The Brontes: A New Interpretation
)mmortal Wheat. By Kathleen Wallace. (Heinemann. i as. 6d.)
THE sub-title of this book runs: "A personal interpretation mainly n fictional form "—the italics of mine—" of the lives of the rontes." The surprise to me is in the word " fiction," since I con- ess to finding little of this except in the Lytton Strachey manner of dmirable portrait-painting. If the fiction creeps in, it reads to me ike truth and certainly to a far greater degree than in many of the recent publications written " round " this family.
Miss Wallace divides her book into two parts, separate and yet belonging of necessity much to each other. The first part she calls " Themselves." In it she outlines the lives of the family and their vends and the surrounding landscapes with a knowledge and keen- ess of perception only possible to one who is hershlf an imaginative and experienced writer. The second part she names simply " What hey wrote," and in this section she analyses and describes with nfinite care and subtlety the poems and novels of Charlotte, Emily nd Anne. She belongs to what I call " The Gondal Class," that is, phe firmly believes, with many others, in the strong influence of the childhood-daydream writings on their later novels. For myself, I like to think that the vast French-romance reading of Charlotte and the Hoffmann tales in German that so fascinated Emily, together with the best of true fireside Yorkshire and Irish tales that they heard from their nurse Tabby and their father the rector, not to speak of their own experiences, were as much behind the making of Wuther- ing Heights and Jane Eyre as all the Gondal and Angrian romances. Miss Wallace gives to Shirley. a book sometimes shirked by lesser critics, the place it deserves as one of the best of regional novels with a really interesting and accurate historical foundation. Villette and Wuthering Heights she recognises as masterpieces, and she shows us why, not only by sound quotation, but also by close rargument and devoted study.
I find this book strangely refreshing in the author's denial of what she calls "claptrap psychiatry "—which has been so much used in recent years that Miss Wallace even suggests someone may be driven to finding that Emily had a " fixation for her dog Keeper." Yet another charming trait is her accent on the natural gaiety which, in spite of everlpresent tragedy, the sisters enjoyed. As she says, " they are not always obscured by the ferment of their high wrought brains, these three girls. Not ailing, nor sunk in trouble. The Brontes had fun." How true this is and does it not cry out in their letters to each other and in Charlotte's highly amusing notes to her faithful Ellen Nussey ? Miss Wallace is too deeply read in all the Brontë written material to miss this. She places the light-hearted William Weightmann, the flirtatious curate, for all time by stating: " Willy is always sending presents to-the household ; his naique gift to the three sisters lay in that he and no one else gave them their girlhood " ; and in her sympathetic drawing of Charlotte's husband we understand why Charlotte mar- ried him " in spite-"—and at last ! No Bronte-lover should fail to add this delightful and companionable book to his shelf.
ELEANOR SLINGSBY.
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