Brontës (86 page)

In Brussels, Charlotte, too, was making progress in German, having resumed her lessons with Madame Muhl, who, to her consternation, continued to charge as much for teaching one pupil as she had for two. Charlotte simply could not afford these fees, on top of all her other expenses, out of her salary of sixteen pounds. It is a measure of the importance she attached to learning German that she actually wrote home to ask her father for extra money.
⁴
From Charlotte's surviving exercise books, we can see that she began with translations of German poetry into English, favouring Schiller, whose works she also translated into French for Monsieur Heger. Her translations from English into German seem to have made little progress, either because she considered the exercise less valuable, or because she did not consider her work worth preserving.
⁵

The emphasis on poetry in her German studies was matched by a new move towards translation of poetry in her French lessons with Monsieur Heger. Again, this worked both ways. She translated some stanzas from Walter Scott's
Lady of the Lake
and Byron's
Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
into French, for instance, but also translated Louis Belmontet's ‘Les Orphelins' and Auguste Barbier's ‘L'Idole' into English.
⁶
In both instances, she rendered the originals into verse, rather than taking the easy option of translating them into prose. Though Charlotte considered this work good enough to offer her translation of ‘Les Orphelins' for publication in the
Manchester Athenaeum Album
in 1850,
⁷
the essays she continued to write for Monsieur
Heger throughout this year were immeasurably more valuable in terms of her personal development.

Charlotte had returned to Brussels knowing that Monsieur Heger held her in the highest regard as one of his star pupils. This was the first time that someone outside her family, capable of informed judgement and himself of an intellect equal, if not superior, to her own, had recognized and encouraged her talent. It is not surprising, therefore, that in at least three of the essays she wrote this year she raised the question of the nature of genius.
⁸
She had done this once before, in her essay on ‘Peter the Hermit', identifying herself with him because she saw that the spiritual flame within him overcame his physical insignificance.
⁹
That essay had been written when her command of French was comparatively weak and, as her powers grew, she returned to the subject again and again with a tenacity of purpose which suggests that she was not only seeking to define genius for herself but demanding recognition from Monsieur Heger. In the light of his comments, her own opinions were radically changed.

In an analysis of Millevoye's poem, ‘La Chute des Feuilles', Charlotte wandered far from her subject in attempting to identify the poet's inspiration. Starting from the impressions Millevoye's poem evokes, she posed the question of how deliberately he then executed his intention.

Having prepared his canvas in this way and traced the first rough outlines of his sketch, has he not carefully sought out the details, assembled the images appropriate for making his principal idea stand out? Has he not weighed each thought carefully, considered thoroughly each secondary thought, minutely measured and adjusted each part of the great Whole in such a way that their union will not sin against the master-principle of composition, the principle of Unity? Is this really the procedure Millevoye followed? Is this the method followed by all great poets?

‘Souls made of fire and children of the Sun!'

Alas! I do not know: the great souls alone can reply, but there is one thing I do know for sure because the certainty of it depends more on reason than on genius, it is that, for novices in literature, for those who wish to imitate the great masters, this method is the only one that can lead them to an even remotely desirable end; perhaps in following it they will never find anything except lead in their crucibles, perhaps, though, if the sleeping spark of genius bursts into flame
during the operation, a new light will illuminate their souls, the true secret of Alchemy will be revealed and their lead will transmute into gold.
¹⁰

Charlotte's allowances for ‘novices in literature' showed that she still had reservations about Monsieur Heger's method of teaching by imitation. Having found the courage to question this, she now launched into an explicit defence of her position, that genius was innate and inspirational.

I believe that genius … has no need to seek out details, that it never pauses for reflection, that it does not think about unity: I believe that details come naturally without the poet having to seek them, that inspiration takes the place of reflection and as for unity, I think that there is no unity more perfect than that which results from a heart filled with a single idea … The nature of genius is like that of instinct; its operation is at the same time both simple and marvellous; the man of genius produces, without labour and as if by a single effort, results which men without genius, however knowledgeable, however persevering, could never attain.
¹¹

In literature, if not in religion, Charlotte was a Calvinist: she had no doubt that she was one of the elect who possessed genius and that those who did not, no matter how hard they tried, could never achieve greatness. This was a passionate defence of her own method of writing, so obvious from the juvenilia and her diary fragments, where an inspirational moment or vision leads to uncontrolled outpourings in which her pen can scarcely keep pace with her thoughts. Though Monsieur Heger wrote frequent approving remarks in the margins of this essay, he took issue with Charlotte's main thesis to such an extent that he wrote half a page of ‘Observation' at the end. His argument is worth quoting in full, not only because it was put with equal force to Charlotte's own, but also because it eventually won Charlotte round to his way of thinking.

Work
does not make a poet: man does not make his own genius, he receives it from heaven – that is indisputable.

Machinery does not create force: it rules its employment, it multiplies its effect a hundredfold.

Man does not know what
genius
is, it is a gift from Heaven, it is something one might call
divine
. It is the same as
force
. But imagine two men of the same strength, one without a lever, the other with a lever. The first will lift 1000 pounds, the second, in making the
same
effort, will uproot a plane tree.

Is the
lever
worth nothing?

Without a voice there is no singer – undoubtedly – but there will be no singer either without
art
, without study, without
imitation
.

Nature makes a painter – but what would he be without study of perspective – of the art of colour. – C. H.

Though he evidently intended to end his comments here, signing his initials, Monsieur Heger was unable to relinquish the subject and returned to the attack.

How much would his pictures be worth, how long would they last.

Without study there is no art; without art, there is no effect on men, since art is the epitome of all that the centuries bequeath us, of all that man has found
beautiful
, of that which has had an effect on man, of all that he has found worthy of saving from oblivion.

Genius without study and without art, without the knowledge of that which has already been done, is
Force
without a lever, it is Demosthenes, a sublime orator, who stammers and makes himself booed; it is the soul which sings inside and which cannot express its interior songs except in a rough and uneducated voice; it is the sublime musician, finally, who has only an out of tune piano to make the world hear the sweet melodies which he hears ringing out inside him.

Certainly the gem-carver does not make the diamond, but without him the most beautiful diamond is a pebble.

Poet
or
not
, you should study form – if you are a Poet you will be more powerful & your works will live – if not, you will not produce poetry, but you will savour its merit and charm.
¹²

Two months after this essay, Charlotte returned to the subject of genius in ‘The death of Napoleon'. Again, it was a major digression from the theme of the essay, taking up a quarter of the first draft submitted to Monsieur Heger, and it was completely excised from the final revision. The result was undoubtedly a more concise and structured piece of work, but some of Charlotte's thoughts on genius were thereby lost. In the original version, Charlotte had begun by asking whether anyone without genius could rightly judge and appreciate the quality in someone else.

Has an ordinary individual the right to express his feelings on the life and death of Bonaparte? Does he know how to judge him? Yes; however insignificant he
may be he has the right to form an opinion and even to express it: neither king nor emperor has the authority to silence that inner voice that \at times/ every man hears speaking in his heart and that approves or condemns not only his own actions but the actions of those around him. So one cannot deny to mediocrity her right to judge genius but it does not follow that her judgement is always just.
¹³

According to Charlotte, the distinctive quality of mediocrity is moderation, which is the antithesis of genius.

Mediocrity can see the faults of Genius, its imprudence, its recklessness, its ambition, but she is too cold, too limited, too self-centred to understand its struggles, its sufferings, its sacrifices; she is also envious and even its virtues appear to her under a false and tarnished light.
¹⁴

Though she never actually makes the claim, it is implicit throughout Charlotte's essay that she aligns herself with ‘passionate, misunderstood genius'
¹⁵
and she has no reluctance in weighing Napoleon's genius against that of his conqueror, her childhood hero, the Duke of Wellington. From a somewhat half-hearted defence of Napoleon, the essay turns into a eulogy of the duke.

I have said that this man is the equal of Napoleon; in genius, yes: in rectitude of character, in loftiness of aim he is neither his equal nor his superior, he is of another species. Napoleon Bonaparte clung to his reputation and loved celebrity; Arthur Wellesley cares neither for the one nor the other. Public opinion had great value for Napoleon, for Wellington public opinion is an idea, a nonentity which the breath of his powerful will can make disappear, like a soap bubble. Napoleon flattered the people and sought their applause; Wellington spurns it; if his own conscience approves, that is enough, all other praise irritates him … In spite of his pride he is modest; he shrinks from eulogy, he rejects panegyric, he never speaks of himself and never allows anyone else to speak of him; his character equals in grandeur and surpasses in truth that of all other heroes, ancient or modern.
¹⁶

Curiously enough, the very qualities Charlotte praised in Wellington as making his genius superior to Napoleon's were precisely those she had ascribed to the much despised mediocrity: self-control, balance, disdain for
passionate excess, and resistance to the claims of all but conscience.
¹⁷
This contradiction was removed in the excision of the early passages relating to genius.

Charlotte's final essay on the subject of genius is one of her most interesting. ‘Letter from a Poor Painter to a Great Lord', written on 17 October 1843, shows how far she had come to accept Monsieur Heger's doctrine that genius needs discipline and self-control to achieve its potential. Charlotte seems to have had Branwell very much in mind when she wrote this essay. The poor painter assumes the belligerent and self-confident tone which Branwell had himself adopted in his earliest efforts to obtain publication in
Blackwood's Magazine
. Though he is seeking a patron, he does not flatter the great lord or beat about the bush, but addresses him with direct honesty.

My Lord, I believe that I have talent. Do not be indignant at my presumption, do not accuse me of arrogance, I do not know that feeble feeling, the child of vanity; but I know well another feeling, Respect for myself, a feeling born of independence and integrity. My Lord I believe that I have Genius.

This declaration shocks you; you find it arrogant, I find it perfectly simple. Is it not universally recognised that without genius no artist can succeed? Would it not then be sheer stupidity to devote oneself to the arts without being sure that one has this indispensible quality?
¹⁸

In describing the poor artist's early difficulties, however, Charlotte spoke with the voice of bitter personal experience.

Throughout all my early youth the difference which existed between me and most of the people who surrounded me, was an embarrassing enigma to me which I did not know how to resolve; I thought myself inferior to everyone and it distressed me. I thought it was my duty to follow the example set by the majority of my acquaintances, an example sanctioned by the approbation of prudent and legitimate mediocrity, and yet I felt myself incapable of feeling and behaving as that majority felt and behaved … There was always excess in what I did; I was either too excited or too despondent; without wanting to I allowed everything that passed through my heart to be seen and sometimes there were storms passing through it; in vain I tried to imitate the sweet gaiety, the serene and equable spirits which I saw in the faces of my companions and which I found so worthy of admiration; all my efforts were useless; I could not restrain the ebb
and flow of blood in my arteries and that ebb and flow always showed itself in my face and in my hard and unattractive features. I wept in secret.
¹⁹

This, as Monsieur Heger could not fail to recognize, was a
cri de coeur
from his pupil; it was not the poor painter speaking but the Charlotte Brontë who had told Ellen Nussey, ‘I am not like you', and who had longed to be more like her conventional friend. Once again, but this time explicitly, she utterly rejected the idea that she was ‘mediocre' and demanded recognition of the genius which made her stand out from the crowd. The difference now was that she accepted the need to hone her talents. Her poor painter spent four years in Italy learning the technicalities of his art. Echoing the words Monsieur Heger had written at the bottom of her essay on ‘La Chute des Feuilles', she wrote: