APPENDIX.
MINOR IDENTIFICATIONS OF PERSONS AND PLACES
IN THE BRONTË WORKS.
"Wuthering Heights."
There is not satisfactory evidence to enable the identification of the originals of Wuthering Heights the abode, and Thrushcross Grange. Similar homesteads are found anywhere near the Yorkshire moors. Architectural peculiarities and appointments are ever accretive properties with the novelist of imagination and latitude. This observation should be kept in mind also in regard to Charlotte Brontë's other works. See my remarks on page 57.
"Jane Eyre."
The interior of Thornfield Hall, as I mention on page 35, has been identified with that of "Norton Conyers," near Ripon; externally it has been associated with "The Rydings," near Birstall. Ferndean Manor has been identified with Wycollar Hall, near Colne. A Brontë biographer says this place was set on fire by a mad woman,[92] but the story finds no mention in The Annals of Colne, 1878, or in Lancashire Legends, 1873, though "Wyecoller Hall" is dealt with at length in each work.
"Shirley."
Gomersall and Birstall, near Batley, Yorkshire, contribute to the background of this story. "Field Head" has been identified with Oakwell Hall, an Elizabethan mansion. Evidence shows that intimately the Rectory in Shirley was in the main Haworth Parsonage to Charlotte Brontë. In The Dictionary of National Biography Leslie Stephen says:—"Brontë, ... a strong Churchman and a man of imperious and passionate character, ... is partly represented by Mr. Helstone in Shirley, though a [Rev.] Mr. Roberson ... supplied ... characteristic traits." And Mr. Francis Leyland, who drew much of his information from Nancy Garrs, a Brontë servant, says that the fourth chapter of Shirley, wherein Charlotte speaks of the grossly untrue reports of Mr. Helstone's dry-eyed mourning, etc., for his wife, is a defence really of Mr. Brontë. Helstone was a composite character, as also was Mrs. Pryor, to whom, without doubt, Miss Wooler contributed, though Charlotte Brontë once had a grave difference with her. Miss Nussey, who pathetically and wrongly believed herself Caroline Helstone, proclaimed Miss Wooler, her schoolmistress, as the prototype of Mrs. Pryor. Evidence declares, however, that in many regards this character was also drawn from Tabitha Aykroyd. And we see that Charlotte Brontë, years before, in her Wuthering Heights, had given an ecclesiastical name—that of Dean—to her portrayal of the one woman who alone ever took up the part of mother for her—Tabitha Aykroyd. Nevertheless Mrs. Pryor was in the main a composite character, largely at the service of "story" requirements. Sometimes she is Tabitha, sometimes Miss Wooler; elsewhile she is neither. Mr. Macarthey is said to represent the Rev. Arthur Bell Nicholls, who became Charlotte Brontë's husband.