MINOR IDENTIFICATIONS OF PERSONS AND PLACES IN THE BRONTË WORKS.
Reading edition
"Wuthering Heights."
There is not satisfactory evidence to enable the identification of the originals of Wuthering Heights the abode, and Thrushcross Grange. Similar homesteads are found anywhere near the Yorkshire moors. Architectural peculiarities and appointments are ever accretive properties with the novelist of imagination and latitude. This observation should be kept in mind also in regard to Charlotte Brontë's other works. See my remarks on page 57.
"Jane Eyre."
The interior of Thornfield Hall, as I mention on page 35, has been identified with that of "Norton Conyers," near Ripon; externally it has been associated with "The Rydings," near Birstall. Ferndean Manor has been identified with Wycollar Hall, near Colne. A Brontë biographer says this place was set on fire by a mad woman,[92] but the story finds no mention in The Annals of Colne, 1878, or in Lancashire Legends, 1873, though "Wyecoller Hall" is dealt with at length in each work.
"Shirley."
Gomersall and Birstall, near Batley, Yorkshire, contribute to the background of this story. "Field Head" has been identified with Oakwell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion. Evidence shows that intimately the Rectory in Shirley was in the main Haworth Parsonage to Charlotte Brontë. In The Dictionary of National Biography Leslie Stephen says:—"Brontë, ... a strong Churchman and a man of imperious and passionate character, ... is partly represented by Mr. Helstone in Shirley, though a [Rev.] Mr. Roberson ... supplied ... characteristic traits." And Mr. Francis Leyland, who drew much of his information from Nancy Garrs, a Brontë servant, says that the fourth chapter of Shirley, wherein Charlotte speaks of the grossly untrue reports of Mr. Helstone's dry-eyed mourning, etc., for his wife, is a defence really of Mr. Brontë. Helstone was a composite character, as also was Mrs. Pryor, to whom, without doubt, Miss Wooler contributed, though Charlotte Brontë once had a grave difference with her. Miss Nussey, who pathetically and wrongly believed herself Caroline Helstone, proclaimed Miss Wooler, her schoolmistress, as the prototype of Mrs. Pryor. Evidence declares, however, that in many regards this character was also drawn from Tabitha Aykroyd. And we see that Charlotte Brontë, years before, in her Wuthering Heights, had given an ecclesiastical name—that of Dean—to her portrayal of the one woman who alone ever took up the part of mother for her—Tabitha Aykroyd. Nevertheless Mrs. Pryor was in the main a composite character, largely at the service of "story" requirements. Sometimes she is Tabitha, sometimes Miss Wooler; elsewhile she is neither. Mr. Macarthey is said to represent the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who became Charlotte Brontë's husband.
The references in Shirley, Chapters XII. and XXVII., to Robin Hood's connection with Nunnwood and to the ruins of a nunnery, identify Nunnely in the circumstances, with Hartshead, near Brighouse and Dewsbury; Nunnely Church with Hartshead Church (Mr. Brontë was once vicar here), and the Priory with Kirklees Hall or Priory—Kirklees Park, as we may see by turning to Dr. Whitaker's Loidis and Elmete, pages 306-9 (1816), wherein we find mention of Robin Hood and an old Cistercian nunnery in connection with Kirklees, appropriately now the residence of Sir George J. Armytage, Bart., one of the founders of the Harleian Society. Whinbury has been identified with Dewsbury; but I do not know that it has been remarked the name Dewsbury may have suggested to Charlotte Brontë the dewberry, bramble, or blackberry, thus leading her to adopt "whinberry" and, finally, Whinbury. The attack on Hollow's Mill is said to have been founded on an attempt in 1812, when an assault was made on the factory of Mr. Cartwright near Dewsbury.
"The Professor" and "Villette."
The Professor, Charlotte Brontë offered to Messrs. Aylott & Jones in April 1846, was not published till after her death. It is related to Villette in something of the way, though not so verbally and intimately, that Wuthering Heights is to Jane Eyre. The early chapters deal vaguely with a West Riding of Yorkshire town, but the scene quickly changes to Brussels. The Héger pension is recognized as the original of the schools in both novels, but in Villette the place Villette occasionally becomes London as Charlotte Brontë knew it on her visits. Mr. George Smith, the Brontë publisher, and his mother, are portrayed as the Brettons. Mr. Smith showed Charlotte Brontë the sights of London: the theatres, picture galleries, churches, etc.; and we have reflected in Villette incidents associated with her seeing these places.[93] The reader will find a phase of Currer Bell in Paulina—Miss de Bassompierre, and a sympathetic phase of Mr. Brontë in her father, for after the deaths of Emily, Anne, and Branwell, Charlotte and her father were brought closer to each other. And like Mr. "Home" de Bassompierre, he had "no more daughters and no son."[94] Towards the close of Villette we may find a phase of the Rev. Mr. Nicholls, Charlotte Brontë's husband, in Dr. John Bretton, my previous remarks upon whom observe. It was shortly after the completion of Villette Mr. Nicholls proposed successfully, but it would seem by the concluding chapters Miss Brontë expected this. The picture of the disappointment of the old father that his popular daughter would marry a plain character in life suggests to us the disappointment of the Rev. Patrick Brontë in regard to his daughter's marrying a curate. See Chapter XXXVII. Paulina, of course, is the feminine of Paul; and the original of M. Paul of this work we now well know. See footnote on page 120.
The chronological sequences in Charlotte Brontë's novels are seldom carefully ordered: this should be remembered in reference to her record of events in her own life.
"Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant of Wildfell Hall."
Agnes Grey contains simple and natural portrayals of governess life in the eighteen-forties; and the following Wildfell Hall, we may conjecture, is built from evolved incidents founded on hearsay and experience. Whether Miss Brontë had assisted Anne or not, it is certain Wildfell Hall has something in common with Currer Bell's novels. The books connected with the name of Acton Bell, however, are not important as literature in the higher sense of the word; and though a member of Messrs. Smith & Elder remarked to Miss Brontë upon a similarity in the leading male characters of Wildfell Hall to Rochester, interest in it is merely dependent upon its association with the greater Brontë works, and the book does not call for sedulous inquiry.