I
Over the years, Charlotte Brontë's Professor has
attracted relatively little critical attention—which may be why no one
appears to have noticed the two short passages (totalling little more than a
hundred words) pencilled in her hand on the separate manuscript of its
"Preface" at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.
The manuscript of The Professor is bound with a copy
of
the "Preface," the latter, however, not in Charlotte's handwriting but that
of her husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls; this "Preface" was printed with the
novel when it was first published in 1857, two years after Charlotte's death.
Along with Nicholls'
clarifying note (dated 22 September 1856), the "Preface" has accompanied
subsequent reprintings of
The Professor. Yet the Pierpont
Morgan also holds Charlotte's own pencilled draft for this "Preface,"
complete with her deletions and revisions, thus making it of interest in its
own right (see Appendix). The card catalogue description of it reads: "The
Professor, preface; original autograph manuscript, written in pencil. 1½
p. 8
." It is more than likely that Charlotte wrote out this
"Preface" in
January of 1851, sure in her own mind that her publishers would, following
her successes with
Jane Eyre (1847) and
Shirley
(1849), reconsider and agree to publish
The Professor,
written
five years earlier. They did not, and the manuscript—as well as
"Preface"—was put away "in a cupboard" until Nicholls should bring
it
to light again a year or so after his wife's death (SHB 3: 206-207).
The manuscript of the "Preface" is one sheet of paper folded once on
itself so as to make two leaves; each of the four pages is (length by width)
approximately 18.1 X 11.5 cm (or 7½ X 4½ in.).[1] The "Preface" begins on the recto
of the
first leaf and concludes a little more than halfway down the
verso—hence
the catalogue description of "1½ p."
But, on the recto of the second leaf, taking up slightly more than five
lines, is pencilled the following in Charlotte's hand:
C'est possible—" and he lipped his cigar in a peculiar |
manner
that he had when he was a little posed and | puzzled without being
displeased. "And can I marry or not?" | she pursued. "Mademoiselle, I
don't dislike to put the question | to myself—I am an egoist and like
to
linger over points im-|portant to myself
There is no more, not even a final period or quotation mark.
It is necessary to turn the manuscript upside down in order to read the
fourth page, which now appears as a first page. The surface is covered with
arithmetic; evidently Charlotte had been trying to figure out the number of
pages which one of her handwritten manuscripts would produce in print, for
the vocabulary of "letters per line," "lines per page," and "letters per page"
covers the entire area. Near the top of the page, however, and crossed out
with a large "X" and further overscored with some of the arithmetic are the
following six lines, again in pencil and barely decipherable:
About this time *befel [ab. del. 'occurred'] that grand
['event' del.]—a fête day of | Mlle
Pauline.
*and it was upon [ab. del. 'All the masters'] this occasion I
*enjoyed [ab. del. 'felt in'] to | its fullness the *advantage
[ab. del. illeg.] of my privileged position as professeur | de
pensionnat de demoiselles—I received a note of invitation. | Not
indifferent to me now the small document—nor unattractive | the
scene
to which it offered admission
The crossed-out word in the third line is illegible. The eighth word in the
penultimate line is difficult to make out: "document" seems the most likely
reading.
[2]
