Madame Heger
and her family, it must be admitted, have kept this impression afloat.
Madame Heger refused to see Mrs. Gaskell when she called upon her in the
Rue d'Isabelle; and her daughters will tell you that their father broke
off his correspondence with Miss Bronte because his favourite English
pupil showed an undue extravagance of devotion. 'Her attachment after
her return to Yorkshire,' to quote a recent essay on the subject, 'was
expressed in her frequent letters in a tone that her Brussels friends
considered it not only prudent but kind to check. She was warned by them
that the exaltation these letters betrayed needed to be toned down and
replaced by what was reasonable. She was further advised to write only
once in six months, and then to limit the subject of her letters to her
own health and that of her family, and to a plain account of her
circumstances and occupations.' {109a} Now to all this I do not hesitate
to give an emphatic contradiction, a contradiction based upon the only
independent authority available. Miss Laetitia Wheelwright and her
sisters saw much of Charlotte Bronte during this second sojourn in
Brussels, and they have a quite different tale to tell. That misgiving
of Charlotte, by the way, which weighed so heavily upon her mind
afterwards, was due to the fact that she had left her father practically
unprotected from the enticing company of a too festive curate.
Pages:
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172