The Secret of Charlotte Bronte Part 6

THIS SECOND PART IS

DEDICATED TO

MY BROTHER

THE LATE ABBe AUSTIN RICHARDSON

WHO DIED SUDDENLY, 20TH AUG. 1913

Dearest, before you went away And left me here behind you, How often would you talk to me, And I, too, would remind you Of stories in this book retold, That for us two could ne'er grow old; Of scenes that we could live through yet, Just you and I,--and not forget: And now I feel, since you are gone, I wrote this book for you alone.

PART II

CHAPTER I

THE HISTORICAL DIFFICULTY: TO DISENTANGLE

FACT FROM FICTION

The purpose of the First Part of this study was to show that with the knowledge of the Secret of Charlotte Bronte, brought to us by Dr. Paul Heger's generous gift of these pathetic and beautiful Love-letters, the 'Problem of Charlotte Bronte,' as so many very clever but inattentive psychological critics have stated it, has lost all claim to serious attention.

The basis of the 'Problem' was the alleged 'dissonance' between Charlotte's personality and her genius--between her dreary, desolate, dull, well-tamed existence, uncoloured, untroubled by romance (as Mrs.

Gaskell painted it), and the pa.s.sionate atmosphere of her novels, where all events and personages are seen through the medium of one sentiment--tragical romantic love.

We now know that the dissonance did not exist; that from her twenty-sixth year downwards, Charlotte's life was, not only coloured, but governed by a tragical romantic love: that, in its first stage, threw her into a hopeless conflict against the force of things and broke her heart: but that, because the battle was fought in the force, and in the cause, of n.o.ble emotions, saved her soul alive; and called her genius forth to life: so that it rose as an immortal spirit from the grave of personal hopes.

Understanding this, we know that there is no 'Problem' of Charlotte Bronte: but that her personality and her genius and her life and her books were all those of a Romantic. But although there is no psychological Problem, a difficulty that concerns the historical criticism of Charlotte's life and her books does remain. And this difficulty has to be faced and conquered, not by speculations nor arguments, but by methods of enquiry.

When we study Charlotte Bronte's masterpiece _Villette_ in comparison with what we now know about the romance in her own life, we recognise two facts: the first is that, _in this work especially_, she has painted with such power the emotions she has undergone that her words become feelings that lift and enn.o.ble the reader's sensibility: and thus serve him--in the way that it belongs to Romantics to serve mankind.

But the second fact we discover is that,--again, _in this book particularly_,--historical personages and real events are used as the materials for an imaginary story, in a way that has produced critical confusion: and what is graver still--has caused false and injurious opinions to be formed about historical people. And the difficulty we have to face is, not what amount of blame belongs to Charlotte for misrepresenting historical facts, nor even need we ask ourselves what reason she had for thus misrepresenting them. Because the reason becomes plain when we take the trouble to realise that the motive the writer of this work of genius had in view was one that concerned her own personal liberation from haunting memories, rather than any motive concerning the impressions she might produce.

There can be no doubt that Charlotte's motive in _Villette_, judged as a method of personal salvation, was not only a permissible, but a n.o.ble one. It is the one that Pater attributed to Michael Angelo: '_the effort of a strong nature to attune itself to tranquillise vehement emotions by withdrawing them into the region of ideal sentiments':--'an effort to throw off the clutch of cruel and humiliating facts by translating them into the imaginative realm, where the artist, the author, the dreamer even, has things as he wills, because the hold of outward things_' (such a stern and merciless one in the case of Charlotte Bronte!) '_is thrown off at pleasure_.'

But, judged as a literary and historical method, was Charlotte Bronte's manner of treating the real Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle a justifiable or fair one? Can she be held without fault in this; that in Paul Emanuel and in Madame Beck she painted Monsieur and Madame Heger in a way that rendered them visible to every one who knew them; and then placed them in fict.i.tious circ.u.mstances that altered the character of their actions and feelings, in such a way as to misrepresent their true behaviour? It seems to me that we must admit that the auth.o.r.ess of the _Professor_ and of _Villette_ adopted an unjust literary and historical method in so far as these real people are concerned: and that in the case of Madame Heger especially, pa.s.sion and prejudice betrayed her: and rendered her guilty of a fault that must be recognised as a very grave one. But when this fault has been recognised and admitted, it seems to me a conscientious critic's duty does not compel him to scold this woman of genius for having the pa.s.sions of her kind. A great Romantic is not an angel: and in this case the main facts about Charlotte are not her shortcomings as a celestial being, but her transcendent merits as an interpreter of the human heart. For my own part, I confess that after reading Charlotte's Love-letters, I am in no mood to look for faults in her, nor even to lend much attention to some faults that, without looking for them, one is bound to recognise. For what a thankless and unseemly, as well as what an unprofitable, sort of criticism is that represented in ancient days by the youngest amongst Job's Friends, who had such a delightfully expressive name, Elihu, the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram! Elihu's criticism of Job (the man of genius, plunged into dire misfortune, not by any fault or folly of his own, but by the will of the Higher Powers, who desired to prove his virtue and to call forth his genius), is exactly the same method of criticising men and women of genius in the same case as Job, practised by Elihu's intellectual descendents, Buzites of the kindred of Ram, in all countries and in every age, down to England in the twentieth century. The fundamental doctrine of this critical method was, and is, that '_great men are not always wise_,' and that it is the vocation of smaller men to teach them wisdom, without 'respecting their persons or giving them flattering t.i.tles' (truly, as a matter of fact, by calling them names--knaves, hypocrites, sentimental cads, blackguards, etc.). In other words, the rule with these Buzites is that the main purpose of criticising great people is _to find fault with them_; to surprise them in their 'unwise' moments, to concentrate attention upon the faults they may, or may not, have committed in these moments; and to build upon these occasional real, or imaginary, faults, psychological and pathological theories about the madness, wickedness, or folly of people capable of them. And to conclude that there is 'very much to reprobate and a great deal to laugh at' in these men and women of genius--and that the fact that they had genius, and that as witnesses to the 'instinct of immortality in mortal creatures' they have served and honoured mankind, and also have bequeathed to us treasures of ideal beauty, is a mere accident, and may be left unnoticed.

But let not _my_ portion ever be with these fault-finders, who '_darken counsel by words without knowledge_,' as the original Elihu was told, 'out of the Whirlwind,' by the Supreme Critic; 'in whose stead' the son of Barachel had arrogated to himself the right to scold and scoff at Job; and to tell him that his misfortunes were all the result of his bad character and of his uncontrolled emotions. I refuse, then, to recognise as a question of vital importance Charlotte's forgetfulness of historical exact.i.tude in _Villette_; and I do not myself understand how any one (except a Buzite) who has read these Letters given to us by Dr.

Paul Heger, and especially the last one, that received no answer, can help feeling that the suffering the writer of the Letters must have undergone, in the unbroken silent solitude that followed her unanswered appeal, must have made the hold upon her memory of 'outward things' so hard to bear, that to break that hold, to live in the realm of imagination free from it, _having things as she would_, justified almost any method of self-liberation.

Still the fact of the critical confusion of the personages in the novel with the historical Director and Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle does create difficulties in the way of forming right opinions. And to remove them, we have to follow the plan already recommended,--to make sure of our facts, before calling in the aid of psychological arguments. And in this case, to see the position clearly, we must disentangle from the imaginary story in _Villette_ the real personages and events woven into the fabric of a parable where, as I have said, they appear amongst fict.i.tious circ.u.mstances and produce consequently false impressions. In other words, we have to recover a clear knowledge of the true Monsieur Heger before we can determine where 'Paul Emanuel' resembles, and where he differs from, the Professor, _whom Charlotte loved: but who never showed any particle of love for Charlotte, such as Paul Emanuel bestowed on Lucy Snowe_. And then we have to re-establish in her true place, as Monsieur Heger's wife and the mother of his five children, the true Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle--who must be contrasted, rather than compared, with the crafty, jealous and pitiless Madame Beck of the novel, selfishly and cruelly interfering with the true course of an entirely legitimate and romantic attachment between her English teacher and her cousin, the Professor of literature. And the relative positions of these two Directresses clearly seen, we have to ask ourselves, Whether the real Madame Heger is proved to have had the base and detestable character of the hateful Madame Beck? and whether she really _was_, in any voluntary or even involuntary, way, the direct cause of poor Charlotte's anguish, suspense and final heart-break? And whether, given the positions and the different views of life and sense of duty of the different people whose destinies become entangled in this tragical romance, we can find fault with any person concerned in these events,--unless, indeed, we follow Greek methods, and drag in the Eumenides? Or, else, suppose it a parallel case with Job's: and decide that it was the will of the Higher Powers to prove Charlotte's virtue and to call forth her genius? But in so far as mere mortals are concerned, we have to see whether anything else could have happened, and whether poor Charlotte was not bound to break her heart?

So that the purpose of the Second Part of this study of the 'Secret of Charlotte Bronte' really lies outside of the 'Secret' itself, and becomes an effort to know 'as in themselves they really were,' and independently of their relations.h.i.+ps with Charlotte, the Professor whom she loved (probably much more than he deserved), and the Directress of the Pensionnat in the Rue d'Isabelle--whom she certainly hated, without any reasonable cause for this hatred, although this hatred had a natural cause--that if only we will use psychology for the purpose of penetrating facts, and not for playing with such fictions as that _it was 'no serious grief to Charlotte that Monsieur Heger was married'_ we may easily discover. After all, one must not ask for entire 'reasonableness' from Romantics, who see personages and events through the medium of one great Pa.s.sion. And one must not demand from them absolute impartiality, when judging the impediment that divides them from the object of this pa.s.sion.

We are not judges then in this case, but enquirers into the facts of the personality and true characters of the Director and Directress of the Bruxelles school and of their environment, as the influences that so largely created the Romantic atmosphere where Charlotte's genius lived and moved and had its being. And, by the special circ.u.mstances of my own life, I am able to a.s.sist in a way that is not (so I am tempted to believe) possible to any other living critic. The difficulty that stands in the way of most modern investigators is that long ago the historical people with their environment 'have become ghostly.' Long ago, for most readers of _Villette_, the once famous Pensionnat de Jeunes Filles in the Rue d'Isabelle, with its memory-haunted cla.s.s-rooms, with its high-walled garden in the heart of a city whose voices reached one, as from a world far away, and 'down whose peaceful alleys it was pleasant to stray and hear the bells of St Jean Baptiste peal out with their sweet, soft, exalted sound,' have vanished out of life. _Yes--but out of my life they have not vanished!_ For me--the historical Monsieur and Madame Heger exist quite independently of all a.s.sociations with the imaginary personages Paul Emanuel and Madame Beck. For me--the old school, the cla.s.s-rooms, the walled garden, with its ancient pear-trees that still 'faithfully renewed their perfumed snow in spring and honey-sweet pendants in autumn,' remain--as they were planted vivid images and visions in my memory half a century ago, when, as a schoolgirl, I knew nothing about Charlotte Bronte nor _Villette_: but when I sat, twenty years after Charlotte, in the cla.s.s-rooms where she had waited for M. Heger, on the eve of her departure from Bruxelles, myself an attentive pupil of her Professor, and a witness, half terrified, and half exasperated, of his varying moods. And when, too, I saw, rather than heard, Madame Heger, moving noiselessly, where M.

Heger's movements were always attended with shock and excitement; only to me, Madame Heger appeared always a friendly rather than an adverse presence--an abiding influence of serenity that rea.s.sured one, after sudden recurrent gusts of nerve-disturbing storms.

And I would point out that the value of my testimony about the personal impressions I derived, quite independently of any knowledge of Charlotte Bronte's residence in what was for me _my_ school, and of her enthusiasm for _my_ Professor, or her dislike of _my_ schoolmistress, is enhanced both by the resemblances and by the differences of our several points of view. Thus--like Charlotte--I was an English pupil and a Protestant in this Belgian and Catholic school. Like her--my vocation was to be that of a woman of letters. And although, when she was brought under M. Heger's influence, she was a woman of genius, already well acquainted with good literature, and not without experience as a writer, whereas I was only an unformed girl, with very little reading and no culture: and merely by force of an inborn desire to follow a certain purpose in life that filled me with happiness, even in antic.i.p.ation, justified in supposing that I had a literary vocation at all, and although no doubt I have not turned my advantages to account as Charlotte did, yet I myself owe to M. Heger, not only admirable rules for criticism and practice, that have always claimed and still claim my absolute belief, but also I owe to him, as she did, a full enjoyment of beautiful thoughts, beautifully expressed, and of treasures of the mind and of the imagination, that, lying outside of the recognised paths of English study, I might never have found, nor even have recognised as treasures, had I not been cured of insularity of taste by M. Heger.

So that upon this point I am able to say of M. Heger what Charlotte said: he was the only master in literature I ever had; and up to the present hour I esteem him, in this domain of literary composition, the only master whose rules I trust.

But if my judgment of M. Heger, as a Professor, coincides with Charlotte's, my judgment of him, outside of this capacity, does not show him to me at all as the model of the man from whom she painted Paul Emanuel. In other words, I never found nor saw in the real Monsieur Heger the lovableness under the outward harshness,--the depths of tenderness under the very apparent severity and irritability,--the concealed consideration for the feelings of others, under the outer indifference to the feelings of any one who ruffled his temper; nor yet did I ever discover meekness and modesty in him, under the dogmatic and imperious manner that swept aside all opposition. In fact, I never found out that M. Heger wore a mask. But, irritable, imperious, harsh, not _unkind_, but certainly the reverse of tender, and without any consideration for any one's feelings, or any respect for any one's opinions, thus, _just as he seemed to be, so in reality, in my opinion, M. Heger actually was_. And what one must remember is that Charlotte's point of view, from which she formed the opinion that M. Heger _was_ tender-hearted, and modest and meek, was the point of view of a woman in love; and this standpoint is not one that ensures impartiality.

My own point of view, between 1859 and 1861, was that of an English schoolgirl, under sixteen, of a Belgian schoolmaster, over fifty, who in his capacity of a literary Professor, was almost a deity to her; but who, outside of this capacity, was not a lovable, but a formidable man: a 'Terror,' in the sense children and nursery-maids give the term; that is to say, some one who is sure to appear upon the scene when one is least prepared to face him, and who is constantly finding fault with one. Now a 'Terror,' in this popular sense of the term, although he is not a lovable, is not necessarily a hateful personage. There may belong to him an interest of excitement, and even a secret admiration for his cleverness in fulfilling his role of taking one unawares and finding something in one to quarrel about. And most certainly this interest of excitement, and even of a sense of amus.e.m.e.nt, entered into my sentiment for M. Heger, whom I recognised as a double-being, an admirable literary Professor, but an alarming and irritating personality. But although I never hated him, I yet had some special grievances against this 'Terror,' not only because he had a trick of surprising me in weak moments, and of finding out my worst sides, but also because he was really, in my own particular case, unjust; and full of prejudice and impatience against my nationality, and personal idiosyncrasies that were not faults; and that I couldn't help. Thus he stirred up in me rebellious protests, that could not be uttered; because how was an English schoolgirl of fifteen to protest against the injustice of a Belgian 'Master,' in his own country, and his own school: who was a man past fifty, too; and what was more, in his capacity of literary Professor, if not quite a deity, at least, in my own opinion, the keeper of the keys of palaces where dwelt the Immortals?

And that my opinion of M. Heger's personality, as that of a 'Terror' (in the childish and popular sense) did really show me the man apart from the Professor very much as he really was, is confirmed by the first impression he made upon Charlotte herself before the glamour of romantic love had interfered with her critical perspicacity. Here is the original description of M. Heger, in the early days of her residence in Bruxelles:

'There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken,' she wrote to Ellen Nussey, 'M. Heger, the husband of Madame. He is Professor of rhetoric: a man of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in temperament, a little black being, with a face that varies in expression. Sometimes he borrows the lineaments of a tom-cat: sometimes those of a delirious hyena: occasionally, but very seldom, he discards these perilous attractions and a.s.sumes an air not above one hundred degrees removed from mild and gentleman-like. He is very angry with me just now, because I have written a translation which he stigmatises as _peu correct_. He did not tell me so, but wrote the word on the margin of my book and asked me, in very stern _phrase_, how it happened that my compositions were always better than my translations, adding that the thing seemed to him inexplicable. The fact is that three weeks ago in a high-flown humour he forbade me to use either dictionary or grammar when translating the most difficult English composition into French. This makes the task rather arduous, and compels me every now and then to introduce an English word, which nearly plucks the eyes out of his head when he sees it. Emily and he don't draw well together at all.'

I am quoting this view of M. Heger's personality, taken by Charlotte Bronte before she became a partial witness, because, by and by, when I am giving my own reminiscences, it will be found that in 1842 M. Heger was very much the same Professor whom I knew in 1861.

And Madame Heger? Here too my impressions are obtained from a point of view unquestionably more impartial than Charlotte Bronte's. And it will be found that, when the alteration of clear power of vision that personal prejudices make has been realised, my opposite judgment of the Directress of the Pensionnat to the judgment of the auth.o.r.ess of _Villette_, is not the result of any difference in the _facts_ of Madame Heger's characteristics and behaviour, but in the difference between the standpoints from which we severally judge them.

Charlotte's standpoint was the one of the devotee, of the great spirit who is neither a G.o.d nor a mortal, but the 'Child of plenty and poverty, who is often houseless and homeless'--and who cannot well see 'as in herself she really is,' the Mistress of the house; who prudently, _not necessarily with cruelty_, closes the doors of her home against intruders--that standpoint also is not one conducive to impartial judgments.

My own point of view was that of a girl on the threshold of womanhood, who saw in Madame Heger an embodiment of two qualities especially, that, perhaps because I did not possess them and could never possess them (pa.s.sionate as I was by nature and with strong personal likings and dislikings), inspired me with a sentiment of reverence and wonder, as for a remote perfection, that, though unattainable, it did one good to know existed somewhere; just as it does one good, with feet planted on the earth, to see the stars. The qualities I saw in Madame Heger were serene sweetness, a kindness without preferences, covering her little world of pupils and teachers with a watchful care. _Tranquillite, Douceur, Bonte:_ the French words express better than English ones the commingled qualities I felt existed in Madame Heger as she moved noiselessly (as Charlotte Bronte has described), whilst the more brilliant and gifted Professor's movements were always stormy.

When relating these reminiscences of Monsieur and Madame Heger and of the old school and garden, as I myself treasure them, and quite independently of their a.s.sociations with Charlotte Bronte, I shall not be losing sight of the purpose that justifies this record (as an endeavour to disentangle fact from fiction) if, in so far as the facts that concern my own experiences are concerned, I ask now to be allowed to relate them in a different tone--that is to say, not any longer in the tone of a literary critic, nor as one supporting any thesis or argument, but simply as a story-teller 'who has been young and now is old.' And who, before the darkening day has turned to night, calls to remembrance scenes and personages long since vanished out of the world, but still alive for me, bathed in the light that s.h.i.+nes upon the undimmed visions of my youth--although to almost every one else now alive these scenes have become 'as it were a tale that is told.'

CHAPTER II

MY FIRST INTRODUCTION TO CHARLOTTE BRONTe'S PROFESSOR[1]

'Madame,--quelquefois, donner, c'est semer'--_Speech made to my Mother by M. Heger_.

In 1859 this memorable thing happened:--I was introduced by my mother to M. Heger as his future pupil. I was fourteen years of age: but I remember everything in connection with this event as though it had happened yesterday. We were staying at Ostend, where my mother had taken my brother and myself for a long summer holiday, because she believed we had been previously overworked at our former schools, from which she had removed us. She was convinced that we both of us stood in need of sea-air, exercise and healthy recreation, before we could take up our studies again, after the strain we had undergone. Upon this point my brother and I were entirely of one mind with our mother.

But after a holiday of three months, we had also begun to feel, with her, that this state of things could not go on for ever, and that--as she expressed it--'something had to be done with us.' What was done with us was the result of circ.u.mstances that I cannot but regard as fortunate, in my own case at any rate. They brought into my life, at a very impressionable age, influences and memories that have always been, and that are still, after more than half a century, extraordinarily serviceable and sweet to me.

The first of these fortunate circ.u.mstances was the renewal (due to an accidental meeting at Ostend) of my mother's friends.h.i.+p with a relative whom she had lost sight of for a great many years; who had married a Dutch lady and settled in Holland. The eldest daughter of these re-discovered cousins was an exceptionally charming girl of nineteen; and upon enquiry my mother found out that she had been educated at a school in Brussels, _situated in the Rue d'Isabelle, and kept by a certain Madame Heger_. How it came to pa.s.s that, only four years after the publication of _Villette_, and two years after Mrs. Gaskell's _Life of Charlotte Bronte_, it did not occur to my mother to identify this particular Brussels school with the one where the Director was the fiery and perilously attractive 'Professor Paul Emanuel' and where the Directress was painted as the crafty and treacherous 'Madame Beck,' I really cannot say; but, so it was. There can be no doubt that it was solely because the account rendered by her delightful young kinswoman of the school where she had spent three years was thoroughly satisfactory to my mother, and because the unaffected and accomplished girl herself was an excellent proof of the happy results of the education she had received, that my mother made up her mind that the best thing that could be 'done with me,' was to send me to Madame Heger's school. She had entered into correspondence with this lady, and the plan had developed into a further arrangement, that my brother was to be placed with a French tutor recommended by Madame Heger, and who was the Professor of History at her establishment. All these conditions were very nearly settled, when M. Heger came to visit my mother at Ostend; to talk matters over and to make final arrangements.

Of course from the point of view of my own humble interest I recognised that the visit of this Brussels Professor was an event of great importance. I was fully conscious of this, because my cousin had told me a great deal about M. Heger, explaining that _he_ was the ruling spirit in the Pensionnat; that he was rather a terrible personage; and that _if he took a dislike to one,--well, he could be very disagreeable_. I had received so much advice upon this particular subject from my cousin that I had talked the matter over very seriously with my brother afterwards, and asked him what he thought I ought to do in order to avoid the misfortune of offending M. Heger. My brother's advice was sound:--'Don't let the man see you are afraid of him,' he said, 'and then, whatever you do, don't show off.'

Keeping these counsels in mind, after M. Heger's arrival, I sat upon the extreme edge of the rickety sofa that filled the darkest corner in the little salle-a-manger of our Ostend apartments over the Patissier's shop in the Rue de la Chapelle--I remember the very name of the Patissier; it was Dubois--watching and listening eagerly to the conversation of the Professor with my mother, who, strange to say, did not seem to be in the least afraid of him; nor to recognise that he was in any way different to ordinary mortals! And I must say, looking back to that September afternoon to-day, and realising our att.i.tude of mind, my mother's and mine, towards this interesting personage to us, but interesting solely in his character of _my_ future teacher, there does seem to me something amazing--so amazing as to be almost amusing--in our total unconsciousness of his already well-established real, or rather ideal claims as a personage immortalised in English literature, by an ill.u.s.trious writer who, four years before my birth, had been his pupil; and whose romantic love for him, whilst it had broken her heart, had served as the inspiration of her genius; so that her literary masterpiece was precisely a book where the very school I was going to inhabit was painted, with extraordinary veracity, in so far as outward and local points of resemblance were concerned.

As for my own ignorance of all these circ.u.mstances there is nothing strange in that. Fifty-four years ago a schoolgirl of my age was not very likely to have read _Villette_. But what one may pause to inquire is whether if by any accident the book _had_ come into my hands, and thus revealed to me my true position, should I have gone down on my bended knees to my mother, or to express the case more exactly, should I have flung my arms round her dear neck, and prayed, '_Don't send me to this school; I am afraid of Professor Paul Emanuel; I loathe Madame Beck; I shall never make friends with these horrid Lesba.s.secouriennes?_' Well, really, I don't think I should have done anything of the sort! At fourteen one adores an adventure. It seems to me probable that the excitement of going to the same school, and learning my lessons in the same cla.s.s-rooms, and treading the paths of the same garden, and being instructed by the same teachers as a writer of genius, who had left these scenes haunted by romance, would have made me hold under all apprehensions of the Lesba.s.secouriennes as school-fellows, of the perfidious Directress with her stealthy methods of espionage, of the explosive, nerve-wrecking Professor, always breaking in upon one like a clap of thunder. Yes; but though held under, the apprehension would have troubled my inner soul a good deal all the same; and this would have been a pity. Because, in so far as the real Directress and real Belgian schoolgirls whom I was going to know in the Rue d'Isabelle went, these apprehensions would have been superfluous and misleading.

But now if there were no danger of my finding in the real Pensionnat any spiritual counterparts of either the fict.i.tious Madame Beck, or of the perverted Lesba.s.secouriennes pupils, was it equally certain that, if I had read _Villette_, I should not have recognised and been justified in recognising in Monsieur Heger the original model and living image of that immortal figure in English fiction, '_the magnificent-minded, grand-hearted, dear, faulty little man_'--Professor Paul Emanuel?

We shall perhaps be able to decide this question better at the end of these reminiscences than here. But what must be realised is, that the very fact that lends some general interest to my mother's first impressions and my own about M. Heger is chiefly this: that it expresses observations made from a purely personal standpoint; out of sight of any literary views about 'Paul Emanuel,' or historical judgments upon his relations with Charlotte Bronte. The perfectly simple purpose we had in view was to see clearly what sort of a Professor M. Heger was going to prove, and whether I was going to do well as his pupil, and get on satisfactorily, amongst these foreign surroundings.