The Universalist. [volume] (Chicago [Ill.]) 1884-1897, 1895-08-03
SELECTIONS.
CHARLOTTE BRONTE'S MUS
TICE.

1t is we'll known that Charlotte Bronte
was peculiarly addicted to sharpening
her pen for biting portrait, yet it near
ly frenzied her to find herself the sub
ject of anything but favorable criti-
cism. In "Jane Eyre" in "Wuthering
Heights in Shirley" in "Villette," she
invites the scorn of the world upon per-
sons whose identity is, or was, easily
discerned under the masks that she pa
raded them in. Many other novelists
have done similar things, sometimes
with good and laudable purpose and ef-
feet, but often the reverse. A writer in
Macmillan's Magazine for May recounts
the injurious work of some "irresponsi
ble' novelist in this relation, and holds
Miss Bronte up as a chief sinner. He
speaks of 1.-The danger of this license of
the novelist" and of "this absolute ire
sponsibility of the romancer, this privi-
lege of selecting the facts and imputing
the motives, which, added to the artistic
gift for deepening the shadows and
heightening the effect, makes the novel
so far-reaching and 30 irresistible
libel" We quote briefly from the ar
ticle:
"If it comes to a question of hurting
folks feelings, Charlotte Bronte had her
self a great deal to answer for. No
reader of Jane Eyre is likely to forget
the Lowood Institution. Well, no soon.
or did the novel reach Yorkshire than
Lowood was identified with the Cowan
Bridge School for the children of the
clergy, and it's founder, the Rev. Mr..
Brocklehurst, with the real founder of
the real school, the Rev. William Carus
Wilson. And very pleasant reading the
novel made for this philanthropic cler-
gyman in his old age and years of declin
ing health. The school for the children
of the clergy had been the darling
scheme Of his life. He had sympathized
deeply with the extreme difficulty ex-
perienced by clergymen. with their linn
tied incomes. in providing for the edu-
cation of their children; and had devised
this scheme of school to be supported
partly by subscriptions, where girls
might receive sound education for ETA
a year. For more than a quarter of
century he worked for it and watched
over it with unremitting zeal and self
denial, to find in the end himself and his
school represented in romance, read
from one end Of the country to the other,
as something akin to Squeers and his
Dotheboys' Hail."
The writer asserts that apart from the
misdeeds of one filthy cook whom Mr..
Wilson dismissed) and of one cross gov
erness, Miss Bronte herself had nothing
to allege, and that it was admitted by
all witnesses that in his uphill work of
charity Mr.. Wilson's management was
both generous and watchful. We quote
few more lines:
1.-The intensity of Charlotte Bronte's
bitterness it is quite easy to understand;
her sister Maria died at the school. and
to watch dying sister sickening over
unpalatable food or subjected to tho
nagging of governess. is cruel expert
ence for child of eight or nine. The
recollection of it bit into her intensely
personal and brooding imagination; and
nearly quarter of century later the
philanthropic clergyman was punished
for having entertained unawares that
dangerous angel, future novelist"