果冻传媒

Charlotte Bront毛 (1816鈥�1855) wrote two novels 鈥� The Professor (published posthumously in 1857) and Villette (1853) 鈥� which drew on her experiences as a student of French and teacher of English as a foreign language in the Pensionnat H茅ger, Brussels in 1842鈥�44.

In 2026, David B. Wilson kindly offered the following previously unpublished essay about these experiences (presented also as pdf here)Link opens in a new window, to support the overall ELT Archive Women in ELT HistoryLink opens in a new window project. David is the author of the recently published book (Cambridge Scholars, 2025), a historical study of the experiences of expatriate TEFLers (teachers of English as a foreign language) as portrayed in novels, short stories, journals, letters, memoirs, biographies, plays and poems. He introduces his essay on Charlotte Bront毛 as follows:

Women figure fairly prominently in my book, though not as prominently as I would have liked. It is a sad fact that they tend to be under-represented in the literature: we get many fleeting glances of them in the writings of men 鈥� as minor characters in novels, as unappreciated colleagues in memoirs, as undeserving lovers in poems 鈥� but rarely anything very substantial about them professionally, more as sexual objects. For example, Wilfred Owen describes his Berlitz colleague Miss Hewitt as 鈥渘o great beauty,鈥� and Flaubert tells us that he finds it hard to keep his hands off his niece鈥檚 English governess. But that, unfortunately, is the sum of what we learn about them and their like 鈥� other than that Miss Hewitt had the redeeming accomplishment of 鈥渢urning out lessons as a mangler mangles,鈥� as if TEFLing for a woman was an analogous skill to doing the laundry.

As an attempt to redress this imbalance, I give a prominent position in my study to the important TEFLing role of the expatriate Victorian governess, a role which tends to be ignored in the standard histories of ELT. Accordingly, a whole chapter is devoted to Claire Clairmont鈥檚 work in Tsarist Russia in the 1820s and to several other governesses who came after her. Then there was Anna Leonowens, the schoolmistress at the Siamese court (1862鈥�66), a formidable lady made famous by the film The King and I, and Charlotte Bront毛, who taught English in Brussels (1842鈥�43) and who then went on to write the first two TEFLing novels (The Professor and Villette). I wrote fairly detailed profiles of these two ladies to accompany that of Claire Clairmont, but unfortunately they couldn鈥檛 be included in the book for reasons of space. The chapter section on Charlotte Bront毛 is now published for the first time here.

Other TEFLing women who feature in my book are Angela Davis-Gardner and Sara Backer, two American writers who wrote excellent novels based on their experiences teaching English in Japan; also, an English woman, Kate Boyle, who wrote a very entertaining piece of chick-lit based on her experiences teaching English to a large and rowdy class of young mechanics in Madrid. But the most important woman novelist of the ELT world is undoubtedly Olivia Manning with her six-volume Fortunes of War, based on the experiences of herself and her husband in Rumania, Athens and Egypt during the Second World War. She merits a large portion of my chapter devoted to the British Council. Of detailed and well-written memoirs, we have those of Diana Ashcroft and Diana Webster, who taught in Finland in the 1950s, one in the countryside, the other in Helsinki. Brita Haycraft鈥檚 story is told in my chapter on International House. Then there is the British Council teacher Felicity Mason (writing under the name Anne Cumming) and her innovations in ESP, which she interpreted as meaning 鈥楨nglish for Sexual Purposes鈥� (see pp. 45 & 362 of Experience). Nor must one forget Shakespeare and his two amateur lady TEFLers: Katherine鈥檚 lady-in-waiting in Henry V and Miranda in The Tempest, whose methods I analyse in my Chapter Five.

I am very conscious of the women one wishes one had had the chance to research in greater detail but, for one reason or another, never got round to. There was Dorothy Richardson and her stream of consciousness Pointed Roofs (1915), in which she tells of teaching English, as a seventeen-year-old, in Hanover. There was the first Orange Prize winner, Helen Dunmore, who left us with some remarkable short stories and poems based on her teaching experiences in Finland in the Turku region after she had left university in the 1970s. But I had already dealt with her in an anthology I co-edited. Another formidable lady who gets little more than a mention in my book, but who would merit a chapter to herself 鈥� indeed a whole book, or several 鈥� is the Canadian anthropologist Isabel Crook, who died in 2023 at the age of 107. She and her husband David were ardent Maoists who suffered badly during the Cultural Revolution but persisted in their efforts to support the r茅gime by all means possible. According to her obituary, 鈥淚sabel Cook and her husband did much good in their adopted country, where they were credited with laying the foundation for foreign-language education, including devising a curriculum and compiling textbooks for English teaching 鈥� and helping equip diplomats of the 鈥淣ew China鈥� with English language skills.鈥� Rod Ellis has edited a collection of memoirs entitled Becoming and Being an Applied Linguist (Benjamins, 2016) which profiles several distinguished women. But these foregoing notes of mine only scratch the surface. There are, of course, many, many more un- or under-researched notable women TEFLers for you to discover and to write up.

The 鈥楳artyrdom鈥� of Miss Charlotte Bront毛

David B. Wilson

Short though Charlotte Bront毛鈥檚 TEFL career was 鈥� lasting little more than a year 鈥� she is not someone we can safely ignore when compiling a history of the profession. For one thing, she was the author of the first two TEFL novels 鈥� The Professor and Villette 鈥� or, as has sometimes been suggested, the same novel as if written by two completely different people. For another, the letters she wrote back home from Brussels are an indispensable source of information about the state of the ELT profession in the mid-nineteenth century and of the daily experience of working within it. And finally, her career provides a classic example of one of the recurrent themes of expatriate TEFL history 鈥� the close symbiotic relationship which exists between TEFLing and the creative writing process 鈥� for it is a truism that Charlotte would not have become the writer she did if it had not been for the two years she spent in Brussels, first as a student and then as a teacher.[1]

One approaches Charlotte with some trepidation for it is hard to warm to her, either as a person or as a teacher. One of the kinder epithets applied to her by recent biographers is that she was 鈥榯ruculent鈥�.[2] In this, her biographers have been part of a twentieth century revisionism which began in the 1920s and which reacted against the self-serving picture of herself which Charlotte had insinuated to Mrs Gaskell, who had then enshrined it in her tendentious and idealized biography 鈥� that of a saintly martyr, the 鈥榣ong-suffering victim of duty, subordinating her career as a writer to the demands of her selfish and autocratic father鈥�.[3] Some, such as Juliet Barker in her 1994 study of the Bront毛s, went right over the top, presenting a picture of her as 鈥榓 moping hypocrite, a projector of venomous blame and vicious self-loathing, a manipulative neurotic, a cold, devious, derivative, masochistic snob, a resentful, dirty-minded, castrating, hypochondriacal old maid.鈥�[4] Muriel Spark, whose standards were high, set as they were by Miss Jean Brodie, had a similar antipathy towards Charlotte, describing her five years as a reluctant and sulky governess in England as 鈥榣ittle short of martyrdom, as much for [her] pupils and employers as it was for [her]鈥�, and then summing up Charlotte鈥檚 final teaching position in Brussels in these terms:

The Pensionnat H茅ger in Brussels is the scene, and Charlotte, having gone there to study French and German, has now become an English mistress in this school for young ladies. Her employer, Mme H茅ger, has grown rather suspicious of the English teacher and spies upon her; Charlotte apparently cannot think why. She prefers M. H茅ger. The schoolgirls are 鈥榮elfish, animal and inferior鈥�. And we are further delightfully informed that 鈥榯heir principles are rotten to the core鈥�. Charlotte鈥檚 colleagues hate each other, and she them. So her letters go on. One of her fellow mistresses, worse than the rest, acts as a spy for Mme H茅ger, is false, is contemptible, is Catholic. In fact they are all Catholic, and in fact, as Charlotte writes to Branwell, 鈥榯he people here are no go whatsoever鈥�. As the months proceed, Charlotte is giving English lessons to M. H茅ger, who seems well satisfied with her work, and gives her presents of books occasionally. Charlotte declares that his goodness towards her compensates for the 鈥榙eprivations and humiliations鈥� which are her lot, but on which she is not explicit. But presently M. H茅ger takes to avoiding Charlotte, having first lectured her on the subject of 鈥榰niversal 叠颈别苍惫别颈濒濒补苍肠别鈥�. She, however, is no universalist; her bienveillance is focused on the object of her master whom she observes is 鈥榳onderfully influenced鈥� by his wife. With curious logic Charlotte now finds she can 鈥榥o longer trust鈥� Mme H茅ger, and driven back to Haworth by that lady鈥檚 suspicions, proceeds to confirm them by writing a series of impassioned letters to M. H茅ger until he implores her to stop.[5]

We might add that, on finally leaving Brussels and bidding farewell to Mme H茅ger, Charlotte is reputed to have said, sotto voce, Je me vengerai (鈥業 will revenge myself鈥�). 鈥楾here is nothing nice about the Bront毛s鈥�, confirms Terry Eagleton.[6] We don鈥檛 need reminding that as writers the Bront毛s, in Spark鈥檚 words, 鈥榞ained ample revenge for all injustices real or imagined鈥�. But there is method to Spark鈥檚 malice, for the compelling theory that she constructs to explain the Bront毛s is that 鈥榞enius, if thwarted, resolves itself in an infinite capacity for inflicting trouble, or at least for finding fault鈥�. And she concludes: 鈥榩erhaps the lesson to be drawn, for any writer with the necessary will of iron, who lacks only the opportunity to write, is that he should prove himself no good at anything else.鈥�[7] Charlotte Bront毛 had to fail as a teacher to become the writer of Jane Eyre.

Let us put some flesh on the bones of the above summary that Muriel Spark provided of Charlotte鈥檚 Brussels career, at the same time attempting a more charitable interpretation of it.

In the summer of 1841, Charlotte had received a letter from the great friend of her schooldays, the adventurous Mary Taylor,[8] in which she described her travels on the continent with her brother and sister. According to Charlotte,

Mary鈥檚 letter spoke of some of the pictures & cathedrals she had seen 鈥� pictures the most exquisite - & cathedrals the most venerable 鈥� I hardly know what swelled to my throat as I read her letter 鈥� such a vehement impatience of restraint & steady work 鈥� such a strong wish for wings 鈥� wings such as wealth can furnish 鈥� such an urgent thirst to see 鈥� to know 鈥� to learn 鈥� something internal seemed to expand boldly for a minute 鈥� I was tantalized with the consciousness of faculties unexercised 鈥� then all collapsed and I despaired.[9]

At this time the three Bront毛 sisters, together with Branwell, were hatching a plan to start their own school so that they could remain at home at the Haworth parsonage and no longer have to endure the indignities of being a governess in other people鈥檚 homes. (There was a family precedent for this because their father had established a village school of his own in Ireland at the tender age of sixteen before moving on to Cambridge and better things.) Their aunt thought this a good plan and agreed to lend the necessary money. Why not kill two birds with one stone, Charlotte thought - go to the continent for a while to improve her French and learn some German in preparation for her future role and, at the same time, have the adventure of travel on the continent and all the wonderful cultural experiences Mary Taylor had so eloquently described? After all, she would soon be twenty-six and time was running out on her. Brussels was selected because it was cheaper than Paris, the schools had a good reputation, and because one of the Taylor sisters would be there at the same time, though at a posher finishing school.

Accordingly, in February 1842 Charlotte and Emily, accompanied by their father, set off from Haworth for Brussels where the sisters had been enrolled as students at the Pensionnat H茅ger. This was a girls鈥� boarding school run by a Mme H茅ger. Her husband, Dominic, taught at the nearby boys鈥� school, the prestigious Ath茅n茅e Royal, but was also employed by his wife to give some lessons to the more advanced students at her establishment. The influence on Charlotte of this gifted and charismatic teacher, both emotionally and intellectually, marked her for life. The result was, in the words of Juliet Barker, that on her return to Haworth two years later,

[s]he had successfully undergone the rigours of an academic discipline imposed by M. H茅ger, emerging as a better and more powerful writer. And she had fallen in love for the first time 鈥� with a man who was the antithesis of everything that she had previously valued. M. H茅ger was as far removed as it was possible to be from Zamorna [one of the main characters in Charlotte鈥檚 juvenile Angrian tales]: small, ugly, short-tempered and, above all, Catholic, he shared only his married state with the hero who had dominated Charlotte鈥檚 imagination for so long. Her unrequited passion for him was to alter permanently and radically her vision of what the male hero should be. The future creator of Mr Rochester and Paul Emanuel was born.[10]

Charlotte鈥檚 early impressions of Constantin H茅ger had not been particularly favourable. A few months into her stay she wrote an ironic description of him which also gives an indication of some of his eccentric teaching practices:

There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken Monsieur Heger the husband of Madame 鈥� he is professor of Rhetoric a man of power as to mind but very choleric and irritable in temperament 鈥� a little, black, ugly being with a face that varies in expression, sometimes he borrows the lineaments of an insane Tom-cat 鈥� sometimes those of a delirious Hyena 鈥� but very seldom he discards these perilous attractions and assumes an air not above a hundred degrees removed from what you would call mild & gentleman-like he is very angry with me just at present because I have written a translation which he chose to stigmatize as peu correct 鈥� not because it was particularly so in reality but because he happened to be in a bad humour when he read it 鈥� he did not tell me so 鈥� but wrote the accusation in the margin of my book and asked in brief stern phrase how it happenedthat my compositions were always better than my translations 鈥� adding that the thing seemed to him inexplicable 鈥� the fact is some weeks ago in a high-flown humour he forbade me to use either dictionary or grammar 鈥� in translating the most difficult compositions into French this makes the task rather arduous - & compels me every now and then to introduce an English word which nearly plucks the eyes out of his head when he sees it.[11]

H茅ger can鈥檛 have found teaching the girls鈥� classes particularly rewarding, but he soon saw in Charlotte (and Emily), older and more mature than the others, pupils of some promise. Emily didn鈥檛 return for a second year at the pensionnat, but with Charlotte, H茅ger took considerable pains, directing her leisure reading, gifting her books and generally encouraging her.

At thirty-three, H茅ger was only eight years older than Charlotte. In addition to a mercurial temperament, he had had a somewhat Byronic and tragic past, which Charlotte might have guessed at, though probably didn鈥檛 know the details of. At twenty-one, already married, he had fought on the barricades during the civil war between the Francophone Catholics and the Flemish Protestants which resulted in the creation of the Belgian state; two years later his wife and child had died of cholera. By the time Charlotte arrived at the school he had been married to his second wife, Zo毛, for six years and was father of a young family. In possible defence of Charlotte and the embarrassing and long-lasting crush that she developed for M. H茅ger, there is evidence that he was flirtatious with his female students and that his classes had a distinct erotic charge such that Charlotte, in her innocence of continental ways, might have completely misread H茅ger鈥檚 attentions. There were stories, told much later by former students, of kisses exchanged and of incidents suggesting improper advances made to them by M. H茅ger. Later, H茅ger seems to have treated the impassioned letters that Charlotte sent him with a Byronic disdain and negligence, using one as scrap-paper to write down the address of his shoemaker.[12]

H茅ger introduced Charlotte to a range of prose styles, on the basis of which she had to write devoirs in a similar style and in a controlled and disciplined manner. She must also be prepared to accept principled, if severe, criticism. Claire Harman, in her biography of Charlotte, has provided a useful summary of H茅ger鈥檚 methods. Though they were newly arrived and with only a basic grasp of the language, H茅ger didn鈥檛 bother with teaching the two sisters French grammar and the like,

but started immediately on examples of classic French literature, and more recent works from his wide and avid reading. His taste was for the Romantics of his own language 鈥� Lamartine, Hugo, Chateaubriand and the essayists Mirabeau and Delavigne, all of whose works he would declaim in sonorous tones 鈥� and his teaching method was the same as he used with generations of his pupils: he would read aloud a carefully chosen passage and meticulously analyse its effects in discussion with the students. Then they would choose or be set a topic for composition 鈥榓ttuned to the same key, either grave or gay, of the model of excellence he had given, but of a sufficiently different character to make anything resembling unintelligent imitation impossible鈥�. [鈥�] At the end of an essay called 鈥楲e Nid鈥� (鈥楾he Nest鈥�), which Charlotte wrote for him in April [1842], H茅ger 鈥� having extensively corrected and commented throughout 鈥� wrote the following trenchant comments:

What importance should be given to details, in developing a subject? 鈥�

Remorselessly sacrifice everything that does not contribute to clarity, verisimilitude, and effect.

Accentuate everything that sets the main idea in relief, so that the impression be colourful, picturesque. It鈥檚 sufficient that the rest be in its proper place, but in half-tone. This is what gives to style, as to painting, unity, perspective, and effect.

Read Harmony XIV of Lamartine, The Infinite: we will analyse it together, from the point of view of the details.[13]

The first devoir Charlotte wrote for M. H茅ger has recently been discovered. Written a month after her arrival in Brussels, it is entitled 鈥�尝鈥橧苍驳谤补迟颈迟耻诲别鈥� and is a fable about an ungrateful young rat who leaves home and comes to a sticky end. Written in the style and using the vocabulary of the fables of La Fontaine and J. P. Florian, one must assume that it was the unadorned simplicity of these two writers which was the first French style H茅ger introduced his new students to. What H茅ger was providing for Charlotte was, in effect, a curriculum somewhere between a university stylistics course and a creative writing programme, though with the interesting (and, one assumes, productive) distanciation effect of being conducted in and through a foreign language. Just like her letters to H茅ger after she had left Brussels, so her devoirs for him were able to say in French things she would never have dared say in English. One of these took the form of a 鈥楲ettre d鈥檜n pauvre Peintre 脿 un grand Seigneur鈥�, in which she announced, 鈥楳ilord, je crois avoir du Genie鈥�.

Charlotte鈥檚 writing up to this point had been prolific, but undisciplined and immature. It had amounted to some 180 poems, a novella, the draft of a novel, and numerous Angrian stories, all unpublished. In her Preface to The Professor, she had described some of these juvenilia as 鈥榤any a crude effort, destroyed almost as soon as composed鈥�. However, she had sent samples of her writing to leading writers of the time, hoping for encouragement. The Poet Laureate, Robert Southey, wrote a kindly but discouraging letter back, acknowledging she had some talent, but warned her that seeking literary celebrity was unlikely to bring her any happiness in life: 鈥楾he day-dreams in wh[ich] you habitually indulge are likely to induce a distempered state of mind. [鈥�] Literature cannot be the business of a woman鈥檚 life: & it ought not to be. The more she is engaged in her proper duties, the less leisure she will have for it.鈥� Write for pleasure, he advised her, but 鈥榥ot with a view to celebrity鈥�.[14] Charlotte鈥檚 main literary activity from her teens until a year or two before she left for Brussels had not been writing for potential publication, but the private one of composing, in consort with Branwell, the fanciful stories set in the kingdom of Angria which were written in minute script and bound in tiny volumes, little larger than a matchbox. These feature the Byronic Duke of Zamorna and his one-sided affairs with women whom he treats with amused and cynical contempt. The central female character is Elizabeth Hastings, 鈥榓 pale under-sized young woman dressed as plainly as a Quaker in grey鈥�. A projection of herself and a forerunner of Jane Eyre? These stories are fascinating both in themselves and as early indications of some of the masochistic elements and imbalanced power relationships which became central in her mature writing, but they were intended as little more than a pastime and for personal entertainment. On returning to Haworth, Charlotte put all these early efforts behind her. In Brussels she had absorbed some completely new perspectives on prose writing. Furthermore, she had received acknowledgement of her talents and the encouragement to develop them (and from a man, for the first time). She had also returned with a calamitous and long-lasting crush on her former teacher, whose presence can be discerned in the various guises of Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre, Louis Moore in Shirley, and, most especially, Paul Emanuel in Villette. And she had returned with much to avenge.

Charlotte arrived back in Haworth in January 1844 and began planning her school. By November the idea was effectively dropped as no pupils could be found. Another failure. Was it a deliberate or a fortuitous one? Charlotte had returned to Haworth armed with an impressive diploma, complete with the seal of the Ath茅n茅e Royal, which certified her competence to teach French. A 鈥榗ard of terms鈥� was printed for 鈥楾he Misses Bronte鈥檚 [sic] Establishment for the Board and Education of a Limited Number of Young Ladies, The Parsonage, Haworth, near Bradford鈥�, at 拢35 per annum for full board and tuition.鈥� The subjects to be taught were writing, arithmetic, geography, grammar and needle-work, with French, German, Latin, Music, and Drawing as extras, each at one guinea a quarter. Laundry was an extra, too. There was no extra charge for conversation with the irascible Reverend Patrick Bront毛 or for the son et lumi猫re displayof alcoholic, drugged-up Branwell having psychotic episodes and setting fire to the place. However, as a result of her unreciprocated affections for M. H茅ger and her supposed persecution at the hands of his wife, Charlotte had returned in a despondent frame of mind and lacked the earlier enthusiasm she had had for the project. Moreover, the sisters were advertising too late in the year, when parents had already placed their daughters elsewhere; anyway, their terms were on the expensive side, and Haworth, a cholera-ridden and windswept industrial village (it boasted 18 small textile mills) high on the Yorkshire moors, was hardly the place a responsible parent would want to send their precious daughter. Instead of the Haworth parsonage becoming an elite finishing school for young ladies, it turned into a bustling creative writing centre with Charlotte, if not headmistress or course director, then at least its pushy impresario. The result was the annus mirabilis of 1847 with the publication of Charlotte鈥檚 Jane Eyre, 贰尘颈濒测鈥檚 Wuthering Heights, and Anne鈥檚 Agnes Grey.

Muriel Spark鈥檚 theory, we have noted, was that Charlotte had to fail as a teacher in order to succeed as a writer. But had Charlotte failed as a teacher? It is hard to think of this plain, diminutive, shrinking and short-sighted person[15] having the physical presence to control a rowdy class of empty-headed young misses intent on disrupting her lessons 鈥� for that is how they appear, at least initially, in her novel Villette. The evidence is equivocal. Two girls who had been at the pensionnat during Charlotte鈥檚 time, when interviewed much later, testified that as a student there Charlotte had been despised for being ill-dressed, sickly-looking (鈥�尘补颈驳谤别濒别迟迟别鈥�) and for being M. H茅ger鈥檚 pet and a terrible swot, and then later, as a teacher, for her lack of authority. When she had trouble in the classroom, they said, 鈥榠nstead of showing anger or amusement, [she] appeared greatly distressed and embarrassed鈥� and would then call in M. H茅ger to read the riot act to the class and to threaten the worst offenders with expulsion. But her letters from Brussels tell a different story in conveying a growing sense of confidence, even triumph, in her English teaching. She and Emily had originally enrolled in the school as students but after the summer vacation there was an arrangement that they could continue with their studies, with free board, in exchange for Charlotte taking over the teaching of English from an unsatisfactory master, a Mr Wilson, who had had to be fired and for Emily teaching some music. The private English lessons Charlotte had already been giving to M. H茅ger and his brother-in-law had obviously shown she was up to it. These, according to Charlotte, had gone swimmingly: 鈥榯hey get on with wonderful rapidity 鈥� especially the first [M. H茅ger] 鈥� he already begins to speak English very decently 鈥� if you could see and hear the efforts I make to teach them to pronounce like Englishmen and their unavailing attempts to imitate, you would laugh to all eternity鈥�.[16]

 

Portrait by George Richmond (1850), aged 34 (left) and Self-portrait (1843), aged 27 (right)

 

It is true that Charlotte had less fondness for her classes of finishing-school girls:

I teach & sometimes get red in the face with impatience at their stupidity 鈥� but don鈥檛 think I ever scold or fly into a passion 鈥� if I spoke warmly, as warmly as I sometimes used to do at Roe Head [the school in Yorkshire where she had taught for three years] they would think me mad 鈥� nobody ever gets into a passion here 鈥� such a thing is not known 鈥� the phlegm that thickens their blood is too gluey to boil 鈥� they are very false in their relations with each other 鈥� but they rarely quarrel & friendship is a folly they are unacquainted with.[17]

These are not the words of a teacher out of her depth, but of someone firmly in control of her dour and unresponsive class and of herself. If Charlotte鈥檚 tiny frame and plain appearance did not inspire much confidence or respect in her fashionable students, then her gaze and the ferocity of her expressions certainly did: Mrs Martineau talked of her 鈥榖lazing eyes鈥�; Mrs Gaskell said that 鈥榟er eyes and power of the countenance over-balanced every physical defect鈥�; and Thackeray captured the two sides to her when he described her as that 鈥榝iery little eager brave tremulous homely-faced creature鈥�. Indeed, the indications are that not only was she respected but she was well-liked, for when it became known, several months later, that she was leaving, Charlotte wrote that she 鈥榳as surprised at the degree of respect expressed by my Belgian pupils 鈥� I did not think it had been in their phlegmatic natures鈥�.[18]And when she was back at Haworth, she was surprised to receive a packet of letters from her former pupils. Charlotte wrote back individual letters to each of the girls. To one of them, 鈥楳y dear little Victoire鈥�, obviously one of her favourites, who had written complaining of their new teacher and imploring Charlotte to return, she responded:

I cannot tell you my dear Victoire how much pleasure the packet of letters I received from the pupils of the first Class, gave me 鈥� I knew I loved my pupils 鈥� but I did not know that they had for me the affection those letters express 鈥� I only fear now that they will exaggerate my good qualities and think me better than I really am. It grieves me to hear that you are not quite satisfied with your present mistress 鈥� do not give way to this feeling 鈥� Be obedient, docile and studious and then I think she cannot fail to be kind to you 鈥�[19]

One assumes that Charlotte鈥檚 popularity was with the more serious and studious students, less so with the St Trinians trio who sat on the front bench and took every opportunity to discompose her.

As Muriel Spark well knew, there is a world of difference between actually failing at one鈥檚 job in the eyes of others and the feeling that one has failed in a more general sense: the apprehension that one is not cut out for the job, that one is wasting one鈥檚 time and energies on an undeserving cause, that one is living a false life. In a revealing letter, written whilst Charlotte was still working as a governess in England, she had expressed sentiments such as these:

what dismays & haunts me sometimes is a conviction that I have no natural knack for my vocation 鈥� if teaching only 鈥� were requisite it would be smooth & easy 鈥� but it is the living in other people鈥檚 houses 鈥� the estrangement from one鈥檚 real character 鈥� the adoption of a cold frigid 鈥� apathetic exterior that is painful.[20]

So it was not so much the teaching which was the problem, but the bad faith involved in having to suppress one鈥檚 true feelings and assume a submissive presence whilst living under another鈥檚 roof.

 

Branwell鈥檚 portrait of the three sisters: left to right, Anne, Emily and Charlotte. Branwell has painted himself out.

 

Back in Haworth, an independent person at last after the travails of Brussels, Charlotte began writing a series of pathetic, needy and increasingly desperate letters to H茅ger, 鈥榤y master鈥�, 鈥榯he only master I ever had鈥�, in which she describes her respect for him, the indebtedness she feels, and her need for continued contact with him. She complains of his failure to reply and that 鈥榙ay and night鈥� she can 鈥榝ind neither rest nor peace 鈥� if I sleep I have tormenting dreams in which I see you always severe, always saturnine and angry with me' Using the vocabulary of her Angrian tales, she describes her inability to get mastery over her thoughts, that she is a slave to memories and fixed ideas, which have become tyrants over her mind, and to those people who say 鈥渟he is raving鈥�, her revenge is to wish them a single day of the torments she has been suffering for so long. The last of these letters, as far as we know, was written in November 1845. By then she must already have begun work on The Professor, which tellingly had the original title of The Master. We know that in April 1846 she was offering the novel for publication and that on the day the manuscript was returned to her, rejected 鈥� 25 August 1846 鈥� she began writing Jane Eyre. But she persisted with The Professor, believing it to be less flawed and more commercial than the publishers insisted, and took to writing letters to them answering their objections to the novel, but to no avail since by August 1847 it had been rejected seven times. In a bitter Preface to The Professor, written after the success of her later novels, she explained that her plan had been to write a novel, which was 鈥榩lain and homely鈥� and true to the realities of ordinary life, rather than one that was fashionably sensational with 鈥榓 passionate preference for the wild, wonderful, and thrilling 鈥� the strange, startling, and harrowing鈥�. She aimed, she said, at a (Biblical) realism:

I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs 鈥� that he should never get a shilling he had not earned 鈥� 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 鈥榯he Hill of Difficulty鈥� [of John Bunyan鈥檚 The Pilgrim鈥檚 Progress]; that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam鈥檚 son he should share Adam鈥檚 doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.

Charlotte鈥檚 aim might have been realist, but the question is whether the resulting product is probable or credible.

Charlotte鈥檚 hero is William Crimsworth and the novel is his first-person narration of the events of his life as seen from the standpoint of comfortable retirement back in England after a successful TEFLing career in Brussels. William recounts that he lost his parents young and was sent away to boarding school. On leaving Eton his well-off maternal uncles discuss his future with him: they suggest that he go into the Church and they offer him the choice of several livings at their disposal, with marriage to one of their unappetizing daughters thrown in as an inducement. William says he lacks the necessary calling and turns them down. He is reminded that he has no private income and so university and establishing himself in one of the professions is out of the question. Does he want to end up as a tradesman like his late father, they sneer. William is piqued and says he is not too proud for that: if it was good enough for his father, it is good enough for him. So he contacts his older brother, whom he has not seen since early childhood and who is now a prosperous northern industrialist. He asks him for a job. The brother employs him as a lowly clerk and, jealous of William鈥檚 privileged education and posh southern accent, treats him in a demeaning manner. William works selflessly for his brother and stoically puts up with the non-stop humiliations his brother devises for him. He lives quietly and frugally in local lodgings and has no social life. But he is not a happy bunny. A slight acquaintance, a Mr Hunsden who, like William鈥檚 brother is a local big-shot, sees what is happening and doesn鈥檛 like it one bit. A gruff guardian angel who turns up at odd points in the novel, he engineers William鈥檚 dismissal from his position, tells William that he is the aristocrat of the family and not cut out to be a tradesman, and suggests he goes abroad to make his fortune. He furnishes William with a letter of introduction to a business colleague in Brussels and as a result William gets a job as a teacher of English and Latin at Monsieur Pelet鈥檚 establishment. His first lesson, during which he is observed by the Principal, provides us with a seemingly authentic glimpse of the state of the art of ELT in the mid-nineteenth century:

鈥�Commencez!鈥� cried I, when they had all produced their books. The moon-faced youth (by name Jules Vanderkelkov, as I afterwards learned) took the first sentences. The livre de lecture was The Vicar of Wakefield, much used in foreign schools, because it is supposed to contain prime samples of conversational English. It might, however, have been a Runic scroll for any resemblance the words, as enunciated by Jules, bore to the language in ordinary use amongst the natives of Great Britain. My God! How he did snuffle, snort, and wheeze! All he said was in his throat and nose, for it is thus the Flamands speak; but I heard him to the end of his paragraph without proffering a word of correction, whereat he looked vastly self-complacent, convinced, no doubt, that he had acquitted himself like a real born and bred 鈥楢nglais鈥�. In the same unmoved silence I listened to a dozen in rotation; and when the twelfth had concluded with splutter, hiss, and mumble, I solemnly laid down the book.

鈥楢rr锚tez!鈥� said I. There was a pause, during which I regarded them all with a steady and somewhat stern gaze. A dog, if stared at hard enough and long enough, will show symptoms of embarrassment, and so at length did my bench of Belgians. Perceiving that some of the faces before me were beginning to look sullen, and others ashamed, I slowly joined my hands, and ejaculated in a deep voix de poitrine, 鈥楥omme c鈥檈st affreux!鈥�

They looked at each other, pouted, coloured, swung their heels; they were not pleased, I saw, but they were impressed, and in the way I wished them to be. Having thus taken them down a peg in their self-conceit, the next step was to raise myself in their estimation 鈥� not a very easy thing, considering that I hardly dared to speak for fear of betraying my own deficiencies.

鈥楨coutez, messieurs!鈥� said I, and I endeavoured to throw into my accents the compassionate tone of a superior being, who, touched by the extremity of the helplessness which at first only excited his scorn, deigns at length to bestow aid. I then began at the very beginning of The Vicar of Wakefield, and read, in a slow, distinct voice, some twenty pages, they all the while sitting mute and listening with a fixed attention. By the time I had done nearly an hour had elapsed. I then rose and said, 鈥楥鈥檈st assez pour aujourd鈥檋ui, messieurs; demain nous recommen莽erons, et j鈥檈sp猫re que tout ira bien.

With this oracular sentence I bowed, and in company with M. Pelet quitted the schoolroom.[21]

We might pause here to take stock. The Professor is a very rum story and scholars tell us that in these introductory chapters, Charlotte, in order to achieve a sufficiently 鈥榤asculine鈥� and plausible back-story for William, was recycling elements from one of Branwell鈥檚 Angrian tales about vicious brotherly conflict. However, Charlotte then softens the effect by giving William some of her own characteristics: in particular, she makes him long-suffering and short-sighted. As far as his looks are concerned, we are told that he is a poor specimen compared with his brother 鈥� puny and with irregular features 鈥� and in his relations with his brother his submissiveness borders on the pathological. At the same time, paradoxically, he is 鈥榩atrician鈥� and an old Etonian. In a way this is plausible 鈥� one does come across old Etonians in the TEFLing world, but they are invariably on their way down, not, as in William鈥檚 case, on the up, or else they are slumming it for masochistic reasons. George Orwell was one such, teaching English in Paris for the equivalent of six shillings a week at a time when you could live on a shilling a day - 鈥榠f you know how 鈥� but it is a complicated business鈥�. Sebastian Cresswell-Turner was another old Etonian 鈥� in his case slumming it, with ill-grace, in a commercial language school in Rome.[22] But this is by the by. Let us resume the tale, since now we come to the important part 鈥� William鈥檚 TEFLing career and his love life.

William shows himself to be a severe but just teacher of Belgian youth, for whom he has contempt, describing his pupils as having 鈥榮hort memories, dense intelligence, feeble reflective powers鈥� and strong 鈥榓nimal propensities鈥�. There is a pomposity in his speech which is matched by his priggish attitudes. He suspects M. Pelet, and continentals in general, of having lax morals and being mentally depraved, which he attributes to the pernicious effects of Catholicism.Apart from not being 鈥榓 bigot in matters of theology鈥�, he reminds us of his other good qualities: that he never lingers over painful and necessary tasks, that he never puts pleasure before business, that he abhors licentiousness, that vanity is the least of his defects, and so on. Nor will he let us forget that he is short-sighted and physically unattractive: he sees himself in the mirror with 鈥榓 thin, irregular face [鈥�] with sunk, dark eyes under a large, square forehead; complexion destitute of bloom or attraction, [鈥�] no object to win a lady鈥檚 love.鈥�

Next door to M. Pelet鈥檚 establishment for boys is Mlle Reuter鈥檚 pensionnat de demoiselles. William is invited to teach English there for four afternoons a week in addition to his work for M. Pelet. He is as severe with the 鈥榗onceited coquetry and futile flirtation鈥� of the young misses as he was with M. Pelet鈥檚 dense and impertinent youths. Mme Reuter, an astute businesswoman in her late twenties, begins toying with William, exploring possible weaknesses in him. He finds her, though not conventionally pretty, 鈥榓 fascinating little woman鈥� and begins acting in a gallant manner towards her, reasoning to himself that marriage to an Englishman (and a Protestant to boot) would help Mlle Reuter overcome the continental and Popish defects in her character: she would come to 鈥榓cknowledge the superiority of right over expediency, honesty over policy鈥� and so develop some 鈥榠ntegrity鈥�. However, one night William overhears from his bedroom window a conversation in the garden of the girls鈥� pensionnat. He recognizes the voices as those of M. Pelet and Mlle Reuter. They are discussing their forthcoming marriage 鈥� and him. Mlle Reuter joshes M. Pelet that he is jealous of William because William is head over heels in love with her. But, she continues, don鈥檛 worry - 鈥楥rimsworth could not bear comparison with you either physically or mentally; he is not a handsome man at all鈥�. William is appalled at this calumny and goes to bed 鈥榮omething feverish and fiery鈥�. But he is nothing if not blunt and direct. At work he intimates to each that he has overheard their conversation and thereafter he adopts a distant and cold attitude towards them, 鈥榓 hardness and indifference鈥�, while continuing his teaching as normal. But there is an unintended consequence of this: Mlle Reuter is turned on by William鈥檚 new hauteur and she begins 鈥榗ringing鈥� to him, 鈥榟overing鈥� around him, 鈥榝lattering鈥� him, and adopting a manner of 鈥榮lavish homage鈥�.

At this point, I think we need to take a short break to cool down. It will be noted that Charlotte has transferred to William her own physical attributes, also her vicar鈥檚 daughter鈥檚 primness and priggishness, and her insular prejudices,[23] and she has transferred to Mlle Reuter鈥檚 behaviour her own cringing and slavish behaviour towards M. H茅ger. This would be highly amusing if it were a farce or a comedy of manners, but it is all deadly serious. We now rejoin the novel at the point where there is a new woman in William鈥檚 life but, short-sighted as he is, he is not yet aware of this new love interest. (I do wish he would stop reminding us of his myopia 鈥� we got the point early on.)

Mlle Reuter has asked William to admit a new girl into his class. She is the shy and rather plain girl who teaches lace-making in the school. Though she has never had a formal education, she says she wants to learn some English so as to get a better position elsewhere. She sits at the back of the class, attentive and conscientious, coming in and out of focus depending on whether William has his spectacles on or off that day. He notices that the qualities of perseverance and sense of duty appear to be highly developed in her. From this he deduces that she is probably not Belgian. One day, during a reading lesson, he notices her pronunciation 鈥� 鈥榯he voice was a voice of Albion鈥�; in another lesson he was surprised by a lengthy, imaginative and largely correct guided composition she has written on the subject of Alfred and the cakes. After the lesson (鈥榮pectacles on nose鈥�) he decides to quiz her. It turns out she is nineteen and that her name is Frances Evans Henri, her father having been a Swiss pastor and her mother English. Both are long dead and she now lives with an elderly aunt, supporting the two of them with her lessons and by repairing old lace. Her great ambition, she tells William, is to improve her English to native speaker standard and to go to England so that she can live amongst Protestants again. William begins to take a special interest in her and gives her the sort of training M. H茅ger had given Charlotte 鈥� reading the English classics and writing summaries and compositions based on them. William is demanding and severe with her (though he stops short of spanking her) and Frances thrives on this. She begins to blossom and fill out, such that 鈥榓 plumpness almost embonpoint softened the decided lines of her features鈥� and she developed 鈥榓 lightness and freedom of movement which corresponded with my ideas of grace鈥�. Mlle Reuter, sharp as ever, has noticed all this and one day Frances is absent from class. She has not actually been dismissed, Mlle Reuter says, but it was decided that a change would be in Frances鈥檚 best interests and in those of the school. No, she doesn鈥檛 have her address.

We are now just over half-way through the novel and Charlotte reassures us of the essential realism of her novel. 鈥楴ovelists should never allow themselves to weary of the study of real life鈥�, she confides to the reader.

William decides to scour the whole of Brussels and to seek Frances out. Eventually he finds her 鈥� in the Protestant Cemetery 鈥� where else? - attending the grave of her recently deceased aunt. He learns of Mlle Reuter鈥檚 duplicity and of the fact that Frances has landed on her feet by getting a job teaching at the English school. They begin spending time together, though still in a master/pupil relationship. William can discern only one fault in Frances 鈥� the regular complaint of all Englishmen abroad - that she cannot make a proper cup of tea. That is, apart from the fact that she will occasionally lapse into French when they are conversing. For this the just punishment, he decrees, is that she must read aloud to him several pages of Milton鈥檚 Paradise Lost. (Later, when they are married - spoiler alert here - the 鈥榗hastisement鈥� for such 鈥榳ilfulness鈥� will have been increased to a one-hour 鈥榙ose鈥� of reading Wordsworth aloud, something most of us wouldn鈥檛 wish on our worst enemy.)

William has determined he will marry her. But there is a problem 鈥� he doesn鈥檛 have a 鈥榗ompetency鈥�. For, with the forthcoming marriage of M. Pelet to Mlle Reuter and in order to avoid future embarrassments, he has resigned both his teaching positions. What is he to do? Charlotte reminds us that in real life 鈥榯he man of regular life and rational mind never despairs鈥�, and William is a man of this ilk. He scratches his head and suddenly remembers that on a school trip whilst working at M. Pelet鈥檚, he had dived into the water (wearing his spectacles that day, no doubt) and saved a boy from drowning. No big deal in itself, an easy task for an Etonian wet bob, but much lauded by the Belgian bystanders as an act of supreme heroism. What if he went round to this boy鈥檚 father, 鈥榬ich, respected, and influential鈥�, to seek his advice on how to obtain a new position? He would do this, in true Samuel Smiles Self-Help spirit, 鈥榥ot so much to be helped as to be put into the way of helping myself鈥�. And in no time at all he is recommended for the post of Professor of English at one of the most prestigious Brussels colleges at a salary three times that which M. Pelet had been paying him and with such light duties that he can easily make the same amount again by giving private lessons.

William is now in a position to go round to Frances鈥檚 lodgings 鈥� he has been avoiding her for several weeks because of his financial distress 鈥� to tell her the good news and to finally pop the question. Outside the door he stops to listen to Frances reciting a poem she has written, as one does, about her feelings for her severe and unforgiving 鈥楳aster鈥�. It is a poem which tells of the 鈥榞ratitude鈥� felt by an 鈥榦bedient鈥� student to her 鈥榮tern鈥� and relentlessly demanding 鈥楳aster鈥�, whose 鈥榓nger fiercely flamed鈥� at the slightest mistake she made but who eventually reveals his affection for her. (This poem of wish-fulfilment, which goes on for four pages, is one Charlotte wrote in Brussels about her feelings for you know who.) William goes in and they meet, as they 鈥榟ad always met, as master and pupil鈥�. The text of the poem is on the table and he reads it, making marks in the margin with his pencil. Then, with an impulse he could not control, he has Frances on his knee, 鈥榩laced there with sharpness and decision, and retained with exceeding tenacity鈥�, a masterly move indeed. She readily consents to live with her 鈥楳aster鈥� always and to be his wife. But she has a condition 鈥� she will not be a mere housewife but will continue working as a teacher. These practical negotiations over, 鈥榓 novice in the art of kissing鈥�, she gives him a peck on the forehead. William marvels that his 鈥榣ife鈥檚 treasure鈥� is someone who is neither beautiful nor rich nor 鈥榚ven accomplished鈥�, but someone who demonstrates 鈥榯he superiority of moral worth over physical charms鈥�.

Thereafter it is all downhill. William instructs his wife in 鈥榟ow to make a cup of tea in rational English style鈥�. He draws his professorial salary and uses the prestige of his academic position to make a fortune teaching private pupils. They prosper but Frances becomes concerned about the disparity in their earnings 鈥� her husband is earning seven times more than she is. She proposes that she starts her own school. The school quickly becomes one of the most successful and fashionable in Brussels, attracting not just the cream of Belgian society but also the county set from England, and the fees are priced accordingly. Frances no longer calls her husband 鈥橫aster鈥�, but the more intimate 鈥楳onsieur鈥�. As the result of hard work, frugality and clever investments, in only ten years they are in a sound enough financial position to sell up and retire to England. Frances sees England, the Chosen Land, for the first time. They have a son, Victor. He will soon be going to Eton where, William nostalgically recalls, 鈥榟is first year or two will be utter wretchedness鈥�. Regarding Frances, William complacently considers how lucky it was for her that she had married him rather than your common-or-garden TEFLer: how lucky it was for her that she hadn鈥檛 married 鈥榓 profligate, a prodigal, a drunkard, or a tyrant鈥�. Frances readily concurs with her Master.

Charlotte could never understand why no publisher, even when she was an established and celebrated writer, would take The Professor on. (It didn鈥檛 help that she submitted the novel in the original wrapping that had been used for its first submission so that all subsequent publishers could see the history of its rejections.) But she knew it was something of a curate鈥檚 egg (curates and their eggs she well knew from the Haworth parsonage); but she wouldn鈥檛 give up and worked at the novel, on and off, for several years in an attempt to remedy some of the defects that publishers had pointed out. In 1847, in the wake of the favourable reviews given to Jane Eyre, she wrote to her editor W. S. Williams (he who had provided Jane Eyre with its punctuation), acknowledging some of the weaknesses of The Professor but saying that it contained writing as good as anything she had ever done:

I found the beginning very feeble, the whole narrative deficient in incident and in general attractiveness; yet the middle and latter portion of the work, all that relates to Brussels, the Belgian school &c. is as good as I can write; it contains more pith, more substance, more reality, in my judgement, than much of 鈥淛ane Eyre鈥�. It gives, I think, a new view of a grade, an occupation, and a class of characters 鈥� all very common-place, very insignificant in themselves, but not more so than the materials composing that portion of 鈥淛ane Eyre鈥� which seems to please most generally -[24]

The Professor is clearly a flawed novel: it begins badly with the clumsy use of the device of a letter to tell William Crimsworth鈥檚 back-story; then, with its first person narration, the author never convincingly inhabits the voice of a male character; the attempt at realism 鈥� at capturing the mundane, unstructured nature of everyday life 鈥� often results in a lack of flow and an incoherent bittiness; and, perhaps most tellingly, the characters are formulaic, wooden and scarcely credible. In addition to its artistic defects, The Professor is an unpleasant novel which emits a bad smell and, as more than one critic has pointed out, creates 鈥榓n antipathy towards its author鈥�. The hero鈥檚 lack of any saving graces, his 鈥榤asterly鈥� behaviour towards Frances, his sanctimoniousness, and his complacent and insular prejudices make him a repulsive character, and France鈥檚 self-abnegation, submissiveness and hero-worship of her 鈥榤aster鈥� are certainly over the top, even by Victorian standards. The problem is that Charlotte鈥檚 experiences in Brussels, which had resulted in her precipitous departure, were still far too fresh in her mind and the novel was written in a state of moral confusion and with a disordered view of human emotions and the workings of the world. It requires little imagination to see that William and Frances are hysterically distorted projections of M. H茅ger and herself. I don鈥檛 imagine many people read the novel nowadays other than literary scholars and Bront毛 completists, and that is how it should be. It is not an experience I would recommend and one which I have spared the reader by providing my (admittedly tendentious) summary of its plot.

However, our interest is not so much in the novel鈥檚 literary merits or demerits but in what Charlotte described to her publisher as the accurate and novel picture that the novel gives of 鈥榓 grade, an occupation, and a class of characters鈥� - in other words, its depiction of expatriate TEFLing and of its 鈥榗ommon-place鈥� and 鈥榠nsignificant鈥� practitioners. As a document of the teaching practices, conditions, attitudes and economics of this up-and-coming occupation, the novel can scarcely be faulted.

So what would we learn about Victorian-style expatriate TEFLing if we were to rely on William鈥檚 account of his experiences? We might note the following:

• The only English language oral practice is reading aloud around the class, with correction of pronunciation by the teacher. There are no communicative activities. There seems to be only one register taught 鈥� a high literary one. When William quizzes Frances in English he has no idea of how to modify his English so as to make himself comprehensible.
• Teacher-talk is always in the students鈥� native language. William had to demonstrate to M. Pelet that his French was good enough to give instructions to the students and to generally conduct the lesson.
• Apart from reading aloud, all other practice is through the medium of writing, especially in the form of dictation and guided composition exercises based on the reading texts: 鈥業 dictated certain general questions, of which the pupils were to compose the answers from memory, access to books being forbidden鈥�. Marks are given for spelling and grammatical correctness. On this basis each pupil is given a class rank ranging from the best to the worst.
• Feedback, at least when provided by William, takes the form of tearing up a poor pupil鈥檚 work without comment and reading aloud to the rest of the class the work of the best pupil, thereby inciting an outbreak of envy and bitchiness among the girls.
• Reading texts tend to be classics of English literature. We noted how William鈥檚 first lesson was reading from Oliver Goldsmith鈥檚 The Vicar of Wakefield. We are told that this particular book was 鈥榤uch used in foreign schools, because it is supposed to contain prime samples of conversational English鈥�. A further reason for choosing English classics was that they served as models of good style and also because their content presented sound 鈥楨nglish鈥� principles. William, in his teaching of Frances, remarked that he 鈥榤ade instruction in English a channel for instruction in literature鈥�, but it was equally a channel for instruction in English values.
• All classes are teacher-centred with the teacher, from his raised platform, in complete control of everything which happens. The classes are large, arranged in serried ranks of desks. William equates pedagogic skill with crowd control, for which his aptitude is praised by both his employers. The only pupils who seem to benefit from the lessons and to make any progress are the occasional studious and plain little girls sitting at the back, such as a certain Sylvie or the afore-mentioned Frances. Despite obvious disparities in linguistic level amongst the students, the teaching is of a one-size-fits-all nature and the activities employed are the time-honoured ones for first language teaching - for example, 诲颈肠迟茅别蝉 (which, incidentally, are still much favoured in French schools).Order is largely maintained by imposing a sufficient, but not excessive degree of boredom on the class. There is no concession to such modern fads as learner-centredness, individuation, rapport or pacing.
• Neither the teacher nor the pupils are supposed to derive any pleasure from their work. The teacher is little more than a technician or a policeman, responsible for the efficient administration of exercises and the prevention of public disorder. He would be perplexed if it were put to him that his job might involve elements of performance-art, music-hall, song-and-dance, clowning, mime or stand-up 鈥� in other words, that his job required a degree of artistry, empathy and the need to please and entertain an audience, rather than mechanically going through a dreary, time-honoured routine.
• 路There is no indication as to what the goals of the English lessons are. For the Belgian boys at M. Prlet鈥檚 academy, is English being taught for its future usefulness in business and trade? At Mlle Reuter鈥檚 pensionnat, where the girls are of various nationalities, is English being learned for social, travel and leisure purposes? These would seem reasonable goals but, whatever specific outcomes might be intended, the teaching materials and methods are singularly ill-suited to meet them. Perhaps English is being taught because it is simply one school subject amidst all the others, something which is taught because it is customarily taught without questioning how or why.
• At all events, William鈥檚 pupils are hardly worthy of the precious gift which is being bestowed upon them in the form of the English language. The boys, being Belgian, are little better than animals, and the girls, being girls and being Catholic, are dishonest, hypocritical and fickle. In both cases they are ill-equipped to respond to the rational and sound moral principles that the English language embodies, and this explains their unresponsiveness to the lessons and the lack of progress they make. If they were but English and Protestant, the learning of the language would come naturally to them.
• On the plus side, schools are equipped with the latest educational technology. William was pleased to note that in his classroom there 鈥榳as a large tableau of wood painted black and varnished; a thick crayon of white chalk lay on my desk, for the convenience of elucidating any grammatical or verbal obscurity which might occur in my lessons, by writing it upon the tableau; a wet sponge appeared beside the chalk, to enable me to efface the marks when they had served the purpose intended.鈥�
• Regarding salaries, Charlotte is very informative. We learn that William was employed by M. Pelet at one thousand francs per annum, with board and lodging thrown in. William later learned that these were very good terms for Brussels, 鈥榠nstruction being extremely cheap there on account of the number of teachers鈥�. In a letter of 1844, Charlotte helpfully supplied the information that the exchange rate was approximately 25 francs to the pound.[25] This would put William鈥檚 basic salary at 拢40 p.a., which was little more than a governess in England would be earning and less than many an expatriate governess: Mr Rochester, for example, paid Jane Eyre 拢30 p.a. and later she was to earn 拢30 p.a. teaching at a village school, whereas Claire Clairmont went to Moscow in 1823 on what her brother considered the miserly salary of 拢75 p.a. A study of advertisements in The Times in the 1840s indicates that the average annual salary expected by a well-qualified governess was between 拢30 and 拢40, though some exceptional ones could command as much as 拢100.[26] But those who advertised in The Times were at the top end of the market: Charlotte鈥檚 annual salary as a live-in governess near Leeds in 1841 was nominally 拢20, but with deductions for laundry it had dropped to 拢16. To put these figures into some perspective, it has been calculated that a middle-class family in England at that time would struggle on an annual income of only 拢100,[27] and that a senior clerk would expect to earn around 拢150 p.a. William considered himself well-off and in a position to marry when he landed the Brussels college job of 拢120 p.a., but that was less than half what an Anglican clergyman or a middle-ranking civil servant would be earning back in England. It is only when William was on an improbable 拢320 a year (8,000 francs), as a result of all the private students he had accumulated, that he was ahead of the game and earning more than he would have had in England if he had accepted his uncles鈥� offer of a vicar鈥檚 living. So a TEFLer鈥檚 financial situation in the 1840s was not very different from that of today, with very wide disparities in salary depending on where one worked and who for, but with the average salary being somewhat below what would be paid to someone in England doing a job which required an equivalent educational background and degree of literacy and a comparable level of responsibility. Then, as now, supply far exceeded demand.
• Charlotte certainly knew what she was talking about when she provided William鈥檚 and Frances鈥檚 salary details, but one must take with a pinch of salt her knowledge of the entrepreneurial side of TEFLing. It seems highly improbable that the Crimsworths would have been able to retire comfortably to England after only ten years of running Frances鈥檚 school. The career of Claire Clairmont鈥檚 married brother, Charles, had a similar successful trajectory to that of William鈥檚 鈥� he had his own school in Vienna, he enjoyed Imperial family patronage, he had more fashionable private pupils than he could fit into a day, his daughters augmented the workforce, and he had written a series of profitable textbooks 鈥� yet after more than thirty years of hard work he still needed to rely on handouts from Claire to keep going and then dropped dead penniless, still in his prime. Admittedly, Charles had had a mistress on the quiet and that hadn鈥檛 helped. Obviously he had lacked the Crimsworths鈥� straight-laced Puritan morality, their ambition and sheer acquisitiveness. But even so I don鈥檛 believe that that explains their disparity in fortunes. The improbability is also that of the 鈥榩atrician鈥� old Etonian William, the man not cut out to be a tradesman, suddenly becoming a successful TEFL entrepreneur, a networking wheeler-dealer, and achieving what his creator had so notably failed at 鈥揳cquiring his own school.

Let us turn now to Villette, which is a reworking of some of the material of The Professor but which was written ten years after Charlotte had left Brussels. Thus it is a novel which had been composed with the advantages of a greater degree of distance and detachment from her powerful experiences chez and immediately 补辫谤猫蝉 the H茅ger pensionnat and with a better awareness of some of the ways in which The Professor had gone wrong. Also, there had been a series of transformative events in Charlotte鈥檚 life, far more calamitous than her crush on H茅ger had been and which had resulted in a more sombre and more universalist vision of life. Most notable of these, after her return from Brussels, were her recurrent worries about the health and behaviour (in Branwell鈥檚 case) of her siblings coupled with the effects this concern had had on her own physical and mental health, and then the traumas of the deaths, within the space of less than a year, of all three of them. From these experiences grew a more generalized apprehension of the role of suffering in human life and a mode of expression which had a Biblical reference and resonance, and these are prominent among the mature features which distinguish Villette from The Professor.

Villette is an acknowledged classic of English literature, but as a TEFL document it is somewhat wanting. But it would be remiss of me, having been so harsh on The Professor, if I did not first say a few words about Villette qua novel before undertaking the more mundane task of considering it as a mid-nineteenth century document of TEFL attitudes and practices. The Professor, as we have seen, is the story of William鈥檚 successful TEFL career, his finding of a worthy mate, and a demonstration of how a firm character and sound principles can overcome adversity and the wickedness of others. It is plot-driven, focusing on events and the external, and its hero, confident of his own rightness in all things, is not much given to self-reflection. Villette is the antithesis of this, being a novel of the inner life, a psychological novel which explores the turbulent and often morbid states of mind of a plain young woman, Lucy Snowe, outwardly unassertive and self-effacing, in the course of her humdrum and rather uninteresting life as a teacher, a character who embodies the expression that 鈥榮till waters run deep鈥�. When the manuscript was finally delivered to Charlotte鈥檚 publisher, he was disappointed by its lack of topical interest and of excitementand, fearing for its lack of success with the general public, offered her the same terms she had received as a first novelist. Many readers had hoped for the thrills of Jane Eyre and were disappointed by what one reviewer sneeringly described as the plodding drabness of its plot, which had been sacrificed in favour of the many 鈥榲iolent emotions of the heart鈥� of so uninteresting a character as 鈥榓 Teacher in a Girls鈥� School at Brussels鈥�. However, the novel did have a limited commercial success and there were some laudatory and perceptive reviews; one such acknowledged 鈥榯he book鈥檚 strange evanescent qualities, the trance-like movement between states of mind rather than scenes鈥�, and another talked of its author鈥檚 鈥榩assionate heart to feel, and the powerful brain to give feeling shape鈥�, comparing Charlotte to George Sand. But Villette was a demanding novel and not to everyone鈥檚 taste. It was ahead of its time, anticipating some modernist, even post-modernist techniques which its readers were unprepared for, and it disturbed for being radically subversive of certain established norms and expectations 鈥� 鈥榯oo subversive to be popular鈥�, said the feminist critic Kate Millett.

The novel was too much even for some of Charlotte鈥檚 staunchest allies. Her fellow-novelist Harriet Martineau wrote a review complaining about Lucy being in love with two men, the blandly handsome and cheerful Dr John and the fiery and ugly Paul Emmanuel, the H茅ger figure of the novel; she further complained of the treatment of love in the novel, both of the kind and the degree of this love, feeling it did a disservice to women to portray them as abject slaves to a single emotion. Thackeray was less dismayed than amused 鈥榯o read the author鈥檚 na茂ve confession of being in love with 2 men at the same time; and her readiness to fall in love at any time鈥� and described the novel as 鈥榩laguey鈥�. Sally Minogue, one of Charlotte鈥檚 modern editors, has well summarized some of the subversive and modernist features of the novel which so discomfited early and even some modern readers: 鈥榠ts daring 鈥榙ouble-love鈥� which raised the eyebrows of contemporaries鈥�; its dwelling on male beauty and female desire; its blurring of male and female lines when Lucy, half-man, half-woman, makes love to Ginevra on the stage as she cannot 鈥� quite 鈥� off it; its placing of the woman, and a plain woman at that, at the centre of her own story, her satisfaction dependent on the absence of a man rather than his presence, and on the presence of work rather than its absence; its sense of the abyss yawning below the social inanities of existence. More than this, it is 鈥榯he earliest English novel which seriously contemplates lasting unhappiness for its heroine鈥�. Even the heroine鈥檚 name is found to be problematic: its virginal coolness belying its bearer鈥檚 passionate sexual yearnings, and its translucence at odds with the opaqueness of her character. In this respect, it is worth noting that for some time Charlotte had been undecided as to whether to call her Lucy Snowe or Lucy Frost, and she had other reservations about her main character, telling her publisher, whilst she was still struggling with the novel and perhaps with a certain wry irony, 鈥業 am not leniently disposed towards Miss Frost 鈥� from the beginning I never intended to appoint her lines in pleasant place鈥�. A further problem are the (post-) modernist technical features: the use of an unreliable narrator who sometimes holds back important information from the reader and at other times confusingly slides into omniscience; the difficulties inherent in a self-reflexive narrative and its appeals to the participant reader; the toying with the reader, for example, in setting up Gothic expectations (the ghostly nun and the malevolent dwarf in the shape of Mrs Walravens), only to dash them by showing them to be pranks or commonplace misunderstandings and illusions; the novel and early use of stream-of-consciousness; and the lack of closure with the puzzle of the ambiguous double ending of the novel.

In the words of one of Charlotte鈥檚 biographers, Villette 鈥榬eached psychological depths never attempted in fiction before and became, unwittingly, a landmark in the depiction of states of mind and self-perception, a thoroughly, peculiarly and disturbingly Modernist novel鈥�. Another critic, Lucy Hallett-Hughes, has elegantly summarized Villette as

an astonishing piece of writing, a book in which phantasmagorical set pieces alternate with passages of minute psychological exploration, and in which Bront毛鈥檚 marvellously flexible prose veers between sardonic wit and stream-of-consciousness, in which the syntax bends and flows and threatens to dissolve completely in the heat of madness, drug-induced hallucination and desperate desire.[28]

Below, for those not already familiar with the novel, is a taster of Charlotte鈥檚 use of the interior monologue, a dense and discomfiting paragraph in which the syntax does indeed 鈥榖end and flow and threaten to dissolve鈥�.This is from a scene where Lucy, who attends M. Paul鈥檚 French classes, has been told that 鈥榦n the next public examination-day I should engage 鈥� foreigner as I was 鈥� to take my place on the first form of first-class pupils, and with them improvise a composition in French, on any subject any spectator might dictate, without benefit of any grammar or lexicon鈥�. This is her reaction:

I knew what the result of such an experiment would be. I, to whom nature had denied the impromptu faculty; who, in public was by nature a cypher; whose time of mental activity, even when alone, was not under the meridian sun; who needed the fresh silence of morning, or the recluse peace of evening, to win from the Creative Impulse one evidence of his presence, one proof of his force;I, with whom that Impulse was the most intractable, the most capricious, the most maddening of masters (him before me always excepted) 鈥� a deity, which sometimes, under circumstances apparently propitious, would not speak when questioned, would not hear when appealed to, would not, when sought, be found; but would stand, all cold, all indurated, all granite, a dark Baal with carven lips and blank eye-balls, and breast like the stone face of a tomb; and again, suddenly, at some turn, some sound, some long-trembling sob of the wind, at some rushing past of an unseen stream of electricity, the irrational demon would wake unsolicited, would stir strangely alive, would rush from its pedestal like a perturbed Dragon, calling to its votary for a sacrifice, whatever the hour 鈥� to its victim for some blood or some breath, whatever the circumstance or scene 鈥� rousing its priest, treacherously promising vaticination, perhaps fillings its temple with a strange hum of oracles, but sure to give half the significance tofateful winds, and grudging to the desperate listener even a miserable remnant 鈥� yielding it sordidly, as though each word had been a drop of the deathless ichor of its own dark veins. And this tyrant I was to compel into bondage, and make it improvise a theme, on a school estrade, between a Mathilde and a Coralie, under the eye of a Madame Beck, for the pleasure and to the inspiration of a bourgeois of Labassecour![29]

By this point in the novel we know Lucy well enough not to be surprised by the unexpected directions in which her mind travels or by the range and originality of her metaphoric reference. The vocabulary might seem archaic and abstruse for a largely untutored twenty-three-year-old (vaticination, ichor, etc.), but this, of course, is only the verbal representation and translation of the visual, auditory and tactile images and their accompanying sounds and rhythms which are rapidly passing through Lucy鈥檚 fevered mind. The central (Proustian) sentence of 257 words chronicles Lucy鈥檚 inner world as her thoughts travel along a seemingly inexorable logical path, beginning with a sober awareness of her own limitations and unreadiness, as a shy and inarticulate person, for the public task she has been set; then, her expression of the inadequacies, at the best of times, of her creative imagination; this leads into a fugal personification of the 鈥楥reative Impulse鈥� in the form of a frenzied and disjointed sequence of images of archaic deities, 鈥榠ntractable鈥� and 鈥榗apricious鈥�, of which she is the servant, not the master; finally, seemingly exhausted by this parade of callous and fickle visionary emanations,there is a return to the reality of the present with Lucy鈥檚 disgust at the indignity of the task imposed on her and the commonplace audience she is supposed to entertain. This is a brilliant, condensed and profoundly ambiguous piece of writing which one assumes must have taken Charlotte considerable effort, though its skilful and exact punctuation she probably left to her over-worked and put-upon publishers, having once remarked to them that she found such tasks 鈥榩uzzling鈥� and that their 鈥榤ode of punctuation [is] a great deal more correct and rational than my own鈥�. We note the multi-sensory evocation of the sullen and fickle deities, a flickering procession of images suggestive of Easter Island figures, Aztec human sacrifices, Grecian sibyls, ferocious Roman animal-gods, even Dr Frankenstein鈥檚 galvanizations. We note the use of sound and rhythmic effects as the archaic visions take hold: the dotted, frenzied, accelerating crescendo as the grammatical units get shorter and shorter, acoustically harsher and harsher, as an expression of mounting terror before relaxing, their energy seemingly exhausted, into hypnotic assonances. We also notice the ambiguity of the sentence, a doubleness characteristic of the novel as a whole: Is Lucy experiencing a genuine panic attack in the shape of a completely irrational dissociative fugue or is it all playful ironic hyperbole? And like all good nightmares, if this indeed be one, it is a knotted contradiction, since Lucy鈥檚 supposedly impoverished and unwilling imagination is represented by a virtuoso imaginative display. It was disturbing passages such as this that caused Mrs Gaskell to enquire of her friend if she ever wrote under the influence of drugs, a suggestion categorically denied by Charlotte, though we do know that she was not averse to putting her characters into drug-induced states (for example, Lucy in Chapter 38). (There is compelling evidence that in her earlier employments as governess and then school teacher in England, Charlotte had often been doped up to the eye-balls on the opiate laudanum.)

Villette is less revealing as a TEFL novel than The Professor since it is far more concerned with Lucy as a student of French and her developing sympathetic relationship with her teacher, the irascible, mercurial and domineering M. Paul Emanuel, than it is with her role in the school as a teacher of English. In fact, she gives only two lessons in the whole novel 鈥� her first and one which could well be her last. This latter is when she is asked to take over M. Paul鈥檚 class, of which she is one of the members, just before his departure for the West Indies, and the pupils are as upset about losing their favourite teacher as Lucy is, though she dare not show it publicly:

The noise, the whispering, the occasional sobbing increased. I became conscious of a relaxation of discipline, a sort of growing disorder, as if my girls felt that vigilance was withdrawn, and that surveillance had virtually left the class. Habit and the sense of duty enabled me to rally quickly, to rise in my usual way, to speak in my usual tone, to enjoin, and finally to establish quiet. I made the English reading long and close. I kept them at it the whole morning. I remember feeling a sentiment of impatience towards the pupils who sobbed. Indeed, their emotion was not of much value; it was only an hysteric agitation. I told them so unsparingly. I half ridiculed them. I was severe. The truth was, I could not do with their tears, or that gasping sound; I could not bear it. A rather weak-minded, low-spirited pupil kept it up when the others had done; relentless necessity obliged and assisted me so to accost her, that she dared not carry on the demonstration, that she was forced to conquer the convulsion.[30]

Here we recognize the stiff upper lip of the English governess and TEFLers will recognize the situation of having to fall back on one鈥檚 hard-won experience so as to maintain a display of normality when one feels least like teaching. Soon after this lesson, Lucy will leave Mme Beck鈥檚 pensionnat to take up the running of her own school, secretly set up for her by M. Paul鈥檚 generosity.

Lucy鈥檚 first lesson at the pensionnat, like her last, was one where she had to fill in for someone else. Mme Beck had originally employed her as a nursery governess for her three children and had observed one of Lucy鈥檚 English lessons with them: 鈥楧茅sir茅e, the eldest girl, was reading to me some little essay of Mrs Barbauld鈥檚, and I was making her translate currently from English to French as she proceeded, by way of ascertaining that she comprehended what she read: madame listened鈥�. Soon thereafter, Mr Wilson, the English master, again failed to turn up for his lessons (not the first or the last time a Mr Wilson would be so remiss), and Mme Beck prevailed upon Lucy to take over his class for the morning, suggesting the easiest thing would be to do a dictation with them. The ensuing lesson is a recycling of the first lesson William Crimsworth had given to the girls at Mlle Reuter鈥檚 establishment in The Professor. We have the same three trouble-makers sitting on the front row, intent on disrupting the lesson. Originally called Eulalie, Hortense and Caroline, they are now ironically given the virginal and angelic names of Blanche, Virginie and Ang茅lique. Disgusted at being taught by a mere bonne d鈥檈nfants, they provoke a 鈥榬evolt of sixty against one鈥�. But Lucy is more than a match for them. She follows William鈥檚 example by publicly humiliating Blanche 鈥� aka 鈥楳ademoiselle de Melcy, a young baronne 鈥� the eldest, tallest, handsomest, and most vicious鈥� of the three 鈥� by summoning her to the estrade, slowly reading her dictation, and then tearing it up. The revolt partially quelled, Lucy notices a girl at the back of the class who 鈥榩ersevered in the riot鈥� and who advantageously was sitting near the door to the book closet. Lucy advanced up the room, 鈥榣ooking as cool and careless as I possibly could, in short, ayant l鈥檃ir de rien; I slightly pushed the door and found it was ajar. In an instant, and with sharpness, I had turned on her. In another instant she occupied the closet, the door was shut, and the key in my pocket鈥�. Luckily the girl was a Catalonian, a person of no consequence, unpopular with her fellows; Madame Beck approved, and

From that day I ceased to be nursery-governess, and became English teacher. Madame raised my salary; but she got thrice the work out of me she had extracted from Mr Wilson, at half the expense.[31]

鈥業 shall never forget that first lesson,鈥� says Lucy; I suppose none of us ever forget our own first lesson; and I suppose we all also have moments of l鈥檈sprit d鈥檈scalier from our classroom experiences when one later thinks, 鈥業 wish I had said or done such-and-such鈥�. One can鈥檛 help thinking that Charlotte was indulging in one such reverie when she dreamt up Lucy鈥檚 treatment of poor Dolores.

Lucy鈥檚 views of her students are not very different from William鈥檚. The Belgians, in particular, she found oily, glib, hypocritical and deceitful and attributed this to the pernicious effects of Catholicism. These sentiments reflect Charlotte鈥檚 own, who, in a letter to Ellen Nussey, had written:

If the national character of the Belgians is to be measured by the character of most of the girls in this school, it is a character singularly cold, selfish, animal and inferior 鈥� they are besides very mutinous and difficult for the teachers to manage 鈥� and their principles are rotten to the core 鈥� we avoid them 鈥� which is not difficult to do 鈥� as we have the brand of Protestantism and Anglicism upon us.[32]

Lucy quickly learnt that she could not rely on Mme Beck for any assistance in maintaining discipline since her employer was a skilled politician who courted popularity with the pupils, ruling the school surreptitiously through surveillance and the use of spies, discretely dispensing with the services of unpopular or incompetent teachers. Charlotte鈥檚 characterization of Mme Beck, as of Mlle Reuter, was clearly based on her highly prejudicial study of Zo毛 H茅ger鈥檚 character and methods. When Mrs Gaskell was researching her biography of Charlotte in 1856 she went over to Brussels to meet the H茅gers. M. H茅ger was politeness itself and happy to talk to her about his teaching methods, his memories of Emily and Charlotte, and to show her some of their devoirs. He also showed or read her a selection of Charlotte鈥檚 letters to him and from these Mrs Gaskell deduced the general drift of things between them but decided to keep mum in her biography. Mme H茅ger, who had read Villette in a pirated French translation, refused to meet her. Obviously, like Queen Victoria, she had not been amused.

Because of Mme Beck鈥檚 reluctance to get involved in anything which might involve any nastiness with the pupils, Lucy had to find her own way of dealing with her boisterous but indolent teenage pupils, deploying methods somewhat more subtle and guileful than William鈥檚 uncompromising and humourless severity:

Imprimis 鈥� it was clear as the day that this swinish multitude were not to be driven by force. They were to be humoured, borne with very patiently: a courteous though sedate manner impressed them, a very rare flash of raillery did good. Severe or continuous mental application they could not, or would not, bear; heavy demand on the memory, the reason, the attention, they rejected point-blank. Where an English girl of not more than average capacity and docility, would quietly take a theme and bind herself to the task of comprehension and mastery, a Labassecourienne [i.e. a Belgian] would laugh in your face, and throw it back to you with the phrase, - 鈥楧ieu que c鈥檈st difficile! Je n鈥檈n veux pas. Cela m鈥檈nnuie trop.鈥� A teacher who understood her business would take it back at once, without hesitation, contest, or expostulation 鈥� proceed with even exaggerated care to smooth every difficulty, to reduce it to the level of their understandings, return it to them thus modified, and lay n the lash of sarcasm with unsparing hand. They would feel the sting, perhaps wince a little under it, but they bore no malice against this sort of attack, provided the sneer was not sour but hearty, and that it held well up to them, in a clear light and bold type, so that she who ran might read, their incapacity, ignorance, and sloth. They would riot for three additional lines to a lesson; but I never knew them rebel against a wound given to their self-respect: the little they had of that quality was trained to be crushed, and it rather liked the pressure of a firm heel, than otherwise.[33]

In her handling of her pupils and in other respects, Lucy is a far more sympathetic character than the leaden William. Another respect in which the two differ is that Lucy expresses a vocation for her job, whereas one felt that William was only making the best of an otherwise rather demeaning situation in his characteristically uncomplaining way. It is true that William also had scruples, one reason why he resigned from the employ of M. Pelet and Mlle Reuter, but as a TEFLer he is always conscious of the bottom line: we learn a considerable amount about the economics of being a TEFLer in Brussels from him, practically nothing from Lucy. We remember that William happily accepted a position at three times his previous salary, whereas Lucy turns down a similar salary increase. This was for a position which involved the undemanding task of becoming a young girl鈥檚 companion, a position which would have allowed her to escape her punishing nine-to-five teaching routine. Expressing similar sentiments to those that Charlotte had earlier confided to Ellen Nussey, Lucy informs the reader:

I declined. I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect. I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons; but to be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me. Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would deliberately have taken a housemaid鈥檚 place, bought a strong pair of gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks, in peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have made shirts, and starved.[34]

Above all else, Lucy values her independence; also, being a teacher gives her dignity and status: she is on the up, almost a member of the professional classes: 鈥業 am a rising character: once an old lady鈥檚 companion, then a nursery-governess, now a schoolteacher鈥�.

Lucy liked her fellow teachers little better than William had liked his. In fact, hers and William鈥檚 seemed indistinguishable, and very similar to those Charlotte had described in one of her letters: one was a 鈥榥arrow thinker, a coarse feeler, and an egotist鈥�; another, 鈥榓 Parisienne,externally refined 鈥� at heart corrupt鈥�; a third was 鈥榗haracterless and insignificant鈥�,but avaricious. However, Lucy seemed to have a soft spot for the German teacher: hale and hearty, back-slapping, and who 鈥榟abitually consumed, for her first and second breakfast, beer and beef鈥�; one assumes she was a Protestant And then, of course, there was M. Paul Emanuel, whom she initially described as 鈥榓 dark little man [鈥�] pungent and austere [鈥�] a harsh apparition, with his close-shorn, black head, his broad, sallow brow, his thin cheek, his wide and quivering nostril, his thorough glance and hurried bearing鈥�. Thereafter Lucy variously refers to him as irritable, fiery and grasping, a terrible exhibitionist, intolerant, choleric and arbitrary, a spy, a waspish little despot, Jesuitical, and more besides. Throughout the novel the two are at loggerheads with misunderstandings on both sides until Lucy learns of his back-story, begins to see his soft side and witnesses his discrete generosity. He then becomes 鈥榤y dear little man a stainless little hero鈥� and, towards the end of the novel, she relates how her feelings for him have changed: 鈥極nce 鈥� unknown and unloved, I held him harsh and strange; the low stature, the wiry make, the angles, the darkness, the manner, displeased me. Now, penetrated with his influence, and living by his affection, having his worth by intellect, and his goodness be heart 鈥� I preferred him before all humanity.鈥� Similarly, M. Paul鈥檚 feeling for her: he is the only one in the pensionnat who, from the beginning it turns out, had really understood and appreciated her. There is even a religious rapprochement: Lucy begins to appreciate in him 鈥榯he self-denying and self-sacrificing part of the Catholic religion鈥� and he becomes her 鈥楥hristian hero鈥�, whereas he, writing from his exile in the West Indies, admonishes her to 鈥榬emain a Protestant. My little English Puritan, I love Protestantism in you. I own its severe charm鈥�. Let鈥檚 hope, for the sake of Christian ecumenicalism and European peace and harmony, that the two were eventually reunited, as was their fondest wish. But who knows what really happened? At all events Lucy, like all good Victorian heroines, came into a legacy, her school flourished, and M. Paul鈥檚 absence were 鈥榯he three happiest years of my life鈥�.

 

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Brandon, Ruth, Other People鈥檚 Daughters: The Life and Times of the Governess, London: Phoenix, 2008.

Bront毛, Charlotte, Wordsworth editions of The Professor (1994) and Villette (1993).

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Eagleton, Terry, 鈥楴othing Nice about Them鈥�, London Review of Books, 32:21, 4 November 2010.

Eilenberg, Susan, 鈥榃hat Charlotte Did鈥�, [Review of The Bront毛s by Juliet Barker], London Review of Books, 17:7, 6 April 1995.

Harman, Claire, Charlotte Bront毛: A Life, Penguin Books, 2016.

Howe, Bea, A Galaxy of Governesses, London: Derek Verschoyle, 1954.

Hughes-Hallett, Lucy, 鈥楥harlotte Bront毛: Why Villette is Better than Jane Eyre鈥�, The Telgraph, 21 April 2014.

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Footnotes