Mary C. M. Phillips

Moon-1885 by Ivan Aivazovsky

Charlotte Brontë ‘s description in Villette is nothing short of mesmerizing.

Here, Lucy Snowe is making her way through a park in which a concert (a “fête”) had been held.   The crowd is thinning and the festivities are over.  Only the majesty of the moon remains.

High she rode, and calm and stainlessly she shone.  The music and the mirth of the fête, the fire and bright hues of those lamps had out-done and out-shone her for an hour, but now, again, her glory and her silence triumphed.  The rival lamps were dying:  she held her course like a white fate.  Drum, trumpet, bugle, had uttered their clangour and were forgotten:  with pencil-ray she wrote on heaven and on earth records for archives everlasting.  She and those stars seemed to me at once the types and witnesses of truth all regnant.  The night-sky lit her reign:  like its slow-wheeling progress, advanced her victory-that onward movement which has been, and is, and will be from eternity to eternity.

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I’ve been reading Charlotte Brontë’s Villette and ruining a perfectly good book as I can’t help but scribble in the margins.  However, I think Lucy Snowe’s wisdom is worth every mark of my pen.

Charlotte_Brontë by Patrick Branwell BrontëLucy reminds me of Anne Elliot from Austen’s strong butwith a servant’s heart.

Lucy reminds me of Anne Elliot from Austen’s Persuasion; strong but with a servant’s heart.

One thing I adore about Bronte’s writing is her use of imagery particularly in Villette’s hallucinatory scene where Lucy’s perception is distorted. Charlotte often refers to Biblical characters in her books. Her analogies name minor prophets and the obscure (similar to the way Edith Wharton uses mythological character references in her books, which Charlotte makes use of as well).  Charlotte, as we know, was a student of art…but also of Scripture.

As a reader and believer, this imagery endears me even more to dear Charlotte.

I found the below video on youtube today (see link below).  It’s from an auction event.  And what an amazing item to appraise!

Oh!  How I would love to see Charlotte’s very own scribbling in the margins!

Charlotte’s Bible

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Today is dear Charlotte’s birthday.

My mind has been full of her words of late as I’ve been reading her book, Villette (not as well known as Jane Eyre, but written with the same passion).

Her words have an almost eternal tone, with every syllable gracefully teetering on the edge of heaven.  What an incredible gift she had!

And yet, she endured such an incredibly sad life.  I suppose that’s what made her such an amazing writer.

No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.  – – Villette

Charlotte Brontë:  21 April 1816 – 31 March 1855

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“I do not think, sir, you have any right to command me, merely because you are older than I, or because you have seen more of the world than I have; your claim to superiority depends on the use you have made of your time and experience.”

–  Charlotte Brontë,  Jane Eyre

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