The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 1Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
General
The Life of Charlotte Brontë — Volume 1
Gaskell, Elizabeth Cleghorn
Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855; Novelists, English -- 19th century -- Biography
having only left Haworth on Friday morning at an early hour.
Her salary was 16_l_. a year; out of which she had to pay for her German
lessons, for which she was charged as much (the lessons being probably
rated by time) as when Emily learnt with her and divided the expense,
viz., ten francs a month. By Miss Bronte's own desire, she gave her
English lessons in the _classe_, or schoolroom, without the supervision
of Madame or M. Heger. They offered to be present, with a view to
maintain order among the unruly Belgian girls; but she declined this,
saying that she would rather enforce discipline by her own manner and
character than be indebted for obedience to the presence of a _gendarme_.
She ruled over a new schoolroom, which had been built on the space in the
play-ground adjoining the house. Over that First Class she was
_surveillante_ at all hours; and henceforward she was called
_Mademoiselle_ Charlotte by M. Heger's orders. She continued her own
studies, principally attending to German, and to Literature; and every
Sunday she went alone to the German and English chapels. Her walks too
were solitary, and principally taken in the allee defendue, where she was
secure from intrusion. This solitude was a perilous luxury to one of her
temperament; so liable as she was to morbid and acute mental suffering.
On March 6th, 1843, she writes thus:--
"I am settled by this time, of course. I am not too much overloaded
with occupation; and besides teaching English, I have time to improve
myself in German. I ought to consider myself well off, and to be
thankful for my good fortunes. I hope I am thankful; and if I could
always keep up my spirits and never feel lonely, or long for
companionship, or friendship, or whatever they call it, I should do
very well. As I told you before, M. and Madame Heger are the only two
persons in the house for whom I really experience regard and esteem,
and of course, I cannot be always with them, nor even very often. They
told me, when I first returned, that I was to consider their sitting-
room my sitting-room also, and to go there whenever I was not engaged
in the schoolroom. This, however, I cannot do. In the daytime it is
a public room, where music-masters and mistresses are constantly
passing in and out; and in the evening, I will not, and ought not to
intrude on M. and Madame Heger and their children. Thus I am a good
deal by myself, out of school-hours; but that does not signify. I now
regularly give English lessons to M. Heger and his brother-in-law.
They get on with wonderful rapidity; especially the first. He already
begins to speak English very decently. 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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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