CHAPTER XI.
BRANWELL BRONTË AND 'THE TENANT OF WILDFELL HALL.'
Statement of Charlotte that her Sister Anne wrote the Book in consequence of her Brother's Conduct—Supposition of Some that Branwell was the Prototype of Huntingdon—The Characters are Entirely Distinct—Real Sources of the Story—Anne Brontë at Pains to Avoid a Suspicion that Huntingdon was a Portrait of Branwell.
Charlotte Brontë, who never dreamed of attributing the production of so dire a story as 'Wuthering Heights,' by her sister Emily, to brooding on Branwell's misfortunes, has, however, in her remarks on Anne Brontë's second novel, 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,'—meant by its author as a tale of warning against the evils of intemperance,—intimated that it was carried out as a duty by Anne, in consequence of the impression made upon her by her brother's conduct; and certain writers, questioning the statement of Charlotte that the characters are fictitious, have concluded that, in Arthur Huntingdon, we have 'a picture' and a 'portrait' of Branwell Brontë. It seems to me, rightly considered, a cruel thing to Anne Brontë to believe that she has given us a portrait of her brother in the character of the perfidious Huntingdon. Had her brother been thus vile, she could not have borne to write over the details of his character; were he not like Huntingdon, she could not have libelled him so.
As none of the biographers of the Brontë sisters ever knew Branwell, it is probable that the Branwell Brontë of the biographies owes more to the supposed Branwell of the novels, than the characters in the novels do to the brother of the Brontës. It is Huntingdon's wit, superficial as it is, that has connected him with the ideal of Branwell Brontë. A few traits of his, indeed, there may be in Huntingdon, but they are not the worst of those depicted in that character. The contempt for gambling which Huntingdon expresses may be taken as an instance.
We shall, however, look in vain for any true resemblance between the characters of Arthur Huntingdon and Branwell Brontë, and, certainly, in almost every respect, one is a direct contrast to the other. The biographer of Emily Brontë says, indeed, that Branwell 'sat to Anne sorrily enough for the portrait of Henry (sic) Huntingdon;' but I would ask where that portraiture lies? Huntingdon, be it marked, is not only a drunkard, but he is a libertine, a man who has even the callous brutality to recount to his trusting wife, as she sits by him on the sofa, endeavouring to amuse him, the 'stories of his former amours, always turning upon the ruin of some confiding girl, or the cozening of some unsuspecting husband; and when I express my horror and indignation,' she says, 'he lays it to the charge of jealousy, and laughs till the tears run down his cheeks.' But it was different with Branwell, against whom it has never been charged that he sank to these low depths of criminal debauchery, indulgence, and treachery; and even those who have recounted the story of his passion for the wife of his employer, are compelled to say that he remained pure, and shrank in horror from the advances which they suppose she made. Huntingdon's vicious disposition, too, is so sunk in selfishness, and there is in him such a cold brutality,—as where on many an occasion he triumphs over his powerless wife,—that he is placed in absolute contrast to Branwell, with his confiding, considerate, open-hearted, and generous nature.
It is but necessary to allude to Huntingdon's hypocrisy to establish a further difference between his character and Branwell's; and it is, moreover, very distinctive of Huntingdon's mind that he is, throughout, utterly irreverent and irreligious, to such an extent that he jests at sacred things, and declares that his wife's piety is enough to make him jealous of his Maker. Again he says, when he places her hand on the top of his head, and it sinks in a bed of curls, 'rather alarmingly low, especially in the middle;' 'if God meant me to be religious, why didn't He give me a proper organ of veneration?' This irreverence he carries with him into domestic life, and he invades the sanctity of human affection, and the places the heart keeps holy, with his gross and insensate brutality. How different is this from Branwell Brontë, in whose character reverence and affection, above all things, were strong! Can we imagine Huntingdon dwelling so fondly in the affection of the long departed, as Branwell does in his poems of 'Caroline;' can we imagine him venerating as a precious possession to his dying day the sacred memories of his early years, as his supposed prototype did? What 'swell of thought,' seeming to fill 'the bursting heart, the gushing eye' with the memories of bygone years, could flood the shallow brain of the selfish and unfeeling Huntingdon? And Huntingdon, too, is afflicted with that well-known complaint of the continual drinker; he loses all interest in the affairs of life, and exists in perpetual levity. 'There is always a "but" in this imperfect world,' says his wife, 'and I do wish he would sometimes be serious. I cannot get him to write or speak in real, solid earnest. I don't much mind it now, but if it be always so what shall I do with the serious part of myself?' I would ask when Branwell Brontë displayed this unseemly levity? if he did not always write and speak in solid earnest; if, indeed, he did not live in the very midst of that storm and stress of acute feeling which Huntingdon's wretched nature was incapable of experiencing at all?
Lastly, Helen Huntingdon tells us that her husband is impenetrable to good and lofty thoughts, that he never reads anything but newspapers and sporting magazines, that she wishes he would take up some literary study, or learn to draw or play; and that, when deprived of his friends, his condition is comfortless, unalleviated as it is by the consolations of intellectual resources, and the answer of a good conscience towards God. What, then, were Branwell's mental resources? His thoughts, on the contrary, were good and lofty enough; he was a student of literature, and especially a reader of the great poets; he had, indeed, taken up literary work; and he could and did both draw, and play on the organ; and when he was deprived of society, or cast into trouble, he found his consolation in his literary labours, and we have seen that, for the very purpose of obtaining alleviation in distress, he had written a volume of his novel. In short, he was, as far as his intellectual character and habits were concerned, exactly what Helen Huntingdon wished her husband might be.
If, then, there is no resemblance between Branwell Brontë's disposition, character, and capabilities and those of Huntingdon in the novel, we might, after what has been said, surely expect to find that, in the unique point in which there is a correspondence of fact—their indulgence in drink—there would be some similar traits. But here, again, the resemblance is of the faintest, while the differences are radical. Huntingdon, for instance, is a continual and inveterate drinker; Branwell drank but occasionally, and had long periods of temperance: Huntingdon drinks for the love of drink; Branwell drank in order to drown his sorrows. It is, moreover, made a special point by the Brontë biographers that part of Branwell's intemperance was in taking opium, but this feature does not exist in Huntingdon, though Anne was clearly acquainted with the practice, for she mentions in the novel that Lord Lowborough at one time took it.