CHAPTER III MONSIEUR AND MADAME HEGER AS I SAW THEM: AND BELGIAN SCHOOLGIRLS AS I KNEW THEM CHAPTER IV MY SECOND INTERVIEW WITH M. HEGER. THE WASHING OF 'PEPPER.' THE LESSON IN ARITHMETIC CHAPTER V THE STORY OF A CHAPEAU D'UNIFORME CHAPTER VI MADAME HEGER'S SENTIMENT OF THE JUSTICE OF RESIGNATION TO INJUSTICE LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CHARLOTTE BRONTË .... _Frontispiece_ THE FRONT OF THE SCHOOL IN THE RUE D'ISABELLE M. HEGER AT SIXTY DRAWING BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË OF ASHBURNHAM CHURCH (_Copyright of Author_) MADAME HEGER AT SIXTY (_Copyright of Author_) THE ALLÉE DÉFENDUE (_Copyright of Author_) THE GALERIE AND GARDEN IN WINTER (_Copyright of Author_) THE SECRET OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË PART I CHAPTER I THE 'PSYCHOLOGICAL PROBLEM' OF CHARLOTTE BRONTË, CREATED BY A FALSE CRITICAL METHOD We live in an epoch when impressionist methods of criticism, admissible, and often illuminative, in the domains of art and of imaginative literature, have invaded the once jealously guarded paths of historical criticism, to the detriment of correct standards of judgment. Leading critics, whose literary accomplishments, powers of persuasive argument, and unquestionable good faith, lend great influence to their decisions, show no sort of hesitation in undertaking to interpret the characters and careers of famous men and women, independently of any examination of evidence, by purely psychological methods. I am not denying that, as literary exercises, some of these impressionist portraits of men and women of genius, seen through the temperament of writers who are, _sometimes_, endowed with genius themselves, are very interesting. But what has to be remembered (and what is constantly forgotten) is, that if these psychological interpretations of people who once really existed are to be accorded any authority as historical judgments, they must have been preceded by an attentive enquiry, enabling the future interpreter, before he begins to employ psychology, to feel perfectly certain that he has clearly in view the particular Soul he is undertaking to penetrate, with its own special qualities, and placed amongst, and acted upon by, the real circumstances of its earthly career. Where the preliminary precaution of this enquiry, into the true facts that have to be penetrated, and explained, has been neglected, no psychological subtlety, no pathological science, no sympathetic insight, can protect the most accomplished literary impressionist from forming, and fostering, false opinions about the historical personages he is judging from a standpoint of assumptions that do not allow him to exercise the true function of criticism, defined by Matthew Arnold as: 'an impartial endeavour to see the thing as in itself it really is.'