The Professor

Sadly, the Brontë sisters all had short lives, and fragile health characterized the entire family. Two years after the death of Charlotte, her friend and fellow novelist Elizabeth Gaskell published a biography of the elder Brontë that created the impression of a family beset by misfortune.

Charlotte Brontë

As a focused woman with a great deal of determination, Charlotte originally wrote in order to secure financial independence for herself and her siblings. She spent periods of time away from her family home, at boarding school in her youth and later as a governess, giving her invaluable experiences to draw upon. Following the death of Anne from pulmonary tuberculosis, Charlotte’s success with the publication of Jane Eyre prompted her to reveal her true identity and name. She frequently travelled to London and became acquainted with a number of prominent figures of the age. Her book was seen as a seminal work, introducing the idea that women could achieve their desires by demonstrating strength of character. In 1854, Charlotte was married to her father’s curate, Arthur Bell Nicholls. She became pregnant, but fell ill and died with child.

The Professor

These days the word ‘professor’ tends to conjure the image of a white-haired, unkempt and eccentric university academic. However, the professor in Charlotte’s novel is young, dashing and a bit of a ladies’ man. The story is loosely based on the author’s experience as a teacher in Brussels, Belgium, and she imagines herself falling in love with her perfect man: a professor at the same school. Charlotte wrote The Professor before Jane Eyre, but failed to publish it in her own lifetime, as it wasn’t deemed good enough. It was eventually published in 1857, two years after her death.

The Brontë family was Protestant and had an innate mistrust of the Catholic Church, and, as such, The Professor deals with Christian division and class prejudice. In effect, Charlotte wrote her good characters as Protestants and her baddies as Catholics, which suited the general mindset of Victorian England. The Brontë family was poor, and Charlotte had a chip on her shoulder about the lack of social standing and esteem that resulted through lack of wealth and connections. In The Professor, her central characters find themselves in that same position. The novel is fundamentally a treatise on the plight of good, honest and modest Protestants in a world dominated by untrustworthy, duplicitous and empowered Catholics.

Many critics have intimated that The Professor should have remained unpublished because it was only a prototype that she herself had consigned to the old projects’ drawer. Its purpose was more an exercise in learning the art of writing a successful novel, rather than actually being that itself. After the magnificent Jane Eyre, The Professor was always viewed as an inferior effort. However, today the story is regarded as part of the Brontë anthology. Just as there is a trend for releasing demonstration recordings of songs for completists, so The Professor is thought of as a kind of demo novel – a point of access into the mind of a novelist who was yet perfect her craft.

Common Themes

Today, the novels of the Brontë sisters are a large part of English literary history. Their styles were quite individual, but all three were able to use prose to communicate with the world beyond the sanctuary of home and there is a thread of commonality in their world view that speaks volumes about the relative isolation they experienced during their upbringing. Their father was a bookish man who seemed not to worry about the effects of solitude on his children. The result was that they grew up to be quite introverted, which was probably why they found company in each other and in their imaginations. They were well-educated individuals, though with relatively little by way of fiscal wealth and reserved in nature. It was considered highly unusual then, as it would be now, for three sisters to all devote their lives to writing novels.

The Brontë sisters were all seemingly preoccupied with thoughts of tortuous relationships and uncertain endings. It was as if they knew they were destined for lives cut short by illness – understandable, given the early deaths of their two elder sisters and the death of their mother, Maria, in 1821, all by the time the three sisters were teenagers. Charlotte died at the age of 38 from complications in pregnancy, having married only the year before. Emily and Anne died of consumption at the ages of 30 and 29, respectively. And even their brother Branwell died young, at the age of 31, also from consumption. In the absence of children of their own, their novels became the Brontë offspring, living on in perpetuity. Patrick outlived his entire family, dying at the impressive age of 84, in 1861.

Like Jane Austen before them, the Brontës existed on the fringes of polite society, where they could observe people and capture their personalities in prose. This made them well suited to writing, but unattractive as potential spouses for eligible young men or inclusion in certain social circles. That marginalization, in itself, gave rise to frustrations, desires and needs that must have fuelled their creative drive. Their novels act as vehicles for self-expression, alluding to their misgivings about life and providing them with strong voices for the plight of females in the 19th century.

The Brontë Legacy

For the three sisters, writing was clearly a way of living vicariously. Their social environment was such that they had rather limited experience of the outside world. Their father was a teacher and clergyman, who kept a tight rein on his daughters and one son, for fear of also losing them. Tragically, he did lose them all before any had reached the age of 40, but not before his three daughters had tasted success as published novelists.

Charlotte and Emily used their novels to effectively live other lives, and they are often described as romanticists as a result. Anne did the same, but in a less imaginative frame, so that her scenarios were less removed from reality. The year 1847 was the most eventful period of time for the Brontë sisters, as it saw all three of their aforementioned novels published – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey.

The fictitious Jane Eyre could easily be translated as Charlotte imagining herself in a scenario where she comes from a background far worse than her own, but ends up living a life that is more rounded and fulfilled than the one she leads, reinventing herself in prose. Emily goes even further, with Wuthering Heights. She imagines different versions of herself living through an epic story of tragedy. It seems she was able to act out longed-for adventure in the theatre of her imagination. Anne’s Agnes Grey shows an obvious overlap between Anne and Agnes, so that a blend of fact and fiction is evident. Anne was more concerned with using her prose to express the real trials and tribulations of her life as a governess, as opposed to using them as a form of escapism, like her sisters.

In a way, the cumulative result of the Brontës’ work is to demonstrate the depths to which fictional prose can be used as a form of self-expression. All three sisters transported themselves into their imagined worlds, but to differing extremes. However, because of their early deaths, it is impossible to know how their individual preferences might have adapted and matured over time.

The social impact and legacy of the Brontës’ work was that it dared to be truthful and self-indulgent in an age when polite society was reserved and reticent about emotions and desires. While Jane Austen’s work described the lives of people somewhat removed from an environment most people would consider familiar, the Brontës described the lives of people who were more human, in that they were not as bound by rules of etiquette and prescribed behaviour. It wasn’t necessary to read between the lines to understand the allegory, because the Brontës wrote from the heart in a new and honest way, heightening people’s idea of the very purpose of literature as an art form.

PREFACE (#ulink_f60eb593-377b-5194-b9a8-2df1676b2eba)

This little book was written before either Jane Eyre or Shirley, and yet no indulgence can be solicited for it on the plea of a first attempt. A first attempt it certainly was not, as the pen which wrote it had been previously worn a good deal in a practice of some years. I had not indeed published anything before I commenced The Professor, but in many a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed, I had got over any such taste as I might once have had for ornamented and redundant composition, and come to prefer what was plain and homely. At the same time I had adopted a set of principles on the subject of incident, &c., such as would be generally approved in theory, but the result of which, when carried out into practice, often procures for an author more surprise than pleasure.

I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs – that he should never get a shilling he had not earned – that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain, should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the ascent of ‘the Hill of Difficulty’; that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam’s son he should share Adam’s doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.

In the sequel, however, I find that publishers in general scarcely approved of this system, but would have liked something more imaginative and poetical – something more consonant with a highly wrought fancy, with a taste for pathos, with sentiments more tender, elevated, unworldly. Indeed, until an author has tried to dispose of a manuscript of this kind, he can never know what stores of romance and sensibility lie hidden in breasts he would not have suspected of casketing such treasures. Men in business are usually thought to prefer the real; on trial the idea will be often found fallacious: a passionate preference for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling – the strange, startling, and harrowing – agitates divers souls that show a calm and sober surface.

Such being the case, the reader will comprehend that to have reached him in the form of a printed book, this brief narrative must have gone through some struggles – which indeed it has. And after all, its worst struggle and strongest ordeal is yet to come but it takes comfort – subdues fear – leans on the staff of a moderate expectation – and mutters under its breath, while lifting its eye to that of the public.

He that is low need fear no fall.

CURRER BELL

The foregoing preface was written by my wife with a view to the publication of The Professor, shortly after the appearance of Shirley. Being dissuaded from her intention, the authoress made some use of the materials in a subsequent work – Villette. As, however, these two stories are in most respects unlike, it has been represented to me that I ought not to withhold The Professor from the public. I have therefore consented to its publication.

A. B. NICHOLLS

Haworth Parsonage,

September 22nd, 1856.

CHAPTER 1 (#ulink_17c4aa64-88cc-5439-8a89-dbacfb0240c8)

Introductory

The other day, in looking over my papers, I found in my desk the following copy of a letter, sent by me a year since to an old school acquaintance: –

DEAR CHARLES,

I think when you and I were at Eton together, we were neither of us what could be called popular characters: you were a sarcastic, observant, shrewd, cold-blooded creature; my own portrait I will not attempt to draw, but I cannot recollect that it was a strikingly attractive one – can you? What animal magnetism drew thee and me together I know not; certainly I never experienced anything of the Pylades and Orestes sentiment for you, and I have reason to believe that you, on your part, were equally free from all romantic regard to me. Still, out of school hours we walked and talked continually together; when the theme of conversation was our companions or our masters we understood each other, and when I recurred to some sentiment of affection, some vague love of an excellent or beautiful object, whether in animate or inanimate nature, your sardonic coldness did not move me. I felt myself superior to that check then as I do now.

It is a long time since I wrote to you, and a still longer time since I saw you. Chancing to take up a newspaper of your county the other day, my eye fell upon your name. I began to think of old times; to run over the events which have transpired since we separated; and I sat down and commenced this letter. What you have been doing I know not; but you shall hear, if you choose to listen, how the world has wagged with me.

First, after leaving Eton, I had an interview with my maternal uncles, Lord Tynedale and the Hon. John Seacombe. They asked me if I would enter the Church, and my uncle the nobleman offered me the living of Seacombe, which is in his gift, if I would; then my other uncle, Mr Seacombe, hinted that when I became rector of Seacombe-cum-Scaife, I might perhaps be allowed to take, as mistress of my house and head of my parish, one of my six cousins, his daughters, all of whom I greatly dislike.

I declined both the Church and matrimony. A good clergyman is a good thing, but I should have made a very bad one. As to the wife – oh how like a night-mare is the thought of being bound for life to one of my cousins! No doubt they are accomplished and pretty; but not an accomplishment, not a charm of theirs, touches a chord in my bosom. To think of passing the winter evenings by the parlour fire-side of Seacombe Rectory alone with one of them – for instance, the large and well-modelled statue, Sarah – no; I should be a bad husband, under such circumstances, as well as a bad clergyman.

When I had declined my uncles’ offers they asked me what I intended to do. I said I should reflect. They reminded me that I had no fortune, and no expectation of any, and, after a considerable pause, Lord Tynedale demanded sternly, ‘Whether I had thoughts of following my father’s steps and engaging in trade?’ Now, I had had no thoughts of the sort. I do not think that my turn of mind qualifies me to make a good tradesman; my taste, my ambition does not lie in that way; but such was the scorn expressed in Lord Tynedale’s countenance as he pronounced the word trade – such the contemptuous sarcasm of his tone – that I was instantly decided. My father was but a name to me, yet that name I did not like to hear mentioned with a sneer to my very face. I answered then, with haste and warmth, ‘I cannot do better than follow in my father’s steps; yes, I will be a tradesman.’ My uncles did not remonstrate; they and I parted with mutual disgust. In reviewing this transaction, I find that I was quite right to shake off the burden of Tynedale’s patronage, but a fool to offer my shoulders instantly for the reception of another burden – one which might be more intolerable, and which certainly was yet untried.

I wrote instantly to Edward – you know Edward – my only brother, ten years my senior, married to a rich mill-owner’s daughter, and now possessor of the mill and business which was my father’s before he failed. You are aware that my father-once reckoned a Croesus of wealth – became bankrupt a short time previous to his death, and that my mother lived in destitution for some six months after him, unhelped by her aristocratical brothers, whom she had mortally offended by her union with Crimsworth, the—shire manufacturer. At the end of the six months she brought me into the world, and then herself left it without, I should think, much regret, as it contained little hope or comfort for her.

My father’s relations took charge of Edward, as they did of me, till I was nine years old. At that period it chanced that the representation of an important borough in our county fell vacant; Mr Seacombe stood for it. My uncle Crimsworth, an astute mercantile man, took the opportunity of writing a fierce letter to the candidate, stating that if he and Lord Tynedale did not consent to do something towards the support of their sister’s orphan children, he would expose their relentless and malignant conduct towards that sister, and do his best to turn the circumstances against Mr Seacombe’s election. That gentleman and Lord T. knew well enough that the Crimsworths were an unscrupulous and determined race; they knew also that they had influence in the borough of X—; and, making a virtue of necessity, they consented to defray the expenses of my education. I was sent to Eton, where I remained ten years, during which space of time Edward and I never met. He, when he grew up, entered into trade, and pursued his calling with such diligence, ability, and success, that now, in his thirtieth year, he was fast making a fortune. Of this I was apprised by the occasional short letters I received from him, some three or four times a year; which said letters never concluded without some expression of determined enmity against the house of Seacombe, and some reproach to me for living, as he said, on the bounty of that house. At first, while still in boyhood, I could not understand why, as I had no parents, I should not be indebted to my uncles Tynedale and Seacombe for my education; but as I grew up, and heard by degrees of the persevering hostility, the hatred till death evinced by them against my father – of the sufferings of my mother – of all the wrongs, in short, of our house – then did I conceive shame of the dependence in which I lived, and form a resolution no more to take bread from hands which had refused to minister to the necessities of my dying mother. It was by these feelings I was influenced when I refused the Rectory of Seacombe, and the union with one of my patrician cousins.

An irreparable breach thus being effected between my uncles and myself, I wrote to Edward; told him what had occurred, and informed him of my intention to follow his steps and be a tradesman. I asked, moreover, if he could give me employment. His answer expressed no approbation of my conduct, but he said I might come down to —shire, if I liked, and he would ‘see what could be done in the way of furnishing me with work.’ I repressed all – even mental – comment on his note, packed my trunk and carpet-bag, and started for the North directly.

After two days’ travelling (railroads were not then in existence) I arrived, one wet October afternoon, in the town of X—. I had always understood that Edward lived in this town, but on inquiry I found that it was only Mr Crimsworth’s mill and warehouse which were situated in the smoky atmosphere of Bigben Close; his residence lay four miles out, in the country.

It was late in the evening when I alighted at the gates of the habitation designated to me as my brother’s. As I advanced up the avenue, I could see through the shades of twilight, and the dark gloomy mists which deepened those shades, that the house was large, and the grounds surrounding it sufficiently spacious. I paused a moment on the lawn in front, and leaning my back against a tall tree which rose in the centre, I gazed with interest on the exterior of Crimsworth Hall.

‘Edward is rich,’ thought I to myself. ‘I believed him to be doing well – but I did not know he was master of a mansion like this.’ Cutting short all marvelling; speculation, conjecture, &c., I advanced to the front door and rang. A man-servant opened it – I announced myself – he relieved me of my wet cloak and carpet-bag, and ushered me into a room furnished as a library, where there was a bright fire and candles burning on the table; he informed me that his master was not yet returned from X— market, but that he would certainly be at home in the course of half an hour.

Being left to myself, I took the stuffed easy chair, covered with red morocco, which stood by the fireside, and while my eyes watched the flames dart from the glowing coals, and the cinders fall at intervals on the hearth, my mind busied itself in conjectures concerning the meeting about to take place. Amidst much that was doubtful in the subject of these conjectures, there was one thing tolerably certain – I was in no danger of encountering severe disappointment; from this, the moderation of my expectations guaranteed me. I anticipated no overflowings of fraternal tenderness; Edward’s letters had always been such as to prevent the engendering or harbouring of delusions of this sort. Still, as I sat awaiting his arrival, I felt eager – very eager – I cannot tell you why; my hand, so utterly a stranger to the grasp of a kindred hand, clenched itself to repress the tremor with which impatience would fain have shaken it.

I thought of my uncles; and as I was engaged in wondering whether Edward’s indifference would equal the cold disdain I had always experienced from them, I heard the avenue gates open: wheels approached the house; Mr Crimsworth was arrived; and after the lapse of some minutes, and a brief dialogue between himself and his servant in the hall, his tread drew near the library door – that tread alone announced the master of the house.

I still retained some confused recollection of Edward as he was ten years ago – a tall, wiry, raw youth; now, as I rose from my seat and turned towards the library door, I saw a fine-looking and powerful man, light-complexioned, well-made, and of athletic proportions; the first glance made me aware of an air of promptitude and sharpness, shown as well in his movements as in his port, his eye, and the general expression of his face. He greeted me with brevity, and, in the moment of shaking hands, scanned me from head to foot; he took his seat in the morocco-covered armchair, and motioned me to another seat.

‘I expected you would have called at the counting-house in the Close,’ said he; and his voice, I noticed, had an abrupt accent, probably habitual to him; he spoke also with a guttural northern tone, which sounded harsh in my ears, accustomed to the silvery utterance of the South.

‘The landlord of the inn, where the coach stopped, directed me here,’ said I. ‘I doubted at first the accuracy of his information, not being aware that you had such a residence as this.’

‘Oh, it is all right!’ he replied, ‘only I was kept half an hour behind time, waiting for you – that is all. I thought you must be coming by the eight o’clock coach.’

I expressed regret that he had had to wait; he made no answer, but stirred the fire, as if to cover a movement of impatience; then he scanned me again.