 I am not aware of all the circumstances which led to the relinquishment of the Leal Plan. Brussels had had, from the first, a strong attraction for Charlotte, and the idea of going there, in preference to any other place, had only been given up in consequence of the information received of the second-rate character of its schools. In one of her letters, reference had been made to Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the chaplain of the British Embassy. At the request of his brother, a clergyman living not many miles from Howarth and an acquaintance of Mr. Brontës, she made much inquiry, and at length, after some discouragement in her search, heard of a school which seemed in every respect desirable. There was an English lady who had long lived in the Orléans family, amidst the various fluctuations of their fortunes, and who, when the Princess Louise was married to King Leopold, accompanied her to Brussels in the capacity of Reader. This lady's granddaughter was receiving her education at the pensionar of Madame Eger, and so satisfied was the grandmother with the kind of instruction given that she named the establishment with high encomiums to Mrs. Jenkins, and, in consequence, it was decided that if the term suited, Miss Brontë and Emily should proceed with her. Mr. Eger informs me that, on receipt of a letter from Charlotte, making very particular inquiries as to the possible amount of what are usually termed extras, he and his wife were so much struck by the simple earnest tone of the letter that they said to each other, These are the daughters of an English pastor of moderate means, anxious to learn with an ulterior view of instructing others, and to whom the risk of additional expense is of great consequence. Let us name a specific sum within which all the expenses shall be included. This was accordingly done. The agreement was concluded, and the Brontës prepared to leave their native county for the first time if we accept the melancholy and memorable residence at Cowan Bridge. Mr. Brontë determined to accompany his daughters. Mary and her brother, who were experienced in foreign travelling, were also of the party. Charlotte first saw London in the day or two they now stopped there, and, from an expression in one of her subsequent letters, they all, I believe, stayed at the Chapter Coffee House, Potter Noster Rowe, a strange old-fashioned tavern of which I shall have more to say hereafter. Mary's account of their journey is thus given. In passing through London, she seemed to think our business was and ought to be to see all the pictures and statues we could. She knew the artists, and knew where other productions of theirs were to be found. I don't remember what we saw except St. Paul's. Emily was like her in these habits of mind, but certainly never took her opinions but always had one to offer. I don't know what Charlotte thought of Brussels. We arrived in the dark and went next morning to our respective schools to see them. We were, of course, much preoccupied, and our prospects gloomy. Charlotte used to like the country round Brussels. At the top of every hill you see something. She took long, solitary walks on the occasional holidays. Mr. Beranti took his daughters to the Rue des Abelles Brussels, remained one night at Mr. Jenkins, and straight returned to his wild Yorkshire village. What a contrast to that must the Belgian capital have presented to those two young women thus left behind. Suffering acutely from every strange and unaccustomed contact, far away from their beloved home and the dear moors beyond, their indomitable will was their great support. Charlotte's own words with regard to Emily are After the age of twenty, having meantime studied alone with diligence and perseverance, she went with me to an establishment on the continent. The same suffering and conflict ensued, heightened by the strong recoil of her upright heretic and English spirit from the gentle Jesuitry of the foreign and Romish system. Once more she seemed sinking, but this time she rallied through the mere force of resolution, with inward remorse and shame she looked back on her former failure and resolved to conquer. But the victory cost her dear. She was never happy till she carried her hard-won knowledge back to the remote English village, the old Parsonage house, and desolate Yorkshire hills. They wanted learning. They came for learning. They would learn. Where they had a distinct purpose to be achieved in intercourse with their fellows, they forgot themselves. At all other times they were miserably shy. Mrs. Jenkins told me that she used to ask them to spend Sundays and holidays with her until she found that they felt more pain than pleasure from such visits. Emily hardly ever uttered more than a monosyllable. Charlotte was sometimes excited sufficiently to speak eloquently and well on certain subjects, but before her tongue was thus loosened she had a habit of gradually wheeling round on her chair, so as almost to conceal her face from the person to whom she was speaking. And yet there was much in Brussels to strike a responsive chord in her powerful imagination. At length she was seeing somewhat of that grand old world of which she had dreamed. As the gay crowds passed by her so had gay crowds paced full streets for centuries in all their varying costumes. Every spot told an historic tale extending back into the fabulous ages when Jan and Yannicka, the Aboriginal giant and giantess, looked over the wall forty feet high of what is now the Rue Ville Hermosa and peered down upon the new settlers who were to turn them out of the country in which they had lived since the deluge. The great solemn cathedral of Saint-Gudul, the religious paintings, the striking forms and ceremonies of the Romish Church, all made a deep impression on the girls fresh from the bare walls and simple worship of Haworth Church. And then they were indignant with themselves for having been susceptible of this impression and their stout Protestant hearts arrayed themselves against the false duessa that had thus imposed upon them. The very building they occupied as pupils in Madame Eger's Pensionnard had its own ghostly train of splendid associations marching forever in shadowy procession through and through the ancient rooms and shaded alleys of the gardens. From the splendor of today in the Rue Royal, if you turn aside near the statue of the General Bellillard, you will look down four flights of broad stone steps upon the Rue d'Isabelle. The chimneys of the houses in it are below your feet. Opposite to the lowest flight of steps there is a large old mansion facing you with a spacious walled garden behind and to the right of it. In front of this garden, on the same side as the mansion and with great boughs of trees sweeping over their lowly roofs, is a row of small, picturesque, old-fashioned cottages, not unlike in degree and uniformity to the alms houses so often seen in an English country town. The Rue d'Isabelle looks as though it had been untouched by the innovations of the builder for the last three centuries, and yet anyone might drop a stone into it from the back windows of the grand modern hotels in the Rue Royal, built and furnished in the newest Parisian fashion. In the thirteenth century, the Rue d'Isabelle was called the façais au chien, and the kennels for the ducal hounds occupied the place where Madame Eger's pensionnat now stands. A hospital in the ancient large meaning of the word succeeded to the kennel. The houseless and the poor, perhaps the leprous, were received by the brethren of a religious order in a building on this sheltered site, and what had been a façade for defense was filled up with herb gardens and orchards for upwards of a hundred years. Then came the aristocratic guild of the crossbow men, that company the members were of were required to prove their noble descent untainted for so many generations before they could be admitted into the guild, and, being admitted, were required to swear a solemn oath that no other pastime or exercise should take up any part of their leisure, the whole of which was to be devoted to the practice of the noble art of shooting with the crossbow. Once a year a grand match was held under the patronage of some saint, to whose church steeple was affixed the bird, or semblance of a bird, to be hit by the victor. Footnote. Scott describes the sport shooting at the pop and jay as an ancient game formerly practiced with archery, but at this period, sixteen seventy-nine, with firearms. This was the figure of a bird decked with party-colored feathers, so as to resemble a pop and jay or parrot. It was suspended to a pole and served for a mark at which the competitors discharged their fuzes and carbines in rotation at the distance of seventy paces. He whose ball brought down the mark held the proud title of captain of the pop and jay for the remainder of the day, and was usually escorted in triumph to the most respectable change house in the neighborhood, where the evening was closed with conviviality conducted under his auspices and if he was able to maintain it at his expense. From old mortality. End of footnote. The conqueror in the game was Rois des Arbalétriers for the coming year, and received a jeweled decoration accordingly, which he was entitled to wear for twelve months, after which he restored it to the guild to be again striven for. The family of him who died during the year that he was king was bound to present the decoration to the church of the patron saint of the guild, and to furnish a similar prize to be contended for afresh. These noble crossbowmen of the Middle Ages formed a sort of armed guard to the powers in existence, and almost invariably took the aristocratic, in preference to the democratic side, in the numerous civil dissensions of the Flemish towns. Hence they were protected by the authorities and easily obtained favorable and sheltered sites for their exercise ground, and thus they came to occupy the old faas, and took possession of the great orchard of the hospital, lying tranquil and sunny in the hollow below the rampart. But in the sixteenth century it became necessary to construct a street through the exercise ground of the Arbalétrier du Grand Sermon, and after much delay the company were induced by the beloved Infanta Isabella to give up the requisite plot of ground. In recompense for this, Isabella, who herself was a member of the guild and had even shot down the bird and bin queen in sixteen-fifteen, made many presence to the Arbalétrier, and in return the grateful city which had long wanted a nearer road to Saint-Goudu, but been baffled by the noble archers, called the street after her name. She, as a sort of indemnification to the Arbalétrier, caused a great mansion to be built for their accommodation in the new Rue d'Isabel. This mansion was placed in front of their exercise ground and was of a square shape. On a remote part of the walls may still be read, In that mansion were held all the splendid feasts of the Grand Sermon des Arbalétriers. The master archer lived there constantly in order to be ever at hand to render his services to the guild. The great saloon was also used for the court balls and festivals when the archers were not admitted. The Infanta caused other and smaller houses to be built in her new street to serve as residences for her garde nobule, and for her garde bourgeois, a small habitation each, some of which still remain to remind us of English almshouses. The great mansion with its quadrangular form, the spacious saloon once used for the Archduke balls, where the dark grave spaniards mixed with the blonde nobility of Brabant and Flanders, now a school room for Belgian girls. The crossbow men's archery ground, all are there, the pensiona of Madame Eger. This lady was assisted in the work of instruction by her husband, a kindly, wise, good and religious man whose acquaintance I am glad to have made and who has furnished me with some interesting details from his wife's recollections and his own of the two misbrontes during their residence in Brussels. He had the better opportunities of watching them from his giving lessons in the French language and literature in the school. A short extract from a letter written to me by a French lady resident in Brussels and well qualified to judge will help to show the estimation in which she is held. I personally do not know Mr. Eger, but I know that he is not as noble, as admirable as yours. He is one of the most elite members of this society of Saint Vincent de Paul whom I had already spoken to and is not happy to serve the poor and the sick, but to consecrate them again in the evenings. After days absorbed entirely by the duties that his place imposes, he reunites the poor, the workers, gives them free lessons and still finds the means to entertain them by instructing them. This debate will tell you enough that Mr. Eger is deeply and openly religious. He has many ways of being honest and benevolent. He is loved by all those who approach him and especially children. He has the easy word and has at our degrees the eloquence of the good sense and of the heart. He is not an author. A man of zeal and conscience, he has just made himself masters of high and lucrative functions that he used to train, those of precepts of studies, because he could not realize the good he had hoped for, to introduce the religious teaching in the study program. I have seen once Mrs. Eger, who has something cold and compulsive in her maintenance and who is a little ahead in her favor. I still believe her to love and appreciate her students. There were from eighty to a hundred pupils in the pensioner when Charlotte and Emily Bronte entered in February 1842. Mr. Eger's account is that they knew nothing of French. I suspect they knew as much or as little for all conversational purposes, as any English girls do who have never been abroad and have only learned the idioms and pronunciation from an English woman. The two sisters clung together and kept apart from the herd of happy, boisterous, well befriended Belgian girls who, in their turn, thought the new English pupils wild and scared-looking, with strange, odd, insular ideas about dress. For Emily had taken a fancy to the fashion, ugly and preposterous even during its reign, of jiggle sleeves and persisted in wearing them long after they were gone out. Her petticoats, too, had not a curve or a wave in them, but hung down straight and long, clinging to her lank figure. The sisters spoke to no one but from necessity. They were too full of earnest thought and of the exiles' sick yearning to be ready for careless conversation or merry game. Mr. Eger, who had done little but observe during the first few weeks of their residence in the rue d'Isabel, perceived that with their unusual characters and extraordinary talents a different mode must be adopted from that in which he generally taught French to English girls. He seems to have rated Emily's genius as something even higher than Charlotte's, and her estimation of their relative powers was the same. Emily had a head for logic and a capability of argument, unusual in a man and rare indeed in a woman, according to Monsieur Eger. Imparing the force of this gift was a stubborn tenacity of will which rendered her obtuse to all reasoning where her own wishes or her own sense of right was concerned. She should have been a man, a great navigator, said Monsieur Eger in speaking of her. Her powerful reason would have deduced new spheres of discovery from the knowledge of the old, and her strong, imperious will would never have been daunted by opposition or difficulty, never have given way but with life. And yet, moreover, her faculty of imagination was such that if she had written a history her view of scenes and characters would have been so vivid and so powerfully expressed and supported by a show of argument that it would have dominated over the reader whatever might have been his previous opinions or his cooler perceptions of its truth. But she appeared egotistical and exacting compared to Charlotte who was always unselfish. This is Monsieur Eger's testimony. And in the anxiety of the elder to make her younger sister contented she allowed her to exercise a kind of unconscious tyranny over her. After consulting with his wife, Monsieur Eger told them that he meant to dispense with the old method of grounding in grammar, vocabulary, etc., and to proceed on a new plan, something similar to what he had occasionally adopted with the elder among his French and Belgian pupils. He proposed to read to them some of the masterpieces of the most celebrated French authors, such as Casimir de Lavigne's poem on the death of John of Arc, parts of Basouet, the admirable translation of the noble letter of Saint Ignatius to the Roman Christians in the bibliothèque Choisie des Pères de l'Église, etc., and after having thus impressed the complete effect of the whole to analyze the parts with them, pointing out in what such or such an author excelled and where there were blemishes. He believed that he had to do with pupils capable from their ready sympathy with the intellectual that refined the polished or the noble of catching the echo of a style and so reproducing their own thoughts in a somewhat similar manner. After explaining his plan to them, he awaited their reply. Emily spoke first and said that she saw no good to be derived from it, and that by adopting it they should lose all originality of thought and expression. She would have entered into an argument on the subject, but for this Monsieur Eugé had no time. Charlotte then spoke. She also doubted the success of the plan, but she would follow out Monsieur Eugé's advice because she was bound to obey him while she was his pupil. Before speaking of the results, it may be desirable to give an extract from one of her letters which shows some of her first impressions of her new life. Brussels. 1842. May. I was twenty-six years old a week or two since, and at this ripe time of life I am a schoolgirl, and on the whole very happy in that capacity. It felt very strange at first to submit to authority instead of exercising it, to obey orders instead of giving them, but I like that state of things. I return to it with the same avidity that a cow that has long been kept on dry hay returns to fresh grass. Don't laugh at my simile. It is natural to me to submit, and very unnatural to command. This is a large school in which there are about forty externs or day-pupils and twelve pensioners or boarders. Madame Eugé, the head, is a lady of precisely the same cast of mind, degree of cultivation, and quality of intellect as Miss Blanc. I think the severe points are a little softened because she has not been disappointed and consequently soured. In a word, she is a married instead of a maiden lady. There are three teachers in the school, Mademoiselle Blanche, Mademoiselle Sophie, and Mademoiselle Marie. The two first have no particular character. One is an old maid, and the other will be one. Mademoiselle Marie is talented and original, but a repulsive in arbitrary manners, which have made the whole school except myself and Emily, her bitter enemies. No less than seven masters attend to teach the different branches of education, French, drawing, music, singing, writing, arithmetic, and German. All in the house are Catholics except ourselves, one other girl and the guvernante of Madame's children, an English woman, in rank something between a lady's maid and a nursery governess. The difference in country and religion makes a broad line of demarcation between us and all the rest. We are completely isolated in the midst of numbers. Yet I think I am never unhappy. My present life is so delightful, so congenial to my own nature compared to that of a governess. My time, constantly occupied, passes too rapidly. Hitherto both Emily and I have had good health, and therefore we have been able to work well. There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken, Monsieur Eger, the husband of Madame. He is a professor of rhetoric, a man of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in temperament. He is very angry with me just at present because I have written a translation which he chose to stigmatize as p-correct. He did not tell me so, but wrote the word on the margin of my book and asked, in brief 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, some weeks ago in a high-flown humor, he forbade me to use either dictionary or grammar in translating the most difficult English compositions 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 Emily and he don't draw well together at all. Emily works like a horse and she has had great difficulties to contend with, far greater than I have had. Indeed, those who come to a French school for instruction ought previously to have acquired a considerable knowledge of the French language, otherwise they will lose a great deal of time, for the course of instruction is adapted to natives and not to foreigners, and in these large establishments have changed their ordinary course for one or two strangers. The few private lessons that Monsieur Ajay has vouchsafed to give us are, I suppose, to be considered a great favour, that I can perceive that they have already excited much spite and jealousy in the school. You will abuse this letter for being short and dreary and there are a hundred things which I want to tell you, but I have not time. Brussels is a beautiful city. The Belgians hate the English. The external morality is more rigid than ours. To lace the stays without a handkerchief on the neck is considered a disgusting piece of indelicacy. The passage in this letter where Monsieur Ajay is represented as prohibiting the use of dictionary or grammar refers, I imagine, to the time I have mentioned when he determined to adopt a new method of instruction in the French language, of which they were to catch the spirit and the rhythm rather from the letter and the heart as its noblest accents fell upon them than by over-careful and anxious study of its grammatical rules. It seems to me a daring experiment on the part of their teacher, but doubtless he knew his ground and that it answered is evident in the composition of some of Charlotte's duroirs written about this time. I am tempted in illustration of this season of mental culture to recur to a conversation which I had with Monsieur Ajay on the manner in which he formed his pupil's style and to give a proof of his success by copying a devoir of Charlotte's with his remarks upon it. He told me that one day this summer, when the Brontes had been for about four months receiving instruction from him, he read to them Victor Hugo's celebrated portrait of Mirabeau but in my lesson I gave myself to what concerns Mirabeau orataire. This after the analysis of this piece would consider above all the point of view of the font of the disposition of what we could call the chapeau when it was made the two portraits that I give you. He would under say that he had pointed out to them the fault of Mr. Hugo's style as being exaggeration in conception and at the same time he had made them notice the extreme beauty of his nuances of expression. They were then dismissed to choose the subject of a similar kind of portrait. This selection Monsieur Ajay always left to them for it is necessary he observed before sitting down to write on a subject to have thoughts and feelings about it I cannot tell you on what subject your heart and mind have been excited I must leave that to you. The marginal comments I need hardly say are Monsieur Ajay's the words in italics are charlots for which he substitutes a better form of expression which is placed between brackets. End of section 15 Volume 1, section 16 of the life of Charlotte Bronte This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Bruce Peary Read in French by Aldo and by Ruth Golding The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Cleighorn Gaskell Volume 1, section 16 of the life of Charlotte Bronte by Peter Lermitt From time to time he appears on earth of the zones destined to be the instruments predestined, why this suppression? of great change in moral or politics Sometimes it is a conqueror an Alexander or an Attila who passes like a hurricane and purifies the moral atmosphere like the storm purifies the physical atmosphere Sometimes it is a revolutionary a Kromwell or a Ropes-Pierre who is made to be exiled by a king the false Z the vices of a whole dynasty Sometimes it is a religious enthusiast like Mao or Pierre Lermitt who, with the only lever of thought and the rise of the whole nations the deracines and the transplants in new climates populate Asia with the inhabitants of Europe Pierre Lermitt was a Picardian gentleman in France Why then did he not spend his life like the other gentlemen these contemporaries spent their time on the hunt in his bed without worrying about Saladin or his saracens Isn't it because there is in certain natures an arduous an undeniable which does not allow them to stay inactive which forces them to get back in order to exercise the powerful faculties who even by sleeping are ready to crush the knots that hold them You started talking about Pierre you entered the subject walking on the goal Pierre took the profession of weapons if his arduous had been of this kind if it was only this vulgar arduous who comes from a robust health he would have been a brave military and nothing more but his arduous his blade his flame was pure and she rose up to the sky without a doubt it is true that the youth of Pierre was troubled by arduous passions the powerful natures are extreme in everything they do not know the tides neither in good nor in evil Pierre therefore first seeks the glory that is scattered and the pleasures that are wrong but he soon finds the discovery soon he realizes that what he pursued was only an illusion that he could never reach it is useless when you say illusion he therefore returns he begins the journey of life but this time he avoids those who lead to perdition and he takes the narrow path which leads to life because as the journey was long and difficult he throws the helmet and the weapons of the soldier and the dress of the simple dress in military life the monastic life succeeds because the extremes touch each other and the sincere man the sincerity of the remedy brings necessarily to the next with him the rigor of the penance here is Pierre from Venumone but Pierre he had in him a principle that prevented him from staying inactive for a long time his ideas about what subject he was that he was that he himself was religious that he himself was convinced of the reality of Christianism he had to that all Europe that all Asia shared his conviction and professed the belief of the cross the fervent raised by the genius fed by loneliness was born of inspiration exalted his soul to the inspiration in his soul and when he left his cell and went back to the world he carried as Moise the imprint of the divinity on his forehead and all recognized in him the true apostle of the cross Mahomet had never removed the Mol as then Pierre removed the people of the west it was necessary that this eloquence was of a almost miraculous force that could persuade the king to sell the kingdom in order to get weapons and soldiers to help to offer to Pierre in the holy war delivered to a widow the power of Pierre was not a physical power because nature or to better say God is impartial in the distribution of these gifts he agreed to one of his children the grace beauty the body perfection to the other the spirit the moral grandeur was therefore a small man of a less pleasant physiognomy but he had this courage this constance this enthusiasm this energy of feelings which crushes all oppositions and which makes the will of a single man become the law of a whole nation to form a just idea of the influence that exerts this man on the characters things and the ideas of this time it must be represented in the middle of the army of the crosses in its double role of prophet and warrior the poor Hermite was of the poor of the humble of the bitter and the more powerful than a king he was surrounded by of the a multitude a multitude who sees only him while he says he sees he sees only the sky his eyes seem to say I see God and the angels and I have lost sight of the earth in this moment the poor of the gray is for him like the mountain of Elijah the envelope of inspiration he reads in the future he sees Jerusalem you are free the holy is free he sees the cross his money is torn from the temple and the flame and the red cross are established in its place not only Pierre sees these wonders but he sees all those around him he revives hope and courage all his bodies exhausted of fatigue of deprivation the battle will only be delivered tomorrow but the victory is decided tonight Pierre has promised and the crosses are in his word like the Israelites are in the Moises as a companion portrait to this Emily chose to depict Harold on the eve of the battle of Hastings it appears to me that her duvoir is superior to Charlotte's in power and in imagination and fully equal to it in language and that this in both cases considering how little practical knowledge of French they had when they arrived at Brussels in February and that they wrote without the aid of dictionary or grammar is unusual and remarkable we shall see the progress Charlotte had made in ease and grace of style a year later in the choice of subjects left to her selection she frequently took characters and scenes from the Old Testament with which all her writings show that she was especially familiar the picturesqueness and colour if I may so express it the grandeur and breadth of its narrations impressed her deeply to use Monsieur Eger's expression of the Bible after he had read Delavine's poem on Joan of Arc she chose the vision and death of Moses on Mount Nebo to write about and in looking over this duvoir I was much struck with one or two of Monsieur Eger's remarks after describing in a quiet and simple manner the circumstances under which Moses took leave of the Israelites her imagination becomes warmed and she launches out into a noble strain the glorious futurity of the chosen people as looking down upon the promised land he sees their prosperity and prophetic vision but before reaching the middle of this glowing description she interrupts herself to discuss for a moment the doubts that have been thrown on the miraculous relations in the Old Testament Monsieur Eger remarks when you are writing place your argument first in cool prosaic language but when you have thrown the reins of your imagination do not pull her up to reason again in the vision of Moses he sees the maidens leading forth their flocks to the wells that even tide and they are described as wearing flowery garlands here the writer is reminded of the necessity of preserving a certain verisimilitude Moses might from his elevation see mountains and plains groups of maidens and herds of cattle but could hardly receive the details of dress or the ornaments of the head when they had made further progress Monsieur Eger took up a more advanced plan that of synthetical teaching he would read to them various accounts of the same person or event and make them notice the points of agreement and disagreement where they were different he would make them seek the origin of that difference by causing them to examine well into the character of each separate writer and how they would be likely to affect his conception of truth for instance take Cromwell he would read Basouet's description of him in the horizon and show how in this he was considered entirely from the religious point of view as an instrument in the hands of God preordained to his work then he would make them read a guiseau and see how in this view he was endowed with the utmost power of free will but governed by no higher motive than that of expediency while Carlisle regarded him as a character regulated by a strong and conscientious desire to do the will of the Lord then he would desire them to remember that the royalist and commonwealth men had each their different opinions of the great protector and from these conflicting characters he would require them to sift the truth and try to unite them into a perfect whole this kind of exercise delighted Charlotte it called into play her powers of analysis which were extraordinary and she very soon excelled in it wherever the Brontes could be national they were so with the same tenacity of attachment which made them suffer as they did whenever they left Haworth they were Protestant to the backbone in other things beside their religion especially so in that touched as Charlotte was by the letter of St. Ignatius before alluded to she claimed equal self devotion and from as high a motive for some of the missionaries of the English church sent out to toil and to perish on the poisonous African coast and wrote as an imitation letter de missionaire Sierra Leone Afrique something of her feeling too appears in the following letter Brussels 1842 I consider it doubtful whether I shall come home in September or not Madame Eger has made a proposal for both me and Emily to stay another half year offering to dismiss her English master and take me as English teacher also to employ Emily some part of each day in teaching music to a certain number of the pupils for these services we are to be allowed to continue our studies in French and German and to have board etc. without paying for it no salaries however are offered the proposal is kind and in a great selfish city like Brussels and a great selfish school containing nearly 90 pupils borders and day pupils included implies a degree of interest which demands gratitude in return I am inclined to accept it what thank you I don't deny I sometimes wish to be in England or that I have brief attacks of homesickness but on the whole I have born a brilliant heart so far and I have been happy in Brussels because I have always been fully occupied with the employments that I like Emily is making rapid progress in French, German, music and drawing Monsieur and Madame Eger begin to recognize the valuable parts of her character under her singularities if the national character of the Belgians is to be measured by the character of most of the girls in this school they are singularly cold selfish, animal and inferior they are very mutinous and difficult for the teachers to manage and their principles are rotten to the core we avoid them which is not difficult to do as we have the brand of Protestantism and Anglicism upon us people talk of the danger which Protestants expose themselves to in going to reside in Catholic countries and thereby running the chance of changing their faith my advice to all Protestants who are tempted to do anything so besotted as to turn Catholics is to walk over the sea onto the continent to attend mass sedulously for a time to note well the mummaries thereof also the idiotic mercenary aspect of all the priests and then if they are still disposed to consider papistry in any other light than a most feeble childish piece of humbug let them turn papists at once that's all I consider Methodism, Quakerism and the extremes of high and low churchism foolish but Roman Catholicism beats them all at the same time allow me to tell you that there are some Catholics who are as good as any Christians can be to whom the Bible is a sealed book and much better than many Protestants when the Brontes first went to Brussels it was with the intention of remaining there for six months or until the Grands de Vacances at Lacan's began in September the duties of the school were then suspended for six weeks or two months and it seemed a desirable period for their return but the proposal mentioned in the foregoing letter altered their plans besides they were happy in the feeling that they were making progress in all the knowledge they had so long been yearning to acquire they were happy too in possessing friends whose society had been for years congenial to them and in occasional meetings with these they could have the inexpressible solace to residents in a foreign country and peculiarly such to the Brontes of talking over the intelligence received from their respective homes referring to past or planning for future days Mary and her sister the bright dancing laughing Martha were parlor borders in an establishment just beyond the barriers of Brussels again the cousins of these friends were resident in the town but at their house Charlotte and Emily were always welcome though their overpowering shine has prevented their more valuable qualities from being known and generally kept them silent they spent their weekly holiday with his family for many months but at the end of the time Emily was as impenetrable to friendly advances as at the beginning while Charlotte was too physically weak as Mary has expressed it to gather up her forces sufficiently to express any difference or opposition of opinion and had consequently an assenting and deferential manner strangely at variance with what they knew of her remarkable talents and decided character at this house the T's and the Brontes could look forward to meeting each other pretty frequently there was another English family where Charlotte soon became a welcome guest and where I suspect she felt herself more at ease than either at Mrs Jenkins or the friends whom I have first mentioned an English physician with a large family of daughters went to reside at Brussels for the sake of their education he placed them at Madame Eger's school in July 1842 not a month before the beginning of the Grand Vacance on August 15th in order to make the most of their time and become accustomed to the language these English sisters went daily through the holidays to the Pensionna in the Rue d'Isabelle six or eight borders remained at the Miss Brontes they were there during the whole time never even having the break to their monotonous life which passing an occasional day with a friend would have afforded them but devoting themselves with indefatigable diligence to the different studies in which they were engaged their position in the school appeared to these newcomers analogous to what is often called that of a parlor border they prepared their French drawing, German and literature with their various masters and to these occupations Emily added that of music in which she was somewhat of a proficient so much so as to be qualified to give instruction in it to the three younger sisters of my informant the school was divided into three classes in the first were from 15 to 20 pupils in the second 60 was about the average number all foreigners accepting the two Brontes and one other in the third there were from 20 to 30 pupils the first and second classes occupied a long room divided by a wooden partition in each division were four long ranges of desks and at the end was the estrade or platform for the presiding instructor on the last row in the quietest corner sat Charlotte and Emily side by side so deeply absorbed in their studies as to be insensible to any noise or movement around them the school hours were from 9 to 12 the lunch and hour when the borders and half borders perhaps two and thirty girls went to the refectoir a room with two long tables having an oil lamp suspended over each to partake of bread and fruit the externs or morning pupils who had brought their own refreshment with them adjourning to eat it in the garden from one to two there was fancy work a pupil reading allowed some light literature in each room from two to four lessons again at four the externs left and the remaining girls dined in the refectoir Monsieur and Madame Eugé presiding from five to six there was recreation from six to seven preparation for lessons and after that succeeded the lecture Pius Charlotte's nightmare on rare occasions Monsieur Eugé himself would come in and substitute a book of different and more interesting kind at eight there was a slight meal of water and pistolet the delicious little Brussels rolls which was immediately followed by prayers and then to bed the principal bedroom was over the long class or schoolroom there were six or eight narrow beds on each side of the apartment everyone enveloped in its white draping curtain a long drawer beneath each served for a wardrobe and between each was a stand for ewer, basin and looking glass the beds of the two Miss Brontes were at the extreme end of the room almost as private and retired as if they had been in a separate apartment during the hours of recreation which were always spent in the garden they invariably walked together and generally kept a profound silence Emily though so much the taller leaning on her sister Charlotte would always answer when spoken to taking the lead in replying to any remark addressed to both Emily rarely spoke to anyone Charlotte's quiet, gentle manner never changed she was never seen out of temper for a moment and occasionally when she herself had assumed the post of English teacher and the impertinence or inattention of her pupils was most irritating a slight increase of color a momentary sparkling of the eye and more decided energy of manner were the only outward tokens she gave of being conscious of the annoyance to which she was subjected but this dignified endurance of hers subdued her pupils in the long run far more than the voluble tirades of the other mistresses my informant adds the effect of this manner was singular I can speak from personal experience I was at that time high spirited and impetuous not respecting the French mistresses yet to my own astonishment at one word from her I was perfectly tractable and so much so that at length Monsieur and Madame Eger invariably preferred all their wishes to me through her the other pupils did not perhaps love her as I did she was so quiet and silent but all respected her with the exception of that part which describes Charlotte's manner as English teacher an office which she did not assume for some months later all this description of the school life of the two Brontes refers to the commencement of the new scholastic year in October 1842 and the extracts I have given convey the first impression which the life at a foreign school and the position of the two Miss Brontes Therian made upon an intelligent English girl of sixteen I will make a quotation from Mary's letter referring to this time the first part of her time at Brussels was not uninteresting she spoke of new people and characters and foreign ways of the pupils and teachers she knew the hopes and prospects of the teachers and mentioned one who was very anxious to marry she was getting so old she used to get her father or brother I forget which to be the bearer of letters to different single men who she thought might be persuaded to do her the favour saying that her only resource was to become a sister of charity if her present employment failed and that she hated the idea Charlotte naturally looked with curiosity to people of her own condition this woman almost frightened her she declares that there is nothing she can turn to and laughs at the idea of delicacy and she is only ten years older than I am I did not see the connection till she said well Polly, I should hate being a sister of charity I suppose that would shock some people but I should I thought she would have as much feeling as a nurse as most people and more than some would not know how people could bear the constant pressure of misery and never to change except to a new form of it it would be impossible to keep one's natural feelings I promised her a better destiny than to go begging anyone to marry her or to lose her natural feelings as a sister of charity she said my youth is leaving me I can never do better than I have done and I have done nothing yet at such times she seemed to think that most human beings are destined by the pressure of worldly interests to lose one faculty and feeling after another till they went dead all together I hope I shall be put in my grave as soon as I am dead I don't want to walk about so here we always differed I thought the degradation of nature she feared was a consequence of poverty and that she should give her attention to earning money sometimes she admitted this but could find no means of earning money at others she seemed afraid of letting her thoughts dwell on the subject saying it brought on the worst palsy of all indeed in her position nothing less than entire constant absorption in petty money matters could have scraped together a provision of course artists and authors stood high with Charlotte and the best thing after their works would have been their company she used very inconsistently to rail at money and money-getting I wish she was able to visit all the large towns in Europe see all the sights and know all the celebrities this was her notion of literary fame a passport to the society of clever people when she had become acquainted with the people and ways at Brussels her life became monotonous and she fell into the same hopeless state as at Miss W's though in a less degree I wrote to her urging her to go home or elsewhere she had got what she wanted French and there was at least novelty in a new place if no improvement that if she sank into deeper gloom she would soon not have energy to go and she was too far from home for her friends to hear of her condition and order her home as they had done from Miss W's she wrote that I had done her a great service and that she should certainly follow my advice and was much obliged to me I have often wondered at this letter though she patiently tolerated advice she could always quietly put it aside and do as she thought fit more than once afterwards she mentioned the service I had done her she sent me ten pounds to New Zealand on hearing some exaggerated accounts of my circumstances and told me she hoped it would come in seasonably it was a debt she owed me for the service I had done her I should think ten pounds was a quarter of her income the service was mentioned as an apology but kindness was the real motive the first break in this life of regular duties and employments came heavily and sadly Martha pretty, winning, mischievous tricksome Martha was taken ill suddenly at the Chateau de Kuklberg her sister tended her with devoted love but it was all in vain in a few days she died Charlotte's own short account of this event is as follows Martha's illness was unknown to me till the day before she died I hastened to Kuklberg the next morning unconscious that she was in great danger and was told that it was finished she had died in the night Mary was taken away to Brucell I have seen Mary frequently since she is in no ways crushed by the event but while Martha was ill she was to her more than a mother more than a sister watching, nursing, cherishing her so tenderly so unwearedly she appears calm and serious now no bursts of violent emotion no exaggeration of distress I have seen Martha's grave the place where her ashes lie in a foreign country who that has read Shirley does not remember the few lines perhaps half a page of sad recollection he has no idea that little Jesse will die young she is so gay and chattering and arch original even now passionate when provoked but most affectionate if caressed by turns gentle and rattling exacting yet generous fearless yet reliant on any who will help her Jesse with her little pecan't face engaging prattle and winning ways is made to be a pet do you know this place? no, you never saw it but you recognize the nature of these trees this foliage the cypress, the willow the you stone crosses like these are not unfamiliar to you nor are these dim garlands of everlasting flowers here is the place green sod and a grey marble headstone Jesse sleeps below she lived through an April day much loved was she much loving she often in her brief life shed tears she had frequent sorrows she smiled between gladdening whatever saw her her death was tranquil and happy in Rose's guardian arms for Rose had been her stay in defense through many trials the dying and the watching English girls were at that hour alone in a foreign country the soil of that country gave Jesse a grave but Jesse I will write about you no more this is an autumn evening wet and wild there is only one cloud in the sky but it curtains it from pole to pole the wind cannot rest it hurries sobbing over hills of sullen outline colorless with twilight and mist rain has beat all day on that church tower Haworth it rises dark from the stony enclosure of its graveyard the nettles the long grass and the tombs all drip with wet this evening reminds me too forcibly of another evening some years ago a howling rainy autumn evening too when certain who had that day performed a pilgrimage to a grave new made in a heretic cemetery sat near a wood fire on the hearth of a foreign dwelling they were merry and social each knew that a gap never to be filled had been made in their circle they knew they had lost something whose absence could never be quite atoned for so long as they lived and they knew that heavy falling rain was soaking into the wet earth which covered their lost darling and that the sad thawing gale was mourning above her buried head the fire warmed them life and friendship yet blessed them but Jesse lay cold coffined solitary only the sod screening her from the storm this was the first death that had occurred in the small circle of Charlotte's immediate and intimate friends since the loss of her two sisters long ago she was still in the midst of her deep sympathy with merry when word came from home that her aunt Miss Branwell was ailing was very ill Emily and Charlotte immediately resolved to go home straight and hastily packed up for England doubtful whether they should ever return to Brussels or not leaving all their relations with Monsieur and Madame Eger and the pensioner uprooted and uncertain of any future existence even before their departure on the morning after they received the first intelligence of illness when they were on the very point of starting came a second letter telling them of their aunt's death it could not hasten their movements for every arrangement had been made for speed they sailed from Antwerp they travelled night and day and got home on a Tuesday morning the funeral and all was over and Mr. Bronte and Anne were sitting together in quiet grief for the loss of one who had done her part well in their household for nearly twenty years and earned the regard and respect of many who never knew how much they should miss her till she was gone the small property which she had accumulated by dint of personal frugality and self-denial was bequeathed to her nieces Branwell, her darling was to have had his share but his reckless expenditure had distressed the good old lady and his name was omitted in her will when the first shock was over the three sisters began to enjoy the full relish of meeting again after the longest separation they had had in their lives they had longed for the past and much to settle for the future Anne had been for some little time in a situation to which she was to return at the end of the Christmas holidays for another year or so they were again to be all three apart and after that the happy vision of being together and opening a school was to be realised of course they did not now look forward to settling at Burlington or any other place which would take them away from their father if they were to be permanently possessed would enable them to effect such alterations in the Parsonage house at Haworth as would adapt it to the reception of pupils Anne's plans for the interval were fixed Emily quickly decided to be the daughter to remain at home about Charlotte there was much deliberation and some discussion even in all the haste of their sudden departure from Brussels Monsieur Eger had found time to write a letter of sympathy to Mr. Bronte he had just sustained a letter containing such a graceful appreciation of the daughter's characters under the form of a tribute of respect to their father that Anne should have been tempted to copy it even if there had not been a proposal made in that regarding Charlotte which deserves a place in the record of her life I am very sad that I decided to be the daughter to return to Brussels in England this departure which afflicts us a lot has been my complete appropriation it is natural that she seeks to console you of what the sky has come to you we will be around you to make you appreciate what the sky has given you and what it still leaves you I hope that you will forgive me Monsieur to take advantage of this circumstance to make you the expression of my respect I do not have the honor to personally know you and however I prove to your person a feeling of sincere veneration because by judging a father of his family by his children he was wrong and under this relationship education and feelings that we have found in my mother your daughters have not been able to give us a very high idea of your merit and your character you will undoubtedly learn with pleasure that your children have made very remarkable progress in all the branches of teaching and that these progress are due to their love for work and their perseverance we have only a little to do with the same students their progress is your work better than ours we have not been able to learn the price of time and the instruction they had learned all this in the paternal house for our part that the weak merit to direct their efforts is to provide a food suitable for the law and the activities that your daughters have put in your example and in your blood since the praise that we give to your children you are of some consolation in the misfortune that you have this is our hope we are writing to you and it will be for Mrs. Charlottes and Emily a sweet and beautiful reward of their work by losing our two dear students we do not have to hide that we are proven in the voice of the chagrin and of the concern we are not afflicted because this sudden separation has broken the almost paternal that we have given them and our pain increases in the view of so much work interrupted so much well started and who only needs some more time to lead a good end in a year each of your two dear ones were completely pressed against the eventuality of the future each of them acquired and the instruction and the science of teaching Mrs. Emily went to learn the piano to receive the lessons of the best teacher that we have in Belgium and already she had even little students so she lost both a rest of ignorance and a more embarrassing rest of shyness Mrs. Charlottes gave the lessons in French and to acquire this assurance this plan if necessary in the teaching still a year and the work was achieved and well achieved so we could if it had come to you offer to Mrs. Moselle your daughter or at least one of the two a position that was in her taste and who gave her this sweet independence so difficult to find for a young person it is not believe it sir it is not here for us a question of personal interest it is a question of affection you will forgive me if we speak of your children if we take care of their future as if they were part of our family their personal quality their good will their extreme zeal are the only cause that pushes us out of the way we know sir that you will be more humble and more humble than us the consequence would be for the future a complete interruption in the studies of your two daughters you decide what to do and you will forgive us our franchise I would say that the reason that makes us act is a well disinterested affection and that it would take a lot to see already signed to be more useful to your dear children please sir the respectful expression of my feelings of high consideration it is here that a second year of instruction would be far more valuable than the first that there was no long hesitation before it was decided that Charlotte should return to Brussels meanwhile they enjoyed their Christmas altogether inexpressibly Branwell was with them that was always a pleasure at this time whatever might be his faults or even his vices his sisters yet held him up as their family hope as they trusted that he would someday they blinded themselves to the magnitude of the failings of which they were now and then told by persuading themselves that such failings were common to all men of any strength of character for till sad experience taught them better they fell into the usual error of confounding strong passions with strong character Charlotte's friend came over to see her and she returned the visit her Brussels life must have seemed like a dream so completely in this short space of time did she fall back into the old household ways with more of household independence than she could ever have had during her aunt's lifetime winter though it was the sisters took their accustomed walks on the snow-covered moors or went off and down the long road to Keithley for such books as had been added to the library there during their absence from England End of section 16 Volume 1 Section 17 of the life of Charlotte Bronte this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Bruce Peary and the French read by Bruce Golding The Life of Charlotte Bronte by Elizabeth Cleighorn Gaskell Volume 1 Section 17 Chapter 12 Towards the end of January the time came for Charlotte to return to Brussels her journey thither was rather disastrous she had to make her way alone and the train from Leeds to London which should have reached Euston Square early in the afternoon was so much delayed that it did not get in till ten at night she had intended to seek out the chapter coffee-house where she had stayed for four and which would have been near the place where the steam-boats lay but she appears to have been frightened by the idea of arriving at an hour which to Yorkshire notions was so late and unseemly and taking a cab therefore at the station she drove straight to the London Bridge Wharf and desired a water-man to row her to the Ostend packet which was to sail the next morning she described to me pretty much as she has since described it in Vallette her sense of loneliness and yet her strange pleasure in the excitement of the situation as in the dead of that winter's night she went swiftly over the dark river to the black hull's side and was at first refused leave to ascend to the deck no passengers might sleep on board they said with some appearance of disrespect she looked back to the lights and subdued noises of London that mighty heart in which she had no place and standing up in the rocking-boat she asked to speak to someone in authority on board the packet he came and her quiet simple statement of her wish and her reason for it quelled the feeling of sneering distrust in those who had first heard her request and impressed the authority so favourably that he allowed her to come on board and take possession of a berth the next morning she sailed and at seven on Sunday evening she had to pay the bill once more having only left Haworth on Friday morning at an early hour her salary was sixteen pounds a year out of which she had to pay for her German lessons for which she was charged as much the lessons being probably rated by time as when Emily learnt with her and divided the expense namely ten francs a month by Miss Bronte's own desire she gave her English lessons in the class or schoolroom with the supervision of Madame or Monsieur Eugé they offered to be present with a view to maintain order among the unruly Belgian girls but she declined this saying she would rather enforce discipline by her own manner and character than be indebted for obedience to the presence of a gendarm she ruled over a new schoolroom which had been built on the space in the playground adjoining the house over that first class she was surveillant at all hours and hence forward she was called Badmousel Charlotte by Monsieur Eugé's orders she continued her own studies principally attending to German and to literature and every Sunday she went alone to the German and English chapels her walks too were solitary and principally taken in the Allée des Fondues where she was secure from intrusion this solitude from this luxury to one of her temperament so liable as she was to morbid and acute mental suffering on March 6th, 1843 she writes thus I am settled by this time of course I am not too much overloaded with occupation and besides teaching English I have time to improve myself in German I ought to consider myself well off and to be thankful for my good fortunes I hope I am thankful and if I could always keep up my spirits and never feel lonely or long for companionship or friendship or whatever they call it I should do very well as I told you before Monsieur and Madame Eugé are the only two persons in the house for whom I really experience regard and esteem and of course I cannot be always with them nor even very often they told me when I first returned that I was to consider their sitting room my sitting room also was there whenever I was not engaged in the school room this however I cannot do in the day time it is a public room where music, masters and mistresses are constantly passing in and out and in the evening I will not and ought not to intrude on Monsieur and Madame Eugé and their children thus I am a good deal by myself out of school hours but that does not signify I now regularly give English lessons to Monsieur Eugé and his brother-in-law they get on with wonderful rapidity especially the first he already begins to speak English very decently if you could see and hear the efforts I make to teach them to pronounce like Englishmen and their unavailing attempts to imitate you would laugh to all eternity the carnival is just over and we have entered upon the gloom and abstinence of Lent the first day of Lent we had coffee without milk for breakfast vinegar and vegetables with a very little salt fish for dinner and bread for supper the carnival was nothing but masking and mummary Monsieur Eugé took me and one of the pupils into the town to see the masks it was animating to see the immense crowds and the general gaiety but the masks were nothing I have been twice to the D's those cousins of Mary's of whom I have before me to mention when she leaves Brucell I shall have nowhere to go to I have had two letters from Mary she does not tell me she has been ill and she does not complain but her letters are not the letters of a person in the enjoyment of great happiness she has nobody to be as good to her as Monsieur Eugé is to me to lend her books to converse with her sometimes etc goodbye when I say so it seems to me that you will hardly hear me all the waves of the channel heaving between must dead in the sound from the tone of this letter it may easily be perceived that the Brussels of 1843 was a different place from that of 1842 then she had Emily for a daily and nightly solace and companion she had the weekly variety of a visit to the family of the D's and she had the frequent happiness of seeing Mary and Martha now Emily was far away in Haworth where she or any other loved one might die before Charlotte with her utmost speed could reach them as experience in her aunt's case had taught her the D's were leaving Brussels so henceforth her weekly holiday would have to be passed in the rue de Zabel or so she thought Mary was gone off on her own independent course Martha alone remained here in the cemetery beyond the port de Louvain the weather too for the first few weeks after Charlotte's return had been piercingly cold and her feeble constitution was always painfully sensitive to an inclement season mere bodily pain however acute she could always put aside but too often ill health assailed her in a part far more to be dreaded her depression of spirits as she was not well was pitiful in its extremity she was aware that it was constitutional and could reason about it but no reasoning prevented her suffering mental agony while the bodily cause remained in force the Aegees have discovered since the publication of Villette that at this beginning of her career as English teacher in their school the conduct of her pupils was often impertinent and mutinous in the highest degree this they were unaware at the time as she had declined their presence and never made any complaint still it must have been a depressing thought to her at this period that her joyous healthy obtuse pupils were so little answerable to the powers she could bring to bear upon them and though from their own testimony her patience, firmness and resolution at length obtained their just reward yet with one so weak in health and spirits the reaction after such struggles as she frequently had with her pupils must have been very sad and painful she thus writes to her friend E April 1843 is there any talk of your coming to Brussels during the bitter cold weather we had through February and the principal part of March I did not regret that you had not accompanied me if I had seen you shivering of myself if I had seen your hands and feet as red and swelled as mine were my discomfort would just have been doubled I can do very well under this sort of thing it does not fret me it only makes me numb and silent but if you were to pass a winter in Belgium you would be ill however more genial weather is coming now and I wish you were here yet I have never pressed you and never would press you too warmly to come there are privations and humiliations to submit to there is monotony and uniformity of life and above all there is a constant sense of solitude in the midst of numbers the Protestant, the foreigner is a solitary being whether as teacher or pupil I do not say this by way of complaining of my own lot for though I acknowledge that there are certain disadvantages in my present position what position on earth is without them and whenever I turn back to compare what I am with what I was my place here with my place at Mrs. Blanks for instance I am thankful there was an observation in your last letter which excited for a moment my wrath at first I thought it would be folly to reply to it and I would let it die afterwards I determined to give one answer once for all three or four people it seems they have the idea that the future a poo of mademoiselle Bronte is on the continent these people are wiser than I am they could not believe that I crossed the sea merely to return as teacher to madame ager I must have some more powerful motive than respect for my master and mistress gratitude for their kindness etc to induce me to refuse a salary of 50 pounds in England and accept one of 16 pounds in Belgium I must forsooth have some remote hope of entrapping a husband somehow or somewhere if these charitable people knew the total seclusion of the life I lead that I never exchange a word with any other man than Mr. Ajay and seldom indeed with him they would perhaps cease to suppose that any such comarical and groundless notion had influenced my proceedings have I said enough to clear myself of any imputation not that it is a crime to marry or a crime to wish to be married but it is an imbecility which I reject with contempt for women who have neither fortune nor beauty to make marriage the principal object of their wishes and hopes and the aim of all their actions not to be able to convince themselves that they are unattractive and that they had better be quiet and think of other things than wedlock the following is an extract of others which have been preserved of her correspondence with her sister Emily May 29th 1843 I get on here from day to day in a Robinson Crusoe-like sort of way very lonely but that does not signify in other respects I have nothing substantial to complain of nor is this a cause for complaint I hope you are well walk out often on the moors my love to Tabby I hope she keeps well and about this time she wrote to her father June 2nd, 1843 I was very glad to hear from home I had begun to get low spirited at not receiving any news and to entertain indefinite fears that something was wrong you do not say anything about your own health but I hope you are well and Emily also I am afraid she will have a good deal of hard work to do now that Hannah a servant girl who had been assisting Tabby is gone I am exceedingly glad to hear that you still keep Tabby considerably upwards of seventy it is an act of great charity to her and I do not think it will be unrewarded for she is very faithful and will always serve you when she has occasion to the best of her abilities besides she will be company for Emily who without her would be very lonely I gave a devoir written after she had been four months after Monsieur Eger's tuition I will now copy out another written nearly a year later during which the progress made appears to me very great May 31st, 1843 on the death of Napoleon Napoleon Nakki encorpsed and died in Saint-Hélène between these two islands a vast and burning desert and the huge ocean Nakki, son of a simple gentile man, has died in fear but his crown is in the iron between his cradle and his tomb who is he? the career of a soldier has come, battle dogs a sea of blood a throne, then of the sound still and iron his life is the arc in heaven on the extreme extreme the earth touches the bright light on Napoleon a bright sea in the paternal house he had brothers and sisters later in his palace he fought a woman who loved him but on his death bed Napoleon is alone no more of a mother, no brother no sister, no woman others have said and will say again these exploits I stop to contemplate the abandonment of his last hour he is there exiled and captive chained on a rock again promised he suffered the punishment of his organ promised he wanted to be God and creator he tried the fire of the sky to animate the body he had formed and he went away he wanted to create not a man but a worst and to give an existence a soul a gigantic work he did not hesitate to tear the life to entire nations Jupiter, a worthy of the impiety to promise a living river at the summit of the Caucasus thus to punish the repressed ambition to bring the providence there until death followed on an isolated rock of the Atlantic maybe there too maybe he felt the flame it is insatiable your turn we speak of the fable maybe he also suffered this thirst of the heart this hunger of the soul which tortures the exiled away from his family and his country but speaking of this is not for free a human weakness that he never proves when did he let go of a link of affection without doubt the conquerors hesitated in their career of glory stopped by an obstacle of love or friendship held by the hand of a woman remembered by the voice of a friend he never he did not need like Ulysses to be linked to the hand of a ship or to kiss his ears with wax he did not suspect he gave him he became a member to execute his big projects Napoleon did not look like a man but like the incarnation of a people he did not like he did not consider his friends and his loved ones as instruments to which he played as he played as he played by breath what could be not so attached on the edge as his authentic or unrivaled frame his strength will no longer rest I knew that it was cruel together in his hand and each of his children C'était une main qui, comme l'ancienne, ne tremblait ni de passion ni de crainte. C'était la main d'un homme froid convaincu qui avait su devenir bon apparté. Et voici ce que disait cet homme que la défaite n'a pu humilier ni la victoire en orgaillé. Ouvrir les guillemets, Marie Louise n'est pas la femme de Napoléon. C'est la France que Napoléon a épousé. C'est la France qu'il aime, leur union enfante la perte de l'Europe. Voilà la divorce que je veux. Voilà l'union qu'il faut briser. Fermez les guillemets. La voix des timides et des traîtres protestent contre cette sentence. Ouvrir les guillemets, c'est abusé de droits de la victoire. C'est fouler au pied le vaincu. Que l'Angleterre se montre clémante, qu'elle ouvre ses bras pour recevoir comme autre son ennemi désarmé. Fermez les guillemets. L'Angleterre aurait peut-être écouté ce conseil, car partout et toujours il y a des armes faibles et timores bientôt séduites par la flatterie, ou effrayées par le reproche. Mais la providence permet qu'un homme se trouva qui n'a jamais su ce que c'est que la crainte, qui aima sa patrie mieux que sa renommée. Impenétrable devant les menaces, inaccessible au louange, il se présenta devant le conseil de la nation, et le vont sans front tranquille en eau. Il osa dire, ouvrir les guillemets. Que la trahison se thèse, car c'est trahir que de conseiller de temporiser avec Bonaparte. Moi je sais ce que sont ces guerres dans l'Europe saignent encore comme une victime sous le couteau du Poucher. Il faut en finir avec Napolé en Bonaparte. Vous vous effraiez à tort d'un mot si dur, je n'ai pas de manianimité dit-on, soit que m'importe ce qu'on dit de moi. Je n'ai pas ici à me faire une réputation de héros manianim, mais à guérir, si la cure est possible, l'Europe qui se meurt est puisée de ressources et de sons. L'Europe dont vous négligez les vrais intérêts préoccupée que vous êtes d'une veine renommée de clements. Vous êtes faible. Eh bien je viens vous aider. On voyait Bonaparte et un Saint-Hélène. N'hésitez pas, ne cherchez pas un autre endroit. C'est le seul convenable. Je vous le dis, j'ai réfléchi pour vous. C'est là qu'il doit être et non pas ailleurs. Quant à Napoléon, homme, souda, je n'ai rien contre lui. C'est un lion royal auprès de qui vous n'êtes que des chacals. Mais Napoléon empereur, c'est autre chose. Je l'extire près du sol de l'Europe. Fermez les guillemets. Et celui qui parla ainsi toujours, s'y gardait sa promesse, celle-là comme toutes les autres. Je l'ai dit et je le répète, cet homme est légal de Napoléon par le génie, comme trompe de caractère, comme droiture, comme élévation de pensée et de but, il est d'une toute autre espèce. Napoléon Bonaparte était avide de renommée et de gloire. Arthur Wellesley ne se soucie ni de l'une ni de l'autre. L'opinion publique, la popularité, était chose de grand valeur aux yeux de Napoléon. Pour Wellington, l'opinion publique est une rumeur, un rien que le souffle de son inflexible volonté fait disparaître comme une bulle de savon. Napoléon flattait le peuple. Wellington le brusque. L'un cherchait les applaudissements. L'autre ne se soucie que du témoignage de sa conscience. Quand elle approuve, c'est assez. Tout autre louange l'obsède. Aussi ce peuple qui adorait Bonaparte sir était sans surjet contre la mort de Wellington. Parfois, il lui témoigne à sa colère et sa haine par des grognements, par des hurlements de bêtes fauves. Et alors, avec une impassibilité de sénataires aux mains, le moderne Coriolan toisait du regard les meutes furieuses. Il croisait ses bras nerveux sur sa large poitrine et, seul debout sur son seuil, il attendait. Il bravait cette tempête populaire dont les flots venaient mourir à quelque part de lui. Et quand la foule honteuse de sa rébellion venait lâcher le pied du maître, le hauteur patricien méprisait l'hommage d'aujourd'hui comme la haine d'hier, et dont les rues de Londres et devant son palais du cal d'Absley, il repoussait d'un genre plein de rois d'édin l'incomode empracement du peuple enthousiaste. Cette fierté néanmoins n'excluait pas en lui une rare modestie. Partout il se soustrait à l'éloge, se dérobe au panégiérique, jamais il ne parle de ses exploits et jamais il ne souffre qu'un autre lui en parle en sa présence. Son caractère égale en grandeur et surpasse en vérité celui de tout autre héros ancien ou moderne. La gloire de Napoléon crut en une nuit comme la vigne de Jonas et il suffit d'un jour pour l'aflétrir. La gloire de Wellington est comme les vieux chênes qui embragent le château de ses pères sur les rives du Shannon. Le chêne croit lentement. Il lui faut du temps pour pousser vers le ciel ses branches noeuses et pour enfoncer dans le sol ses racines profondes qui s'enchevêtrent dans les fondements solides de la terre. Mais alors l'âbre secular inébranlable comme le roc où il a sa base, brave est la fau du temps et l'effort des vents et des tempêtes. Il faudra peut-être un siècle à l'Angleterre pour qu'elle connaisse la valeur de son héros. Dans un siècle, l'euro-pontière saura combien Wellington a des droits à sa reconnaissance. How often, in writing this paper in a strange land, must Miss Bronte have thought of the old childish disputes in the kitchen of Haworth Parsonage, touching the respective merits of Wellington and Bonaparte. Although the title given to her devoir is on the death of Napoleon, she seems yet to have considered at a point of honour rather to sing praises of an English hero than to dwell on the character of a foreigner, placed as she was among those who cared little either for an England or for Wellington. She now felt that she had made great progress towards obtaining proficiency in the French language which had been her main object in coming to Brussels. But to the zealous learner alps on alps arise. No sooner is one difficulty surmounted than some other desirable attainment appears and must be laboured after. A knowledge of German now became her object, and she resolved to compel herself to remain in Brussels till that was gained. The strong yearning to go home came upon her. The stronger, self-denying will forbade. There was a great internal struggle. Every fibre of her heart quivered a strain to master her will, and when she conquered herself she remained not like a victor-com and supreme on the throne, but like a panting, torn and suffering victim. Her nerves and her spirit gave way. Her health became much shaken. Brussels, August 1st, 1843 If I complain in this letter have mercy and don't blame me, for I forewarn you I am in low spirits, and that earth and heaven are dreary and empty to me at this moment. In a few days our vacation will begin. Everybody is joyous and animated at the prospect because everybody is to go home. I know that I am to stay here during the five weeks that the holidays last, and that I shall be much alone during that time and consequently get downcast and find both days and nights of a weary length. It is the first time in my life that I have really dreaded the vacation. Alas! I can hardly write I have such a dreary wait at my heart, and I do so wish to go home. Is not this childish? Pardon me, for I cannot help it. However, though I am not strong enough to bear up cheerfully, I can still bear up and will continue to stay, devy, some months longer till I have acquired German, and then I hope to see all your faces again. Would that the vacation were well over, it will pass so slowly. Do have the Christian charity to write me a long, long letter. Fill it with the minutest details. Nothing will be uninteresting. Do not think it is because people are unkind to me that I wish to leave Belgium. Nothing of the sort. Everybody is abundantly civil, but homesickness keeps creeping over me. I cannot shake it off. Believe me very merrily, vivaciously, gaily, yours. C. B. End of section 17