ENDNOTES

Volume I

CHAPTER I

1 (p. 14) A.D. sexcentissimo: This inscription suggests that a monastic community was established in Haworth in 600. Were this accurate, the community would have predated the arrival of Christianity in the region in the generally accepted year of 627, when the Roman missionary Paulinus, later archbishop of York, converted the Anglo-Saxon King Edwin of Northumbria.

2 (p. 15) curate at Haworth: Thomas Dunham Whitaker (1759-1821), vicar of Blackburn and local antiquarian, casts doubt on the antiquity of the Haworth chapel by suggesting that a stone mason mis-read the original inscription. This debate is important to Gaskell because it allows her to establish the independent character of the locals and to explain the grounds for their unusual right of refusal of curates.

CHAPTER II

1 (p. 20) religious dictations of such men as Laud: William Laud (1573-1645), archbishop of Canterbury under Charles I, tried to impose a uniform standard of worship throughout England in an effort to deter religious dissent. Dissenters were members of sects that worshiped outside of the Church of England. These sects were historically well established in the northern manufacturing districts, Yorkshire among them. Gaskell, a Unitarian, was herself a dissenter.

2 (p. 20) Commonwealth men: Gaskell turns social historian and explains the religious and economic forces that induced Yorkshire to support the Commonwealth government of Oliver Cromwell, which deposed and executed Charles I in 1649, and set about overturning the religious and trading restrictions the Stuarts had imposed.

3 (p. 21) persecuting days of Charles II: Upon his restoration to the throne in 1660, Charles II attempted to rein in religious dissent with the Act of Uniformity (1662), which required all clergy to take an oath that they would adhere to Anglican doctrine as established in The Book of Common Prayer.

4 (p. 21) “Life of Oliver Heywood”: Joseph Hunter wrote The Rise of the Old Dissent, Exemplified in the Life of Oliver Heywood, One of the Founders of the Presbyterian Congregations in the County of York (1842).

5 (p. 26) scene of the ministrations of the Rev. William Grimshaw: The Reverend William Grimshaw (1708-1763), perpetual curate of Haworth from 1742 until his death and a major Evangelical figure, is credited with revitalizing the spiritual life of the town by introducing the Evangelical Revival. The Evangelical party comprised reform-minded clergy within the Church of England who believed in a religion based on personal revelation and social responsibility.

6 (p. 26) Newton, Cowper’s friend: John Newton (1725-1807), a slave-ship captain who underwent a conversion and became an Evangelical clergyman, wrote Memoirs of the Life of the LateWilliam Grimshaw (1825). Newton and the poet William Cowper (1731-1800) collaborated on the Olney Hymns (1779). Cowper, a proto-Romantic, is best known for the expressive style of his poetry and its theme of religious doubt.

7 (p. 27) fervour of a Wesley... fanaticism of a Whitefield: John Wesley (1703-1791) and George Whitefield (1714-1770) led Methodism, a religious movement that valued personal spiritualism over ritualistic devotion, from within the Anglican Church. Methodists adopted open-air preaching in order to reach marginalized members of the community. Doctrinal differences ultimately led to the severing of the relationship between Whitefield, a strict Calvinist who believed in predestination, and Wesley, a follower of Dutch Reformed theologian Jacobus Arminius, who maintained that individuals could effect their own salvation. Methodism’s formal break with the established church occurred in 1795.

8 (p. 30) Dr. Scoresby: William Scoresby (1789-1857) was an Arctic explorer before he entered the Anglican ministry and later became the vicar of Bradford (1839-1847); he was a source of local history and local color for Gaskell.

9 (p. 32) circumstances which I have described: Samuel Redhead’s son-in-law disputed Gaskell’s version of events. Gaskell responded in the third edition by appending testimony from two eyewitnesses supporting her account.

CHAPTER III

1 (p. 34) Patrick Brontë... County Down in Ireland: For Patrick Brontë’s biography, see John Lock and W T. Dixon, A Man of Sorrow: The Life, Letters and Times of the Rev. Patrick Brontë, 1777-1861 (London: Nelson, 1965), and Barker, The Brontës; see “For Further Reading.”

2 (p. 35) military duties which they had to perform: During the period 1803-1805 Napoleon was gathering forces at Boulogne with the intention of invading England, a threat that ended with Nelson’s victory off Cape Trafalgar, Spain. One of Patrick Brontë’s Cambridge classmates, Lord Palmerston (1784—1865), later became prime minister (1855-1858, 1859-1865).

3 (p. 39) of Mr. Brontë’s composing: Patrick Brontë was a published author at the time of his marriage. He had published two collections of moral poems, Cottage Poems (1811) and the Rural Minstrel (1813), as well as the didactic romances Cottage in the Wood (1815) and The Maid of Killarney (1818). He also weighed in on religious and social issues of the day by contributing to regional newspapers throughout his career.

4 (p. 39) “Advice to a Lady”: George, Baron Lyttelton’s Advice to a Lady (1733) was typical of eighteenth-century conduct literature for girls. Lady Mary Wortley Montagu (1689-1762) summarized and lampooned it: “Be plain in Dress and sober in your Diet; / In short my Dearee, kiss me, and be quiet.”

5 (p. 43) “potatoes for their dinner”: The false claim that Patrick Brontë enforced a vegetarian diet and the charge of wastefulness, to which servants Nancy and Sarah Garrs objected, were retracted in the third edition. Gaskell wanted only to show that “no stingy motive” induced Patrick to deny his children meat (The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, letter 368). This and much other disputed information about life at the parsonage came from the nurse who attended Mrs. Brontë in her final illness.

6 (p. 44) the ideas of Rousseau and Mr. Day: Political philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) was also an educational theorist. In Émile (1762) he advocated educating boys to exercise the independence accorded them by nature rather than making them conform to their social station; girls, however, were to be molded with the exclusive purpose of pleasing their future partners. Rousseau influenced Thomas Day (1748-1789), whose History of Sandford and Merton (1783-1789) was one of the first novels written for children.

7 (p. 45) reduced to the condition of stools: The catalogue of Patrick’s “volcanic wrath,” which included burning his children’s boots, shredding his wife’s silk dresses, burning a hearthrug, and sawing the backs off chairs was omitted, at Patrick’s request, in the third edition.

8 (p. 45) days of the Luddites: The Luddite riots (1811-1816) were staged by organized gangs of cloth workers who roamed the manufacturing districts destroying the machinery they felt was displacing them from their jobs. Brontë would set Shirley (1849) amid this uprising.

CHAPTER IV

1 (p. 53) William Carus Wilson: The Rev. William Carus Wilson (1791-1859), a Calvinist Evangelical who was the model for Jane Eyre’s Reverend Brocklehurst, established the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. Like his fictional counterpart, Carus Wilson wrote devotional tracts full of fire and brimstone for children. He was a polarizing figure. A vitriolic public debate erupted with the publication of the Life about the degree of culpability he had, if any, in his management of Cowan Bridge (see Wise and Symington, eds., The Brontës: Their Lives, Friendships, and Correspondence, vol. 4, appendix 1).

2 (p. 53) certain sum was raised annually in subscription: Subscribers to the school included such prominent Evangelicals as moralist Hannah More and abolitionist William Wilberforce.

3 (p. 59) Miss Temple, the superintendent: Miss Ann Evans (1792-1856) was superintendent of the Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge. Evans died before the publication of the Life, but her husband and a Miss Andrews, who was the model for Miss Scatcherd in Jane Eyre (1847), came to the defense of William Carus Wilson, who ran the school (see note 1, above).

4 (p. 59) after Maria’s and Elizabeth’s deaths: Charlotte and Emily in fact did not return to the school after their sisters’ deaths. According to school records, they withdrew on June 1, 1825.

CHAPTER V

1 (p. 64) Tabby: Tabitha Aykroyd (the name had various spellings) served the Brontës from her mid-fifties until her death in 1855. For Gaskell, and perhaps for Brontë as well, she embodied England’s folkloric past and Yorkshire superstition. Bessie in Jane Eyre and Martha in Shirley share some of Tabby’s qualities. Aykroyd was a Methodist and a class leader at her chapel.

2 (p. 69) “We then chose who should be chief men in our islands”: The Brontë children’s choice of heroes evidences their Toryism and the degree to which the periodicals their father received informed their worldview. Branwell selects the fictional John Bull, Englishness personified, and the poet Leigh Hunt (1784-1859). Emily chooses literary men: novelist Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832), and John Gibson Lockhart (1794—1854), contributor to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine and later editor of the Quarterly Review. Charlotte picks the Duke of Wellington (see note 3, below), and Christopher North, the fictional persona adopted by John Wilson, editor of Blackwood’s. Anne chooses Lord William Bentinck, the governor-general of Bengal who abolished suttee (self-cremation of a Hindu widow on the funeral pyre of her husband as a mark of her devotion to him). With the exception of Emily, they each choose an eminent physician as well.

3 (p. 69) “Wellington and two sons”: Charlotte’s lifelong hero was Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the Irish-born career soldier and Tory politician who was made duke of Wellington for his victories over Napoleon, which included the decisive Battle of Waterloo in 1815. Wellington later served as prime minister (1828-1830). The Marquis of Douro and Lord Charles Wellesley (Brontë’s favored persona in her younger years) were Wellington’s two sons.

4 (p. 70) Blackwood’s Magazine: The Leeds Intelligencer (founded 1754) and the Leeds Mercury (founded 1718) were regional newspapers. The character John Bull appeared in a series of satirical Tory pamphlets (1712). Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine (founded 1817) was a monthly magazine with a Tory bent that covered literary and political issues.

5 (p. 71) “Friendship’s Offering for 1829”: The reference is to an annual miscellany of poetry, prose, and engravings published by Smith, Elder and Company, later to be Brontë’s publisher.

6 (p. 72) ”the great Catholic question”: The Catholic Emancipation Act (1829), the culmination of a series of laws passed beginning in the eighteenth century, lifted most civil restrictions imposed on Catholics and allowed them to stand for Parliament.

CHAPTER VI

1 (p. 78) Miss Woolers, who lived at Roe Head: The four Wooler sisters ran the school Charlotte Brontë and her sisters attended at Roe Head. Charlotte was subsequently employed as a teacher there. The school relocated to Dewsbury Moor in 1837. Margaret Wooler became a lasting friend of Charlotte’s.

2 (p. 81) E.’s home was five miles away: Ellen Nussey (1817-1897), Brontë’s closest friend, lived at Brookroyd House, Birstall, Yorkshire. Some suggest that the Brontë—Nussey correspondence, which forms the basis for much of the Life, results in a one-dimensional portrait of Brontë, who notably did not discuss her literary affairs with Nussey. See the Introduction for a more detailed account of their relationship.

3 (p. 81) (The Rose and Jessie Yorke of “Shirley”): Mary (1817-1893) and Martha (1819-1842) Taylor. The Taylors lived in Gomersal and later at Hunsworth, both in Yorkshire. Brontë met them at Roe Head; they later attended school at the same time in Brussels, where Martha died. Mary was independent and outspoken, and she championed women’s rights. Dismayed by the employment opportunities available to women in England, Mary emigrated to New Zealand in 1845. She destroyed all of Brontë’s letters but the one describing her first visit to the offices of Smith, Elder and Company.

4 (p. 83) “She knew the names of the two ministries... the Reform Bill”: The Reform Bill of 1832 extended enfranchisement by lowering property qualifications for voters and redistributing parliamentary seats from rural areas (known as “rotten” or “pocket” boroughs) controlled by the gentry, to heavily populated urban areas that had previously been underrepresented.

5 (p. 84) ‘Frazer’s Magazine’: A Tory periodical founded in 1830, Fraser’s Magazine was a rival to Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine.

6 (p. 88) burning of Cartwright’s Mill: In April 1812 more than one hundred Luddites attacked William Cartwright’s mill in Huddersfield, not far from Haworth. Cartwright defended his property with the aid of a few soldiers. Two Luddites were killed. Several weeks later the Luddites murdered local mill owner William Horsfall. Brontë dramatized this incident in Shirley.

7 (p. 89) Mr. Roberson, of Heald’s Hall: Reverend Hammond Roberson (1757-1841) functions almost as a foil for Patrick Brontë, who, though a Tory, was far more tolerant and less doctrinaire in his allegiances than Roberson was. Although Brontë supported the mill owners in the conflict with the Luddites, in other disputes he supported the workers.

CHAPTER VII

1 (pp. 96-97) “J‘arrivait d Haworth... elles auront ce plaisir”: “I arrived at Haworth in perfect safety without the slightest accident or misfortune. My little sisters ran out of the house to meet me as soon as the carriage could be seen, and they embraced me with as much eagerness and pleasure as if I had been away for more than a year. My Papa, my aunt, and the gentleman of whom my brother had spoken, were all assembled in the parlor, and in a little while I went in as well. It is often Heaven’s order that when one loses a pleasure there is another ready to take its place. Just so, I had to leave very dear friends, but I returned to a family as dear and beloved. Likewise, as you were losing me (dare I believe that my departure caused you pain?) you awaited the arrival of your brother and sister. I gave my sisters the apples you kindly sent them; they said that they are certain Miss E. is very amiable and good; all are extremely impatient to see you; I hope that in very few months time they will have that pleasure” (translated by Anne Taranto) .

2 (p. 97) Wordsworth’s and Southey’s poems: Robert Southey (1774-1843) was poet laureate from 1813 until his death. William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was considered the founder, along with Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), of the Romantic movement in poetry; Wordsworth became poet laureate upon Southey’s death.

3 (pp 97-98) “mad Methodist Magazines”: The Wesleyan-Methodist Magazine (founded 1778) and The Lady’s Magazine, or Entertaining Companion for the Fair Sex (1770-1848) were publications Mrs. Brontë brought with her from Cornwall when she married. Gaskell includes these examples to show the imaginative legacy Brontë received from her mother.

4 (p. 100) “British Essayists” ... ”The Lounger”: British Essayists (1807-1808) was a compilation by the biographer and prolific editor Alexander Chalmers. Essays of Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) appeared in the periodical The Rambler (1750-1752). Henry Mackenzie (1745-1831) was editor and chief contributor to the Scottish periodicals The Mirrour (1779-1780) and The Lounger (1785-1787).

5 (p. 103) “read the rest fearlessly”: Brontë’s course of reading for Nussey contains some books that were thought inappropriate for young women, such as Lord Byron’s Cain (1821) and Don Juan (1819-1824), and Shakespeare’s bawdier comedies. This list is a testimony to Patrick Brontë’s liberal attitude toward his daughter’s education, whether from benign neglect, as Gaskell posits, or other motives.

CHAPTER VIII

1 (p. 109) in her place at Miss Wooler’s: The quoted paragraph that follows is taken from Brontë prefatory remarks to the selection of her sisters’ poetry appended to the second edition of Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey (1850).

2 (p. 110) duties of the day... tedious and monotonous: Brontë’s fragmentary“ Roe Head Journal,” which Gaskell does not quote from, is more expressive than are her letters to Nussey about her frustration with her current employment and her consequent depression. Brontë registers her anger at being interrupted by a student in a moment of inspiration: “I felt as if I could have written gloriously.... But just then a Dolt came up with a lesson. I thought I should have vomited” (Barker, ed. The Brontës: A Life in Letters, p. 39).

3 (p. 110) an event happened... good deal of interest: This anecdote detailing the supposed genesis of Jane Eyre is omitted in the third edition.

4 (p. 112) any other poet: In the third edition Gaskell adds Mary Taylor’s comment that Cowper’s popular poem “The Castaway” was a favorite in the Brontë household. Gaskell’s insistence on the affinity between Brontë and Cowper stems from her desire to find an analogue for Brontë in the mainstream Christian poet who struggled with depression and religious doubt. Brontë does not include Cowper among the “first-rate” poets in the reading list she prepares for Ellen Nussey (see note 4 to volume I, chapter VII).

5 (p. 112) “they fly from my lips as if I were Tantalus:” Tantalus is the Greek mythological figure punished with eternal thirst and hunger for transgressing against the gods; he is thus an emblem of thwarted desire.

6 (p. 117) Coleridge: Hartley Coleridge (1796-1849), a minor poet and critic, was the son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge (endnote 1 to volume I, chapter VII).

7 (p. 117) given by the poet to Mr. Quillinan : Edward Quillinan was Wordsworth’s son-in-law. Gaskell is mistaken about Wordsworth’s estimation of Branwell’s letter. In fact, according to Southey, Wordsworth was “disgusted” by the letter’s “gross flattery” and “abuse of other poets“” and declined to answer it. Why he preserved it is unclear (Southey to Caroline Bowles, March 27, 1837; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1, p. 171, note 1).

8 (p. 132) some one having a slight resemblance... in holy orders: Ellen Nussey’s brother, Henry, proposed to Brontë in the spring of 1839. He received a prompt rejection: ”I am not the serious, grave, cool-headed individual you suppose—you would think me romantic and eccentric.... I will never for the sake of... escaping the stigma of an old maid take a worthy man whom I am conscious I cannot render happy“ (Charlotte Brontë to Henry Nussey, March 5, 1839; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1, pp. 185-186).

9 (p. 134) “Anne’s departure”: This refers to Anne’s leaving to be a governess to the Inghams at Blake Hall. She was dismissed within the year

10 (p. 135) engaged as a governess: Charlotte was employed by the Sidgwicks of Stonegappe, near Lothersdale, from May to July 1839. She was responsible for two children aged four and six. Charlotte complained to her sister Emily that Mrs. Sidgwick cared “nothing in the world about me except how to contrive the greatest possible quantity of labour may be squeezed out of me” (Charlotte Brontë to Emily Brontë, June 8, 1839; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1, p. 191).

11 (p. 139) the assistance of a curate: William Weightman (1814-1842) was the curate at Haworth for three years (1839-1842). Although Weightman was an integral and beloved member of the parsonage while he served there, Gaskell suppresses almost all information about him, presumably because, in letters Gaskell omits, Charlotte Brontë and Nussey both manifest signs of infatuation with the young curate.

12 (p. 140) his own curate: Brontë’s second proposal of marriage came from David Pryce (sometimes Bryce; 1811-1840), curate to William Hodgson, who was formerly Patrick Brontë’s curate.

13 (p. 143) “drop my subscription to the Jews”: “The Jews” is shorthand for the London Society for Promoting Christianity Amongst the Jews, founded in 1809.

CHAPTER IX

1 (p. 146) the “Spectator”: A periodical published by Joseph Addison (1672-1719) and Richard Steele (1672-1729), the Spectator (1711-1712) satirized the mores of its times.

2 (p. 148) employed her leisure hours in writing a story: Brontë was writing “Ashworth,” an untitled and incomplete novel. See Christine Alexander, ed., Early Writings of Charlotte Brontë (Oxford: Blackwell, 1983), p. 204.

3 (p. 149) “whether his ‘C.T.’ meant Charles Timms or Charlotte Tomkins”: Gaskell, anxious about the letter’s irreverent tone, liberally edits out material without using ellipses, as she does elsewhere, to indicate missing text. Among the comments Gaskell censors is Brontë’s taunting remark on gender anonymity: “Several young gentlemen curl their hair and wear corsets—and several young ladies are excellent whips and by no means despicable jockies,” and her facetious wonder that Hartley Coleridge deigned to read her “demi-semi” novelette (Charlotte Brontë, draft letter to H. Coleridge, December 1840; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1, p. 237).

4 (p. 151) “Puseyite or a Hookist:” This is a reference to the followers of Edward Bouverie Pusey and Walter Farquhar Hook, important figures of the Oxford Movement, which advocated a return to formalism in the Anglican Church.

5 (p. 155) “Mr. and Mrs. —?”: Mr. and Mrs. Collins are possibly the models for the abusive marriage portrayed by Anne Brontë in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848).

CHAPTER X

1 (p. 158) “Mr. and Mrs.—”: Brontë was governess to the White family, Upperwood House, from March to December 1841. She was responsible for two children, aged six and eight. Of her charges Brontë observed: “The children are not such little devils incarnate as the Sidgwicks, but they are over-indulged, and at times hard to manage” (Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, March 21, 1841; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1, p. 248).

CHAPTER XI

1 (p. 170) pensionnat of Madame Héger: Claire Zöe Heger (1804-1890), later fictionalized as Mme. Beck in Villette (1853), was the director of the school Brontë and her sister Emily attended in Brussels. Her husband, Constantin Heger (1809-1896), the model for Paul Emanuel in Villette, was a rhetoric professor at the Athénée Royale, an upper school for boys. In addition to teaching at his wife’s boarding school, he also conducted evening classes for factory workers.

2 (p. 171) and straight returned to his wild Yorkshire village: Actually, Patrick Brontë visited the battlefield at Waterloo and toured Brussels before returning home.

3 (p. 174) whose acquaintance I am glad to have made: Gaskell traveled to Brussels in May 1856 ”to have a look at“ the Hegers as part of her research for the biography (The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, letter 271a). During this visit M. Heger shared letters Brontë sent him after her departure from Brussels; they revealed an obsessive attachment to her former teacher that was fueled by the intellectual and imaginative connection they had forged.

4 (pp. 174—175) “”Je ne connais pas personellement M. Héger... appreciée par ses élèves:” Gaskell includes this letter, written by an unidentified correspondent who did not know M. Heger personally, as testimony to his upright character. Gaskell was perhaps anxious to protect M. Heger’s reputation in the event that Brontë’s attachment to him was surmised by readers of the biography. The writer describes M. Heger as a “noble” man of “principle and conscience” who is “profoundly and openly religious,” and who “makes everyone who comes into contact with him love him.” The writer, who has seen Mme. Heger only once, describes her as a ”cold“ woman who is nevertheless beloved by her pupils.

5 (p. 179) “Mirabeau Orateur”:The quotation is from Étude sur Mirabeau (1834), by Victor Hugo (1802-1885). The Comte de Mirabeau (1749-1791), a great orator, was a political moderate active in the early stages of the French Revolution.

6 (pp. 180-182) “De temps en temps... de Moise et de Josue”: Brontë’s essay celebrates the religious zeal of Peter the Hermit (c. 1050-1115), a lowly monk who led the First Crusade in 1096. “From time to time there appear on the earth men who are destined to be the instruments of great moral or political changes,” she begins. Among these great men she ranks “conquerors” like Alexander the Great and Attila, “revolutionaries” like Cromwell and Robespierre, and ”religious enthusiasts“ like Muhammad and Peter the Hermit. The essay generally extols men whose passionate natures propel them to great action and accepts the fact that they tend to have no moderation “either in good or evil.” Brontë especially admires Peter the Hermit, whom she describes as a poor, physically small, and relatively unattractive man who was able to sway nations through his eloquence, enthusiasm, and faith. Brontë assigns to Peter the Hermit the “double role of prophet and warrior,” and reveals her Western bias by remarking that “Mahomet never moved to action the indolent nations of the East as Peter moved the vigorous people of the West.”

7 (p. 183) M. Héger took up a more advanced plan... synthetical teaching: M. Heger’s pedagogical method focused on analyzing rhetorical strategies among authors treating the same subject, with a view to discerning political and other buried agendas. This training aided Brontë in the novelist’s task of developing character complexity and framing a point of view.

8 (p. 184) desire to do the will of the Lord: The authors and the works referred to are Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627-1704), the funeral oration for Henrietta Maria (1609-1669), widow of Charles I, in 1669; François Guizot (1787-1874), Histoire de la revolution d’Angleterre (6 vols., 1826-1856); and Thomas Carlyle (1795-1881), On Heroes, Hero-worship, and the Heroic in History (1841).

9 (pp. 191-193) “Au Révérend Monsieur Brontë... de mes sentiments de haute consideration”: M. Heger’s condolence letter to Patrick Brontë includes a favorable report of his daughters’ progress at school and expresses the wish that they will soon return to finish their studies in order that they might become qualified teachers. At such time, M. Heger explains, he and his wife could offer one or both girls a post that would provide ”that sweet independence so difficult for a young person to find. This is not, understand well, Sir, this is not now a matter of personal interest for us, it is a matter of affection; you will pardon me if we talk to you of your children, if we concern ourselves with their future, as if they were part of our family.”

CHAPTER XII

1 (p. 199) “Sur La Nom de Napoleon”: The title should read, Sur La Mort de Napoleon. Brontë’s condemnation of Napoleon culminates in a paean to her childhood hero, the Duke of Wellington.

2 (pp. 199-202) “Napoléon naquit en Corse... Wellington a de droit à sa reconnoissance”: Brontë’s essay, which deplores Napoléon’s demagoguery, negates his achievements and focuses instead on his death in exile on the island of St. Helena. “Others have told and retold his exploits, as for me,” Brontë explains, “I stop to contemplate the desolation of his final hour.” Brontë asks: “Between his cradle and his grave what was there?” Her answer: “A sea of blood, a throne, then more blood, and chains.” Brontë judges Napoleon on both a political and a personal level. She condemns him for “tearing up entire nations” to build his empire, but his greatest sin in her estimation was that he was not bound by human affection: “He did not love; he considered his friends and associates merely as instruments upon which he played, while they were useful, and which he threw aside when they ceased to be so.” Brontë’s national pride is evidenced when she contrasts Napoléon’s ambition and love of flattery with the political selflessness and “modesty” of his vanquisher, the Duke of Wellington.

3 (p. 204) There were causes for stress and anxiety... particularly as regarded Branwell : The Brontës did not discover Branwell’s disgrace in the Robinson affair (see Introduction) until July 1845, a year and a half after the period under discussion here. Gaskell intentionally confuses the chronology of events in order to manufacture external reasons for Brontë’s depression.

4 (p. 206) she was uncompromising truth: Gaskell manufactures a cover story for Brontë here. Mme. Heger’s coldness was the result of Brontë’s growing attachment to M. Heger not of religious differences. Gaskell became aware of the true reason for the estrangement during her visit to Brussels, when Mme. Heger on finding she was Brontë’s friend, refused to see her. Brontë’s unease about exposing the Heger affair through Villette is evidenced by her decision to reserve the right of translation of the novel. Nevertheless, a pirated French edition appeared in 1855.

CHAPTER XIII

1 (p. 215) But a weight hung over her: The remainder of this paragraph and the following one were omitted in the third edition due to a threatened libel suit from Mrs. Robinson, by then Lady Scott. Gaskell’s lawyers also printed a retraction in the Times (May 30, 1857). All unsold copies of the first and second editions were pulled from the shelves.

2 (p. 216) The story must be told: Gaskell vilifies Lydia Robinson as the seducer of innocent Branwell. Patrick Brontë approved this version of the events, but it is unclear where the truth lies, or if there was indeed a sexual liaison, as Branwell claimed. See the Introduction.

3 (p. 219) she thus writes to M. Héger: The text that follows is compiled from carefully culled extracts made by Heger for Gaskell from two of Brontë’s letters (July 24 and October 24, 1844). For the full French text of the letters, see Gérin, Charlotte Brontë:The Evolution of Genius, Appendix D.

4 (p. 219) “Il n‘y a rien que je craigns ... Agréez, Monsieur, &c.”: “There is nothing I fear as much as idleness, inertia, lethargy of the faculties. When the body is lethargic, the spirit suffers cruelly; I would not know this lethargy, if I could write. I used to spend days, weeks, entire months writing, and not altogether without success, since Southey and [Hartley] Coleridge, two of our best authors, to whom I sent some manuscripts, were pleased to give their approbation; but at present, my eyesight is weak; if I write too much I will become blind. This weakness of sight is a terrible privation for me; without it, do you know what I would do, Monsieur? I would write a book and dedicate it to my literature master, to the only master I have ever had—to you, Monsieur! I have told you often in French how much I respect you, how indebted I am to your kindness and your instruction. I would like to say it one time in English. But that cannot be; there’s no use thinking about it. A literary career is closed to me.... Do not forget to tell me how you are and how Madame and the children are. I hope to receive news from you soon; this idea cheers me, because the memory of your kindness will never be effaced from my mind, and as long as this memory endures, the respect that you have inspired will endure also. Accept, Monsieur, &c.” (translated by Anne Taranto).

5 (p. 222) “Je crains beaucoup d’oublier le français ... j‘y irai” “I very much fear that I will forget my French—I learn half a page of French by heart every day, and I take great pleasure in the lesson. I want to assure Mme. of my esteem for her; I fear that Marie, Louise, and Claire will have already forgotten me; but I will see you again one day; As soon as I can earn enough money to go to Brussels I will do so“” (translated by Anne Taranto).

6 (p. 225) never see Branwell Brontë again: Mr. Robinson’s will reveals this claim to be untrue. Branwell might have floated this face-saving rumor, or, as Barker suggests, Lydia Robinson may have done so in an effort to deter Branwell’s unwanted attentions (Barker, The Brontës, pp. 493-496).

CHAPTER XIV

1 (p. 228) an intelligent man living in Haworth: The man is John Green-wood, the Haworth stationer. According to Gaskell, Brontë counted him her only friend in Haworth (The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, letter 337).

2 (p. 231) railway panic: In the mid-nineteenth century several companies formed to build rail lines across England, selling shares on the stock market to raise money for their ventures. Especially notorious was George Hudson (1800—1871), the “Railway King,“” chairman of the York and North-Midland Company and a speculator who merged several companies into one conglomerate and engaged in what is now termed insider trading, to inflate holdings artificially. The bubble Hudson helped to create burst in 1847, bringing financial ruin to many investors.

3 (p. 237) her father’s curate: Arthur Bell Nicholls (1818?-1906) came to Haworth as curate in May 1845. He was born in Ireland and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. Note how Gaskell frames Brontë’s apparent indifference to Nicholls as modesty.

Volume II

CHAPTER I

1 (p. 246) Mr. Trench: Richard Chenevix Trench (1807-1886), professor of divinity, philologist, and later archbishop of Dublin, wrote On the Study of Words ( 1851) and English, Past and Present (1855).

2 (p. 247) “the death of Currer Bell”: The anonymous obituary of Brontë by Harriet Martineau, a novelist who influenced Brontë, appeared in the Daily News, April 1855 (see Allot, ed., The Brontës:The Critical Heritage, pp. 301-305).

CHAPTER II

1 (p. 255) Mr. Smith: George Smith (1824-1901), Brontë’s publisher, revitalized the business founded by his father in 1816, making Smith, Elder and Company a house of literary distinction. Smith counted Ruskin and Darwin among his authors, and the success of Jane Eyre attracted other prominent novelists, among them Thackeray and Gaskell. Smith founded the Cornhill Magazine (1860), the foremost literary periodical of its day, and published the first edition of the Dictionary of National Biography (1885-1900).

2 (p. 259) gentleman connected with the firm to read it first: William Smith Williams (1800-1875), Smith’s literary adviser, was the first to recognize the merit of Jane Eyre. Williams’s critical acumen was central to the firm’s success.

3 (p. 259) The Reviews: Reviews of the first edition of Jane Eyre mentioned here appeared in the following periodicals (in these notes and the footnotes, brackets are placed around a writer’s name to indicate that the review appeared unsigned—that is, as an anonymous review): [H. F. Chorley], Athenaeum, October 23, 1847; Spectator, November 6, 1847; Literary Gazette, October 23, 1847; and [A.W Fonblanque], the Examiner, November 27, 1847. Other reviews ran in the Economist, November 27, 1847, and People’s Journal, November 1847. Reviews of the second edition of Jane Eyre include Elizabeth Rigby’s infamous, if unsigned, ad hominem attack in the Quarterly Review 84 (December 1848) and an unsigned notice by G. H. Lewes, in Fraser’s Magazine (December 1847). For a selection, see Allot, ed., The Brontës: The Critical Heritage.

4 (p. 266) one who offered presumptuous and injudicious praise: Samuel Johnson admonished Hannah More to ”consider what her flattery was worth, before she choaked him with it.“ (Hester Lynch Piozzi, Anecdotes of the Late Samuel Johnson [1786]). In The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. (1791) James Boswell renders it: “Dearest madam, consider with yourself what your flattery is worth, before you bestow it so freely.”

5 (p. 267) G. H. Lewes: The versatile and largely self-educated thinker George Henry Lewes (1817-1878) was a philosopher, journalist, literary critic, novelist, playwright, and sometime actor. He had a fraught professional relationship with Brontë, who thought he had a touch too much of dogmatism.”

6 (p. 269) truth is considered a libel in speaking of such people: Gaskell is referring to Thomas Cautley Newby, who published Emily’s Wuthering Heights and Anne’s Agnes Grey in 1847, but rejected Charlotte’s manuscript of The Professor. Newby’s unscrupulous business practices deprived both Emily and Anne Brontë proceeds from the sale of the copyrights for their novels; more damagingly, his false advertising capitalized on the success of Jane Eyre to portray the Bells as one person.

7 (p. 275) “I can understand admiration of George Sand”: The French writer George Sand (1804—1876) is celebrated as much today for her bohemian lifestyle and cross-dressing as for her prolific literary output as novelist, dramatist, correspondent, memoirist, and political tract writer. “My profession is to be free,” she once declared.

8 (p. 278) “beyond anything due to a Bulwer or D’Israeli production”: Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) were politicians, novelists, and friends. Bulwer-Lytton’s sensationalistic bent made him one of the most popular writers of his day. Disraeli, who twice served as prime minister, wrote “condition of England” novels treating social issues. In suggesting that Lewes’s novel deserves more acclaim than a Bulwer or Disraeli production, Brontë is perhaps offering faint praise.

9 (p. 278) water-supply to each house: Patrick Brontë campaigned the Board of Health in London for more than a decade for a clean water supply and improved sanitary conditions for Haworth. Although an inspector finally arrived in 1849 and advocated, among other measures, immediately closing the graveyard, Haworth did not receive a piped water supply until 1858. (See Barker, The Brontës, p. 814.)

10 (p. 279) “That England may be spared the spasms... I earnestly pray”: Brontë fears that the working-class Chartist movement (1838-1848), which called for universal male suffrage and abolition of property qualifications for members of Parliament, would unleash a revolution in England like those that had been spreading on the Continent.

11 (p. 286) Chatterton: The poet Thomas Chatterton (1752-1770), too avant-garde to be appreciated in his day, committed suicide at age seventeen. He later became an idol to the Romantics and Pre-Raphaelites.

CHAPTER III

1 (p. 296) “Quarterly Review” of December, 1848: Elizabeth Rigby’s anonymous review of Jane Eyre appeared this month (see endnote 3 to volume II, chapter II).

2 (p. 297) “lama sabachthoni,”—still, even then let him pray... than judge with the Pharisee: Gaskell’s defense of Brontë overdramatically culminates in Christ’s appeal on the cross: “Why hast thou forsaken me?” (See the King James Version of the Bible, Mark 15:34; Matthew 27:46.) For the parable of the publican and the Pharisee, see Luke 18:10-14.

3 (p. 308) following account of the journey—and of the end: Ellen Nussey provided this eyewitness account of Anne Brontë’s death, albeit written in retrospect for Gaskell, who edited it.

CHAPTER IV

1 (p. 315) “three curates”: Two were based on Patrick Brontë’s former curates, James William Smith and Joseph Brett Grant, and the last on a curate of a neighboring parish. Brontë’s contempt for curates as a class is registered in a letter to Ellen Nussey: “At this blessed moment we have no less than three of them in Haworth-Parish—and God knows there is not one to mend another” (Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, June [18?], 1845; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 1, p. 399).

2 (p. 320) Mr. Hall: William Margetson Heald, the vicar of Ellen Nussey’s parish, believed that either he or his father was the model for this character (William Heald to Nussey, January 8, 1850; in Wise and Symington, vol. 3, p. 63).

3 (p. 324) mortified her far more than actual blame: Interestingly, the criticisms Lewes offers are not of the kind Gaskell enumerates here. Far from lowering the standard, he claims to raise the bar by taking Brontë to task for stepping ”“out of her sex—without elevating herself above it.” [G. H. Lewes], Edinburgh Review 91, January 1850.

4 (p. 324) She often writes... the following... letters to Cornhill: The following letter is to James Taylor (November 6, 1849; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 2, pp. 280-281). Gaskell suppresses Taylor’s name as correspondent here and throughout presumably because she wants to deflect the suggestion that Brontë invited his marriage proposal. Brontë continued to correspond with Taylor after she rejected his suit and he left England to head Smith, Elder’s India office.

5 (p. 325) “I send you a couple of reviews:” The reviews are: [A. W Fonblanque], Examiner, November 3, 1849. and [W H. Howitt], Standard of Freedom, November 10, 1849 (see Allot, pp. 125-129, 133-135).

6 (p. 328) Miss Martineau: The versatile writer and thinker Harriet Martineau (1802-1876) addressed a wide range of subjects including women’s education, religion, and political economy. Her novel Deerbrook (1839) influenced Brontë.

7 (p. 329) in came a young-looking lady, almost child-like in stature: In her Autobiography (3 vols., London: Smith, Elder and Company, 1877), Martineau describes Brontë as “the smallest creature I had ever seen (except at a fair)” (vol. 2, p. 326).

CHAPTER V

1 (pp. 332-333) “friends have sent me books lately... ‘Nemesis of Faith’ ”: The books mentioned are Harriet Martineau’s Eastern Life, Present and Past (1848), Francis Newman’s The Soul, Its Sorrows and Its Aspirations (1849), and James Froude’s The Nemesis of Faith (1849).

2 (p. 333) “Mr.—.. Mr. R—... John—s wife”: Both Mr.—and Mr. R—are references to Arthur Bell Nicholls, Brontë’s future husband, on whom the one flattering portrait of a curate in Shirley is based. Brontë tells Nussey in another part of this letter that Nicholls “triumphed in his own character.” The wife of John Brown, the Haworth sexton, was Nicholls’s landlady.

3 (p. 333) “When they got the volumes at the Mechanics’ Institute”: Mechanics Institutes were cultural centers established for the use of the working classes. The one in Keighley hosted concerts, lectures, and classes, and offered a circulating library that the Brontës could use. Brontë refers in this letter to the Haworth Mechanics Institute, which was founded in 1849 with support from Brontë and her father.

4 (p. 337) “Nella Miseria—”: From Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, canto 5, lines 121-123, which reads in full: “There is no greater grief than remembering happy times in misery” (my translation).

5 (p. 338) Sir James and Lady Kay Shuttleworth: James Kay Shuttleworth was a philanthropist and social reformer who was knighted for his services. Trained as a medical doctor, he worked to improve sanitary conditions among the poor and working classes in order to combat disease. He was also an early champion of national education. Sir James’s avocation was entertaining celebrated authors. It was at his estate near Windermere that Gaskell and Brontë met.

6 (p. 340) “Unprotected Female’ ”: The “Unprotected Female” was a series of sketches that appeared in the periodical Punch (founded in 1841) from 1849 to 1850. Punch, established by social reformer Henry May-hew (1812-1887) and journalists Joseph Stirling Coyne and Mark Lemon, blended political commentary and humorous cartoons.

7 (p. 341) “that, too, I read, and with unalloyed pleasure”: The most recent collection of essays by William Hazlitt would have been Winterslow: Essays and Characters Written There (1850). The other titles are Charles Cuthbert Southey’s edition of The Life and Correspondence of Robert Southey (1849-1850); Julia Kavanagh, Woman in France During the Eighteenth Century (1850); Ralph Waldo Emerson, Representative Men: Seven Lectures (1850); and A. J. Scott, Suggestions on Female Education (1849).

CHAPTER VI

1 (p. 344) “I had thought to bring the ‘Leader’: The Leader (1850) was a radical literary periodical founded by G. H. Lewes.

2 (p. 347) to join the friends with whom she had been staying in town: Gaskell skims over the unorthodox nature of Brontë’s trip to Scotland with George Smith, an unmarried man, and his sister. Both Smith’s mother and Ellen Nussey urged against it. Brontë reassures Ellen: “My six or eight years of seniority not to say nothing of lack of all pretension to beauty &c. are a perfect safeguard—I should not in the least fear to go with him to China” (Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, June 20, 1850; in The Letters of Charlotte Brontë, vol. 2, p. 419).

3 (p. 349) “Papa had worked himself up to a sad pitch... obviously joining him”: The letter continues: “I can’t deny but I was annoyed.... Papa’s great discomposure had its origin in ... the vague fear of my being somehow about to be married to somebody.” In editing out this portion of the letter Gaskell suppresses Patrick’s fear that Brontë and George Smith had formed a romantic attachment.

CHAPTER VII

1 (p. 352) I shall probably convey my first impressions... a longer description: The text that follows is extracted from two of Gaskell’s letters. One is to Catherine Winkworth, on August 25, 1850, and another, written on the same date, is to an unknown correspondent.

2 (p. 353) “liking ‘Modern Painters’... Father Newman’s Lectures”: John Ruskin (1819-1900) wrote Modern Painters (1843-1860) and The Seven Lamps of Architecture (1849). Father Newman, later a cardinal, is John Henry Newman (1801-1890), a leader of the Oxford Movement within the Anglican Church. He later converted to Roman Catholicism.

3 (p. 353) “invitation to drink tea quietly at Fox How”: Fox How was the home of the widow and children of Dr. Thomas Arnold (1795-1842), moralist, social reformer and educational theorist. The curricular innovations Arnold instituted as headmaster of Rugby School influenced the course of British education. He was the father of poet and critic Matthew Arnold (1822-1888).

4 (p. 356) ‘Westminster Review’: The Westminster Review was a reform-minded periodical acquired by John Stuart Mill in 1836.

5 (p. 357) “I have read Tennyson’s ‘In Memoriam’ ”: On Gaskell’s recommendation Brontë read, or rather, attempted to read Alfred Tennyson’s In Memoriam (1850), an elegy to his friend Arthur Henry Hallam. Presumably to educate her new friend in her own aesthetic preferences, Brontë sends Gaskell the final edition of Wordsworth’s autobiographical The Prelude, which was published posthumously in 1850.

6 (p. 359) “I should be glad if you would include... ‘Life of Dr. Arnold’”: Brontë wanted to read Arthur Penrhyn Stanley’s Life and Correspondence of Thomas Arnold (1844).

CHAPTER VIII

1 (p. 360) task of editing them: Brontë wrote a “Biographical Notice” of her sisters for this edition, published by Smith, Elder and Company, and she appended a heavily edited selection of their poetry.

2 (p. 361) That gentleman says:—: G. H. Lewes, writing to George Smith. Gaskell wanted input from Lewes but, unlike Brontë, would not correspond with him directly because of his reputed immorality (The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, letter 314). In 1854 he dissolved his open marriage to live with writer George Eliot.

3 (p. 362) “I lent her some of Balzac’s and George Sand’s novels”: The novels of Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) that G. H. Lewes is talking about are Modeste Mignon (1844) and Illusions Perdues (1837-1843). Gaskell is quick to give anecdotal evidence of Brontë’s “disgust” for Balzac, who was not considered proper reading for a lady. George Sand’s Lettres d’un Voyageur (Letters of a Traveler), part autobiography, part travel narrative, appeared in 1837.

4 (p. 366) “ ‘The Roman’ ”: The Roman (1850) was a poem by Sydney Dobell, the critic who had endeared himself to Brontë with his praise of Wuthering Heights.

CHAPTER IX

1 (p. 372) “You ask me whether Miss Martineau made me convert to mesmerism”: Mesmerism, a form of hypnotism thought to cure disease, was first practiced by Franz Mesmer (1734-1815), a Viennese physician. Harriet Martineau was a believer.

2 (p. 373) Your account of Mr. A—”: Henry Atkinson and Martineau coauthored Letters on the Laws of Man’s Nature and Development (1851).

3 (p. 377) great Exhibition: The Great Exhibition of 1851, held at the Crystal Palace in London, was an international industrial show intendedto showcase British ascendancy. Brontë visited it five tim“under coercion.” On a subsequent trip to London, Brontë made her own itinerary and “selected the real in preference to the decorative side of life” (see the Introduction).

4 (p. 386) “‘Phrenological Character’” : Phrenology was a pseudo-science in which a person’s character was analyzed by examining his or her skull structure. Brontë and George Smith posed as brother and sister and had a phrenological reading done by a physician in London. See Gérin, Appendix B, for his report.

CHAPTER X

1 (p. 389) “I have read the ‘Saint’s Tragedy’ ”: Brontë is referring to The Saint’s Tragedy: or, The True Story of Elizabeth of Hungary (1848) , by Charles Kingsley (1819-1875).

2 (p. 391) “James Martineau’s sermons”: James Martineau (1805-1900), brother of Harriet Martineau, was a Unitarian minister and moral philosopher.

3 (p. 391) “I have seen none, except ... Emancipation of Women”: The article is “The Enfranchisement of Women,” which appeared in the Westminster Review 55 (July 1851): 289-311. Although J. S. Mill is given authorial credit, Harriet Taylor (1807-1858), Mill’s collaborator, companion, and eventually his wife, is believed to have been the primary author.

4 (p. 396) “Melville seemed to me... Maurice whose ministry I should frequent”: The Evangelical Henry Melville (1798-1871) was considered one of the greatest preachers of his day. F. D. Maurice (1805-1872), a Christian Socialist, believed the church should be an instrument of social equality.

5 (p. 403) “the close seemed to me scarcely equal to ’Rose Douglas’ ”: Sarah R. Whitehead wrote Rose Douglas; or, Sketches of a Country Parish, Being the Autobiography of a Scotch Minister’s Daughter (1851) and Two Families (1852).

6 (p. 403) “I read Miss Kavanagh’s ‘Women of Christianity’ ”: The full title of Julia Kavanagh’s book is Women of Christianity: Exemplary for Acts of Piety and Charity (1852).

7 (p. 416) “I called her ’Lucy Snowe’ ... ‘lucus a non lucendo’ principle”: The principle is an etymological contradiction. The word lucus means “dark grove” in Latin, but it is derived from the verb lucere, “to shine,” based on the absence of light. Similarly, Lucy Snowe’s “external coldness” belies her inner fire.

8 (p. 418) some word or act of hers had given offence: Gaskell minimizes Brontë’s fears here to gloss over her true cause for concern—the fact that she had represented George Smith and his mother in Villette as Mrs. Bretton and her son Dr. John. Smith later owned that the portraits were based on his mother and him.

CHAPTER XII

1 (p. 421) put aside all consideration of how she should reply, excepting as he wished!: Brontë had her own reservations about marrying Nicholls, independent of her father’s objections. See the Introduction.

2 (p. 424) Miss Martineau... wounded her to the quick... merely artistic fault: In her review of Villette in the Daily News, February 3, 1853 (Allot, pp. 171-174), Martineau faulted Brontë for making love too central to the lives of her female characters, insisting that there “are substantial, heartfelt interests for women of all ages, and under ordinary circumstances, quite apart from love.”

3 (p. 426) “I read attentively all you say about Miss Martineau... hundreds have forsaken her”: Martineau objected to this characterization, and to Gaskell’s account of her rift with Brontë. In the third edition Gaskell included a footnote and additional material in the body of the text to represent Martineau’s side of the story, which was, in the main, a reiteration of the fact that Brontë urged her to be frank with her criticism.

4 (p. 438) Mrs. Marsh’s story ... Miss Bremer’s story: Anne Marsh-Caldwell wrote “The Deformed,” published in Two Old Men’s Tales (1834); Fredrika Bremer wrote The Neighbours (translated in 1842).

5 (p. 440) Mr. Brontë became reconciled to the idea of his daughter’s marriage: Gaskell may have directly contributed to this change of heart by asking Richard Monckton Milnes to use his influence to secure a pension that would increase Nicholls’s income. Gaskell urged secrecy: “If my well-meant treachery becomes known I will lose her friendship, which I prize most highly” (The Letters of Mrs. Gaskell, letter 168).

6 (p. 443) “my father’s sympathies... are all with Justice and Europe, against Tyranny and Russia”: Brontë refers here to the diplomatic prelude to the Crimean War.

7 (p. 451) natural cause for her miserable indisposition: Brontë’s letters to Nussey indicate that she was pregnant. It is unclear whether her death was caused by a complication of pregnancy or by an infectious disease.