1017] on The Brontes: A Hundred Years After 155 



how could she, remembering her " loss of peace and happiness for two 

 years " ? Had she altered it, it would have chan«red her veracious 

 work into a trivial lie. One would have thought that these evidences 

 of themselves would have convinced anyone that this was love, and 

 not respect. But then, on the back of all this, came the letters 

 published in 1913, and written during those two years when she had 

 " no peace or happiness." Are these to be explained on this cold 

 hypothesis ? " To wiite to an old pupil cannot be for you an 

 interesting occupation," she wrote to M. Heger, " hut for me it is 

 life:' 



" Life " — is that the Avay a woman of twenty-eight would address 

 an admired teacher like Huxley or Tyndall ? 



But again, "xlnd when the sweet and dear consolation of seeing 

 your handwriting, of reading your counsels, fades from me Hke a 

 vision, then fever attacks me, appetite and sleep fail, I feel that life 

 wastes away." 



Further, " Oh, Monsieur, I know I once wrote you a letter that 

 was not a reasonable one, because my heart Avas clouded with grief, 

 but I will not do it again. I will try not to be selfish, although I 

 cannot but feel your letters are the greatest happiness I know." 



Again, " How can I endure my life if I am forbidden to make any 

 effort to alleviate my sufferings ? " Is this the dutiful pupil who 

 cannot endure life unless she has her " exercises " corrected by Herr 

 Professor ? 



"Monsieur, the poor do not need much to keep them alive; they 

 ask only for the crumbs that fall from the rich man's table, but if 

 these crumbs are refused then they die of hunger ! " But the whole 

 four of the letters — which were sent, you remember, surreptitiously by 

 hand, and not by post, for Charlotte still believed in the jealousy 

 of Madame Heger, and naturally did not wish such letters to fall 

 into jealousy's hands — were throbbing with affection, and ought to 

 have convinced anyone that this heart-cry was no mere craving for 

 the notice and companionship of a great man, an exalted literary 

 enthusiasm, but was a woman's wailing affection. That these letters 

 could be written in the course of ordinary acquaintanceship is aljsurd. 

 They are a very sufficient record of lost love, of unrequited affection. 



But Mr. Clement Shorter, even after reading these indubitable 

 love-letters, continued to regard Charlotte Bronte as nothing more 

 than a faithful pupil — a hero-worshipper of the professor of litera- 

 ture, instead of a passionate disciple of the man ! After reading 

 them, he confided to an interviewer that " they " (the letters) 

 "were actuated only by the immense enthusiasm of a woman 

 desiring comradeship and sympathy with a man of character. There 

 was no sort of great sorrow on her part because Professor Heger 

 was a married man, and it is plain in her letters that she only 

 desired comradeship with a great man." " There is nothing in these 

 letters, published now for the first time, that any enthusiastic woman 



