST, 17:3 (1978)
Shorter, Clement K., The Brontës, Life and Letters: being an attempt to present a full and final record of the lives of the three sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë from the biographies of Mrs. Gaskell and others, and from numerous hitherto unpublished manuscripts and letters (2 vols.; London, 1908)
Shuttleworth, Sally, Charlotte Brontë and Victorian Psychology (Cambridge, 1996)
Smith, Margaret, “Newly Acquired Brontë Letters, Transcriptions and Notes,” BST, 21:7 (1996)
Spielmann, M. H., The Inner History of the Brontë–Heger Letters (London, 1919)
Stevens, Joan (ed.), Mary Taylor, Friend of Charlotte Brontë: Letters from New Zealand and Elsewhere (Auckland, 1972)
Stirling, A. M. W., The Richmond Papers (London, 1926)
Stoneman, Patsy, Brontë Transformations: The Cultural Dissemination of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights (Hemel Hempstead, 1996)
———, Charlotte Brontë (Tavistock, 2013)
Taylor, Mary, The First Duty of Women: A Series of Articles Reprinted from the Victoria Magazine 1865 to 1870 (London, 1870)
———, Miss Miles: A Tale of Yorkshire Life Sixty Years Ago, with an introduction by Janet H. Murray (Oxford, 1990)
Thompson, E. P., The Making of the English Working Class (Harmondsworth, 1991)
Thormählen, Marianne (ed.), The Brontës in Context (Cambridge, 2012)
Uglow, Jenny, Elizabeth Gaskell: A Habit of Stories (London, 1993)
Weir, Edith M., “Cowan Bridge: New Light from Old Documents,” BST, 11:56 (1946)
———, “The Hegers and a Yorkshire Family,” BST, 14:3 (1963)
———, “New Brontë Material Comes to Light,” BST, 11:4 (1949)
Whitbread, Helena (ed.), No Priest but Love: Journals of Anne Lister 1824–1826 (London, 1992)
Whitehead, Barbara, Charlotte Brontë and Her “dearest Nell”: The Story of a Friendship (Otley, 1993)
Whitworth, Alan, Thornton Through Time (Stroud, 2011)
Wise, T. J., and Symington, J. A. (eds.), The Miscellaneous and Unpublished Writings of Charlotte and Patrick Branwell Brontë (2 vols.; Oxford, 1936, 1938)
Charlotte Brontë Page 52