The most obvious difference between the two manuscripts is that Emily’s
is free of corrections by Heger, while his markings appear on all three
pages of Charlotte’s essay, so that, between the lines, a master–pupil
dynamic emerges. In 1856, he told Elizabeth Gaskell, the novelist who
was writing Charlotte’s biography, that he “rated Emily’s genius as
something even higher than Charlotte’s.” Still, throughout the months
both sisters spent at the pensionnat, Heger paid much more attention to
Charlotte’s work, possibly because, unlike her disaffected sibling, she
responded with flattering compliance. The more he critiqued and
corrected her writing, the more she attempted to please him. (As she
later wrote in a poem, “Obedience was my heart’s free choice/ Whate’er
his word severe.”)
- Sue Lonoff de Cuevas
descensus Averno facilis est