night watches listening to the wind ["Peace, peace, Banshee, keening at every window!"], I think of a pure uplifted face at a parsonage lattice in a Yorkshire wilderness: God and the awful stars above, the graves of buried loves beneath, and all about the ineffable haunting witchery of the loud-whispering moors. C. HER PASSION I IT is a significant commentary upon numan nature that the word passion should have come to have a meaning directly opposite to its original import, because the secondary definitions indicate the lapses of that nature from the ideal equipoise of character. The word means, in its simplicity, passivity, as opposed to activity, - hence, susceptibility, receptivity; which implies, when the active force at work is painful, suffering. As the greatest suffering known in history, resulting from the most acute susceptibility, made the most intense by the completest passivity, the agony of Christ preceding His death upon the cross is, with an immediately recognized perfect appropriateness, termed for all time THE PASSION. The secondary meanings attached to the word as now generally used relate, as do most secondary meanings, to a state of mind proceeding from such susceptibility as the original meaning sets forth, viz., vehement emotion, evidenced by violent displays of feeling. That is to say, from a perfect passivity, as in the ideal historical case, the word flies to the opposite meaning of extreme activity, because the imperfections of human nature are so rarely under the control of the rational faculties when their springs are disturbed. All true passion, then, is simple suffering, due to extreme susceptibility, and is opposed by a whole circumference to the idea of action. As such passion approximates to the ideal passion, it is perforce noble; differing from that in the degree of its nobility by the difference between the nobly human, and yet because human, imperfect, and the inevitably divine. I claim for Charlotte Brontë a place in this pantheon. She suffered and was still, except for her books not meant to be discovered as hers, and through which we feel her shaken soul. It was not a pleading for passion, as the critics vainly imagined, but the pleading of passion. "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" Let those who impugn Charlotte Brontë for crying out in her pain solve that mystery of the Cross. II The attempt to prove from internal and external evidence that the sadness of Villette' is traceable to an unhappy love experience is, in my judgment, futile and inexcusable. The actual external is twisted, in order to fit it to the supposed internal, evidence; which is a fatal course in the hunt for truth. "I returned to Brussels after aunt's death, against my conscience, prompted by what then seemed an irresistible impulse. I was punished for my selfish folly by a total withdrawal, for more than two years, of happiness and peace of mind." This is the famous passage which has set the guessers at work, from 1 'Charlotte Brontë. A monograph.' By T. Wemyss Reid. New York: Scribner, Armstrong & Co., 1877, p. 59. 1 Sir Wemyss Reid to Mr. MacKay; the latter gentleman using it for the base of a very elaborate structure. It is a pity that the fine dialectical skill which cut to pieces Dr. Wright's nice little romance2 did not rest its well-earned repute at the end of that enjoyable performance; for the author himself is obliged to confess that the point is not absolutely proved, but only strongly suggested.3 ་ Mr. MacKay bases his argument on what he well calls Charlotte's "element," the depiction of the agony of love. "Nowhere else are to be found such piercing cries of lonely anguish as may be heard in Shirley 'and 'Villette.' They are the very de profundis of love sunk in the abyss of despair." He quotes her statement that she will never affect what she has not experienced. Putting the two together, the conclusion is that "the characteristic experiences recorded in her books were not gained at Haworth : there is no room for any love tragedy there." In Brussels, therefore, must we search for the solution. Now, Charlotte could love only an intellectual man. M. Héger was such a man. He it was, then, whom Charlotte loved. Mr. Nicholls and Miss Nussey, the two best and the only two living authorities, maintain that the 1 'The Brontës. Fact and Fiction.' By Angus MacKay. New York: Dodd, Mead & Co. London: Service & Paton. 1897. 2 'The Brontës in Ireland, or Facts Stranger than Fiction.' By Dr. William Wright. New York: D. Appleton & Co., 1893. This is the remarkable book which startled Bronteans with the astounding statement that 'Wuthering Heights' had its foundation in the family history in Ireland, and that Charlotte derived her inspiration from the same source. It was received with much applause and open-eyed wonder, but with the caveats of the thoughtful. For its complete confutation, see Mr. MacKay's book, above mentioned. 5 Ib., p. 45. 3 MacKay, p. 73. 4 Ib., p. 41. particular reason for Charlotte's anxiety at this time was a dread of leaving her father to the unchecked temptations of a "too festive curate." After her first return from Brussels, she writes that she has felt for some months that she ought not to be away from him; 2 and later: "Whenever I consult my conscience, it affirms that I am doing right in staying at home, and bitter are its upbraidings when I yield to an eager desire for release." But this filial feeling is not enough for Mr. MacKay, on the ground that she returns to Haworth after a stay in Brussels of only one year, when the father was speedily rescued; whereas it was for two years that she suffered this unhappiness. The visit to the confessional is mentioned; the extravagant thanks to Mary Taylor for her advice to leave Brussels, and the grief at parting with Héger are urged as illuminating indications of the truth of the hypothesis. The cessation of the correspondence with Héger, through the intervention of his wife, is made much of. Turning to the novel, "we are surprised to find how absolutely Charlotte accepts M. Héger as her beau ideal."6 All of her heroes have a dash of the pedagogue. Helstone, Louis Moore, Crimsworth are "merely paler copies of the same original." Charlotte's vision was haunted by this figure. Note, too, 1 Shorter, p. 109. [Since this was written, Miss Nussey has died.] 2 "You will ask me why. It is on papa's account; he is now, as you know, getting old, and it grieves me to tell you that he is losing his sight. . . . I felt now that it would be selfish to leave him (at least as long as Bramwell and Anne are absent) in order to pursue selfish interests of my own. With the help of God I will try to deny myself in this matter and to wait." Gaskell, p. 278. 8 Gaskell, pp. 325, 325. 5 Gaskell, p. 278. 4 MacKay, p. 59. |