Charlotte Bronte passed away in 1855, a celebrated author just 38 years old. Her friend and fellow author Elizabeth Gaskell published a biography, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, in 1857. Gaskell interviewed Constantin Héger for the book but decided not to write about Charlotte’s inappropriate feelings for a married man.
I wonder what Elisabeth thought and felt after she found out about the feelings from Charlotte Bronte for Constantin Heger. She wanted to write a biography for her friend and found out about something only a few people knew. Emily knew it, maybe Ellen Nussey knew it. But the rest of the world did'nt. Must she be the own to publish?
I wonder, did Elizabeth ask for advice? I am searching for some answers. Maybe you have an idea? Please, let me know!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
It would take over half a century for the truth to come out. In 1913, Constantin and Claire’s son Paul Héger donated Charlotte’s letters to the British Museum and allowed them to be published in the Times. Belgian coal magnate and art collector Raoul Warocqué read the letters in the paper and coveted them. He wrote to Paul asking if there were any more extant Brontë letters that he could buy. There were not, but Paul had another Brontë memento he was willing to part with: Charlotte’s handwritten manuscript of L’Ingratitude.
Warocqué’s collections are now in the Musée Royal de Mariemont. Brontë scholar Brian Bracken was looking through the Musée Royal’s catalog looking for information on Vital Héger, Constantin’s brother, when he found a reference to a manuscript by Charlotte Brontë. It wasL’Ingratitude, forgotten since 1914.
I believe Mrs Gaskill instantly knew here were letters as dangerous as " lucifer matches" indeed and they would hardly help her to shape the image of Charlotte she had in mind. They would just reignite the criticisms of Charlotte's "coarseness" into a fire storm rather than put them to rest.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenAlso Charlotte's father and husband were very much alive. There was much that would try thier patience in the book already.
Lastly, but by no means least, Mrs Gaskill herself would have been greatly criticized for publishing them. It was a diffrent age.
While she may not have thought so , Charlotte was lucky the object of her love was a person of integrity. If she had been encouraged as Bramwell was...who knows what would have happened. But Constantin and Zoe Heger were infinitely wiser than Mrs Robinson and did not have to travel a road to know where it would lead.
While Charlotte knew tremendous pain from his slience , it was not the identity destroying type Branwell sank to because she and Heger had never crossed that line. And look how far she took it with the friendship he did extend! She said she wanted just a line. But that would not be enough of course. He was being wise for both of them
This earlier pain over Heger's slience seemed to inform how she meet the agony of the parsonage empty of her sisters in the summer of 1849. She resolved to meet it head on at once.
But how lucky for Arthur Bell Nicholls's pursuit of Charlotte, that that matter also rested with begging letters and whether or not to answer them ? He could not have known how much he owed to Constantin Heger's silence as well.