John Malham-Dembleby

A ridge of lighted heath, alive, glancing, devouring, would have been a meet emblem of my mind when I accused; ... the same ridge, black and blasted after the flames are dead, would have represented as meetly my subsequent condition when ... reflection had shown me the madness of my conduct, and the dreariness of my hated and hating position. Something of vengeance I had tasted.... As aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy; its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned.... I would fain exercise some better faculty than that of fierce speaking—fain find nourishment for some less fiendish feeling than that of sombre indignation.

These words, written by Charlotte BrontË in Jane Eyre, Chapter IV., in relation to herself and "Mrs. Reed," give us an insight into her extraordinary alternations of mood. To inquire deeply into her determining initially to disavow the authorship of Wuthering Heights requires a somewhat ruthless baring of the "fiendish" vindictiveness against M. HÉger between the dates of 1844-46, that was a characteristic of the portrayals of him I have mentioned; but it also reveals her active turn to a spirit of repentance for past vindictive feeling, the which she acknowledges to have known.

It seems that it was in a spirit of reproach Charlotte BrontË wrote the vengeful scene between Heathcliffe and Catherine in Wuthering Heights, harsh in threat almost as her poem "Gilbert," wherein the man, satisfied with the affections of his wife and children, has banished the remembrance of her of whom he boasted—"She loved me more than life," and who is made to say, before her spirit in the form of a white-clad spectre comes to him:—

Thus in Wuthering Heights, Chapter XV., when Catherine is embraced by Heathcliffe, she says bitterly:—

And later, as though in answer to the apparent threat of the poem "Gilbert," wherein, as I have said, the spectre of the woman who has died broken-hearted through the neglect of her married lover haunts him and drives him mad, Heathcliffe, in the words of that poem, "Wild as one whom demons seize," cries:—

Charlotte BrontË's poems, "Frances,"[82] "Gilbert," and "Preference" (wherein we have literature in allegory preferred to a lover), show there had been to her a season of darkest misery when, to quote Villette concerning herself as Lucy Snowe, "all her life's hope was torn by the roots out of her riven outraged heart." Whether this was the time when, in the words of herself as Jane Eyre, "faith was blighted, confidence destroyed": a time to her when Mr. Rochester (M. HÉger) was not to her "what she had thought him," the reader shall decide. But in Villette and Jane Eyre she "would not ascribe vice to him; ... would not say he had betrayed" her. She forgave him all: yet not in words, not outwardly; only at [her] heart's core. See the phase of M. Pelet in the The Professor.

Evidence shows it was in her dark season when Charlotte BrontË wrote Wuthering Heights, and that she portrayed M. HÉger therein with all the vindictiveness of a woman with "a riven outraged heart," the wounds in which yet rankled sorely. Thus may we understand her saying in her famous preface to Wuthering Heights:—

Even in Villette there were recurrences of the spasmodic spirit of vindictiveness responsible for Charlotte BrontË's harsh portrayal of M. HÉger as Heathcliffe, though "at her heart's core she then forgave him." In Villette, Chapter XX., she refers to M. Paul (M. HÉger) antithetically, and all the more significantly, in a comparison of him with Dr. John Bretton, of whom she says:—

Wuthering Heights, however, containing too humiliating a story of Charlotte BrontË's heart-thrall, her misery and her wild vindictiveness, and also for the reasons stated in the beginning of this chapter—her saving remorse—she seems early to have determined to repudiate her authorship of it; indeed, so largely is she now found to have used the work in Jane Eyre, we might say she once had contemplated destroying the manuscript. The subsequent arrangement made in the name of Ellis Bell that the work by the same author should go to Mr. Newby, the publisher of Wuthering Heights, gave finality to this tragedy of authorship which, but for the discoveries in this, The Key to the BrontË Works, would have remained for ever unrevealed, and a reproach to literature—a thing of untruth thickly hidden.

Had Charlotte BrontË destroyed Wuthering Heights before its publication she would have saved this sensational disclosure. But she hesitated to destroy the manuscript at once, and as an alternative to identifying herself with its authorship, she sent forth her work under a nom de guerre, part of which had been employed by her sister Emily. We well know the difficulties that resulted; the judgment of scholars and thinkers was impugned and their sane pronouncements were pilloried. To cover Charlotte BrontË's regretful error were to connive against law and literature. Wuthering Heights being published, the work was the world's property; it stood for public purposes, to submit to all criticism and research, and it came neither in Charlotte BrontË's province nor in that of any person to prevent its being subjected to the final inquiry with which the cold light of truth exposes all things.

Doubtless Charlotte BrontË perceived this, and regretting the facileness of her pen and the vituperativeness of her mood of that past and hateful night, she set herself, in her subsequent works, to make clear she had overdrawn the bitterness of the relations which one time had existed between herself and M. HÉger. Perhaps she could not expect her retractions would be understood of all men, but it pleased her inmost soul, and having a final sense of justice, and a softening of her heart for her vehement passionateness, she continued in all her works subsequent to her Wuthering Heights to reconstruct this her early version. Thus Charlotte BrontË as Caroline Helstone of Shirley is Catherine Earnshaw of Wuthering Heights, with the distinction I mention. Moore is admitted, as I have said, to have been drawn from M. HÉger[83]:—

It is in Shirley that Charlotte BrontË gives, inadvertently or purposely, the origin of the title of Wuthering Heights, and we see therewith why she came afterwards to choose for her autobiographical-self in Villette, the name of Lucy Snowe. We perceive she had been singularly impressed by an old Scottish ballad, entitled, "Puir Mary Lee," and it is important and interesting to note that Dr. Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary refers readers to this very same poem in connection with the origin of the northern word "wuthering," in the form of the verb "whudder," or "wuther." And so, in a letter to Mr. W. S. Williams, of November 6th, 1852, Miss BrontË wrote of Lucy Snowe[86]:—

Thus we understand Charlotte BrontË was anxious that her autobiographical-self in Villette should be called Snowe. While, in mentioning the matter to her publishers, she endeavoured to show a superficial and commonplace reason for her singular choice, the truth underlies her words wherein she says she "can hardly express what subtlety of thought" made her decide upon "a cold name."

The subtlety of thought that dictated the choice of the "cold name" Snowe had, we shall see, a connection with the old Scottish ballad, "Puir Mary Lee," which evidence shows was responsible at the dark season to which I have referred for Charlotte BrontË's choice of the title of Wuthering Heights—for her identifying her own bitterness with that of "Puir Mary Lee."

It is in Shirley, Chapter VII., that Charlotte BrontË writes:—

Thus internal evidence proves that the name of Wuthering Heights for the abode of the "deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl," Catherine Earnshaw, was primarily chosen by Charlotte BrontË because of its special appeal to her own mood at a given period, in relation to the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee," and proves that the choice of the name of Snowe for her "cold and altered" autobiographical self in Villette was dictated by its connection therewith.

In this light glance at Charlotte BrontË's poem "Mementos," and at the following verses from her "Frances":—

There is an apparent relationship of this last verse with the remarks in Chapter XXV. of The Professor, on Hunsden's "Lucia," of whom he says:—"I should ... have liked to marry her, and that I have not done so is a proof that I could not." Lucia's (Miss BrontË's) "faculty" was literature: the physiognomy was obviously an obfuscation. It is significant that Charlotte BrontË again took "Lucia," for the Christian name of Lucia or Lucy Snowe. See my references to Hunsden as a phase of M. HÉger.

Perceiving, therefore, that Charlotte BrontË had likened herself to the heroine of "Puir Mary Lee," in so far as to be influenced by it to give the title of Wuthering Heights to one of her works, and to take the name of Snowe later for her autobiographical self, we understand why she wrote in Jane Eyre, Chapter XXVI.:—

The inclusion in Shirley of the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee" and the remarks anent it were apparently digressive, but they are followed by the "subtle" disclaimer:—

Indeed, there is evidence of a reconciliation between M. HÉger and Charlotte BrontË, this being most marked in Jane Eyre and Shirley. In connection with the reasons responsible for Charlotte BrontË's choice of the title of Wuthering Heights, it is interesting to note some "subtlety of thought" dictated Charlotte's telling us in Shirley, Chapter XXXIII., of Caroline and her lover that:—

After the close of 1850, Charlotte BrontË resolved into the mood which was an earlier characteristic; and the choice of the name of Snowe for herself and the extraordinary tenacity with which she held to the name, having it re-inscribed in Villette by the printers though she had herself changed it, show she had returned somewhat to that state in regard to her affection for M. HÉger responsible for the passionateness of her Wuthering Heights. And as following the completion of Villette she decided to marry a man she did not really love, I would say her mood was honestly in sympathy with that in which she wrote Wuthering Heights through bitter, adverse circumstances and the warping of destiny, and did not result from Sydney Dobell's advice to her when, having read Shirley and Jane Eyre, and despite her disclaimer in a preface, thinking she was the author of Wuthering Heights, he advised her to resume the frame of mind in which she had penned her Wuthering Heights.[88]

Dobell's supposition that she wrote the book had no connection whatsoever with my discovering Charlotte BrontË was the author of Wuthering Heights; neither had the fact that Miss Rigby—Lady Eastlake—in The Quarterly Review, spoke of Wuthering Heights as "purporting to be written by Ellis Bell" but having "a decided family likeness to Jane Eyre," and with still more point, identified "Catherine and Heathcliffe of Wuthering Heights as Jane and Rochester of Jane Eyre in their native state." For I early found I must credit only the internal evidence of the BrontË works as my interpretative guide. Having written "The Key to Jane Eyre" nothing could prevent my discovery of that novel's kinship with Wuthering Heights; and so far back as August 29, 1902, I penned in a private letter enclosed with the proof sheets of my article to Mr. Harold Hodge, the editor of The Saturday Review, a confession that I was finding a strong kinship between the two novels. I owe to my persistent consciousness of this close kinship the fact that I finally discovered the amazing secrets of Wuthering Heights, and was enabled to state publicly in my Fortnightly Review article of March 1907, Charlotte BrontË and none other wrote Wuthering Heights. It was then I turned with interest to the remarks of Sydney Dobell, the author of Balder, and "a notable figure in the history of English thought" as he has been named, whose review of Charlotte BrontË's works had resulted in her being acclaimed a leading author and a genius. It was in The Palladium of September 1850 Sydney Dobell said:—

Charlotte BrontË warmly thanked him and protested. With eager honesty he again and again begged her to visit him and discuss the authorship of Wuthering Heights. Could Sidney Dobell but have been told the secret tragedy of Currer Bell's life and the bitterness of her cup, how he would have shrunk from inflicting her with an intrusive personal inquiry. And in all innocence he had asked her to revive the frame of mind in which, to use the words in Jane Eyre, her heart had been "weeping blood"!

Wuthering Heights was wrought near the furnace of Charlotte BrontË's fiery ordeal, and gives at its intensest that which glows through her other works, finally to flash up and smoulder out in Villette. By reason of its clear portrayal of woman when she is very woman Wuthering Heights towers above all common literary artistry, one of the finest novels in the world, an abiding monument to the vital genius of Charlotte BrontË. After her return from Brussels her life was a long human conflict, with vain regrets, vindictive recriminations, and luring memories opposing heroic commandings in the name of right and virtue. All honour to her that she fought to win!

Had Charlotte BrontË and M. HÉger been characterless individuals of the common type who, knowing nothing of self-sacrifice and nobleness of life, yield to the call of immediate and unlicensed impulse, we could never have had these most vital representations, these most poignant revelations of the Martyrdom of Virtue—the works of our immortal Currer Bell. Her vehicle of confession—her dialect, was what men have termed fiction. But her heart was satisfied that truth has its ultimate appeal; and in the way of those sententious writers of old who garbed in an attractive vesture veritable and momentous records which would be preserved because they entertained, she gave the history of her life in a series of dramas we call the BrontË novels. For sixty years these have been read only as the creations of a brain that spun interesting fiction! Now, by aid of The Key to the BrontË Works, it is revealed they are more than this, and we discover the real greatness of Currer Bell and the high rank of her genius. Like that which creates the noblest and most enduring of the world's literature, the genius of Charlotte BrontË truthfully preserves the past, while it will intimately appeal to and have a salient lesson and an inspiring message for any one so ever who shall read, be it here and now, or in the time to come.