The End of Villette, Again (20 June 2025)

“At the deepest, most archaic level of Brontë’s fiction resides the vision of an idealized Romantic love.  It controls her earliest work as it informs her last. Although its manifestation steadily alters, it never loses its importance, even in the most placid characters, it sends out tremors from below.” (66)

- Karen Chase  Eros and Psyche: The Representation of Personality in Charlotte Brontë, Charles Dickens and George Elliot (Routledge, 1984)

 It has been just over a year since I finished reading Villette for the first time, and I am still engaged with the text and with Lucy Snowe; coming to appreciate her state-of-soul as well as her life-situation at the end-point of her narrative.  Hence this third blog.[1]  My journey has brought me from a deep concern for her at the end of my first read; having felt that she was likely still in a state of unresolved trauma with regard to those unnarrated 8 years of her life between the early chapters in Bretton and her engagement as companion to Miss Marchmont—toward a more positive consideration of her state at the end of her story.

This change was first prompted by my reading Barry Quales’ The Secular Pilgrimage of Victorian Fiction: The Novel as Book of Life (Cambridge University Press, 1982), in which the author suggested that there is evidence in the text that Lucy may have achieved a degree of self-realization, and might even have been ‘happy’ by the end of her tale.  I had to ask: Had she navigated through life and come to a place where she is herself; alone, yes, but not un-self-realized?  Quales said:

“That Brontë’s heroines … achieve a certain happiness attests to her romance impulse: that her final heroine, Lucy Snowe, can achieve that happiness – “Freedom and Renovation” – only in exile and alone attests to Brontë’s continually darkening sense of the alienating nature of English life.” (50)

Quales encouraged me to consider that her being alone at the end of her narrative – having rejected John Graham Bretton and lost M Paul Emmanuel – was not necessarily a negative state.  I certainly don’t think that myself; as I value solitude as much as community, relationship with others as much as independence.  What his analysis prompted me to consider, however, was that Lucy underwent a transformation through the course of her story, both in the living of it and in the telling of it – and that her state-of-soul by the end is not as sad and unfortunate as I first understood it to be?

This was reinforced and given heft through my more recent read of Karen Chase’s engaging exploration of the role of eros and psyche in the novel.  She has pointed me to specific texts providing evidence of another way of looking at Lucy Snowe at the time when she was writing her story.  For Chase, Lucy is a person struggling between independence and romance; a dialectical tension similar to Quales’ theme of “Freedom and Renovation.”  Chase first made me take notice of Lucy’s avowal of “success;” so plain-stated that I shouldn’t have neglected to take it into account on my first read.  She says—

“The secret of my success did not lie so much in myself, in any endowment, any power of mine, as in a new state of circumstances, a wonderfully changed life, a relieved heart.  The spring which moved my energies lay far away beyond seas, in an Indian isle.” (Ch XLII ¶ 5)

She asserts her success while attributing it to forces beyond her own will; something that is not as often acknowledged as it perhaps should be—the interplay of our own will and desires with those of others.  New circumstances can ofttimes open a person to new life-possibilities.  For Lucy, it is the friendship that developed between her and M Paul Emmanuel and then his gifting her the little house in which she was able to start a school of her own; something that she had been dreaming of doing as her life at the pensionnat unfolded—this gift being an impetus for change and growth.

Chase then pointed me to Lucy’s next avowal; another one that I had perhaps not given as much attention to as it deserved!  Lucy says:

“Do not think that this genial flame sustained itself, or lived wholly on a bequeathed hope or a parting promise. A generous provider supplied bounteous fuel.” (Ch XLII, ¶ 6)

Lucy’s assertion of herself as having or being a “genial flame” is once again humbly attributed to an external catalyst; just as was her success.  It was not self-sustaining.  She did not live for years after M Paul’s departure by hope alone, nor did she sustain herself solely on his “parting promise” of return.  The fuel that sustains her is none other than M Paul Emmanuel’s friendship and generosity.

I have been grappling, as a reader, with accepting this evidence as a true description of Lucy’s state-of-soul at the time she is finishing her narrative.  I have come to a confluence of flow in this regard; it may be part of our understanding of Lucy Snowe, at least, but I would urge that it is not the whole picture.   To rune this out, I began to think about Lucy’s relationships with John Graham Bretton and M Paul Emmauel.  These are the two men in her life in Villette, and the way they respond to her, treat and understand her gives heft to the claim that Lucy sees M Paul as the sustaining force behind her “genial flame” and “success.”

There are several scenes and themes in the narrative through which John and M Paul are being implicitly compared; as persons in themselves as well as in their relation to Lucy.   I want to focus on just one of these themes here; how they each react to Lucy’s confession of having seen the Nun.  There is a clear difference in their reaction, as well as in their approach to the confession and to Lucy herself as the one claiming to have had this unusual, out-of-the-ordinary experience.

Lucy’s first encounter with the Nun occurs in the garret of the school in Chapter XXII, “The Letter” – after which John queries Lucy as to what she has seen, teasing her that if she did not tell him, he would never write her another letter. (¶ 43).  (Note that Lucy was up there reading John’s first letter for the first time!)  Despite this meanness, Lucy submits, as she wants – needs – to share with someone what happened up in the garret.  She tells him what she saw.  And what is his reaction?  To write it off, saying that what she really needs is to seek to be happy.  He says: “Happiness is the cure—a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both.”  (¶ 65)  “This is all a matter of the nerves,” he had said even before she described the apparition of the Nun (¶52). 

Once he heard her story he pronounced, “I think it a case of spectral illusion: I fear,  following on and resulting from long-continued mental conflict." (¶ 63).  Dr John here reduces Lucy to the level of one of his patients.

After his ‘diagnosis,’ Lucy is left alone in her musings as to what happened in the attic.  He has planted doubts in her mind as to what she experienced, leading her to question her own mental health.  Compare this with her discussion with M Paul in the Forbidden Alley in the Garden in Chapter XXXI, “The Dryad,” in which the Nun – its nature and intent – is brought up in a conversation in which M Paul’s care and concern for Lucy has been confessed and made manifest in an act of kindness!

Just before this scene, Lucy had been asleep at a desk in one of the classrooms, and upon waking found herself shawled and her head resting on another shawl (¶ 6).  She wonders who could have done this; who had had enough care for her to keep her comfortable and free from getting chilled as she slept?  Madame Beck seemed the best candidate, but later, when strolling out into the Garden in the moonlight, she discovers the actual perpetrator of the caring act!

She gravitates, as usual, to the Forbidden Alley – her favorite haunt of solitude – which she has not visited since she buried John’s letters in what I call a ‘jar of confinement.’[2]  There Lucy reflects on that ‘epistolary’ burial, which is right below her feet at the foot of the Methuselah Tree, interred just above what is said to be the resting place of the ‘nun buried alive’ in “centuries past” for some misconduct against the rules of her order.

It is interesting that Lucy is here reflecting on her friendship with John, allowing herself to doubt, for a few moments, whether she should have so severed her heart from her hopes regarding John as to have buried his letters, saying:

“I recalled Dr. John; my warm affection for him; my faith in his excellence; my delight in his grace. What was become of that curious one-sided friendship which was half marble and half life; only on one hand truth, and on the other perhaps a jest?” (¶14)

 _but, sobering, realizes that her hopes would never have come to pass.  She sees that it was “one-sided” as well as stone-like and possibly a joke!  She then says, finally, a closing ‘reply’ to John, spoken to him though he is not present, “Good-night, Dr. John; you are good, you are beautiful; but you are not mine. Good-night, and God bless you!” (¶ 17)

This “good night” is echoed by another voice and, turning, Lucy finds M Paul standing quite near her in the fading evening light.  As they begin to talk, he admits that he was the one who shawled her in the classroom against the chillness of the evening, after which a very honest conversation unfolds, approaching a threshold of depth that will continue to be explored as their story unfolds through the rest of the novel.  They discuss his modesty and how he is not impervious to embarrassment; which impresses Lucy, who then feels towards him “a sincerity of esteem which made my heart ache.” (¶ 45).

M Paul then tells her how he keeps his eye on the Garden from a window high up in the boys’ colleges, and how he has long been aware of Lucy’s attraction to the Forbidden Alley; that he has “noticed her taste for seclusion, watched her well, long before” they had come to be on “speaking terms.” (¶ 47).  While Lucy criticizes M Paul for his surveillance, she recognizes the concern for herself and the well-being of the students at the school that it represents.  She suggests that were it anyone else surveilling the Garden from a high window, she might have more qualms; indicating that she already at this point recognizes M Paul’s good intentions in what he does—even if the acting-out of those intentions raises concerns.

M Paul then lets her know that Madame Beck often comes into the Garden while Lucy is secluded in the Forbidden Alley, and espies her, watching what is going on.  The surveillance of M Paul from his window is contrasted with the spying eyes of Madame Beck, for he lets Lucy know this as a warning for her to be on her guard.  While Madame Beck’s surveillance of the students and staff in general can, on the one hand, be considered done for the welfare of those spied upon, like M Paul, with regard to Lucy, however, Madame Beck’s surveillance has more complicated motives!  This information, shared with Lucy, is one more indication of his care and concern for her.  While M Paul sees himself as a benevolent surveillant, he implies that Madame Beck may have less ‘honorable’ motives.

Going deeper into the connection emerging between them, M Paul queries her: “do you recollect my once coming silently and offering you a little knot of white violets when we were strangers?” To which she replies: “I recollect it. I dried the violets, kept them, and have them still.” (¶ 48).  This happened before they had begun to be(come) friends, and for that reason her preservation of the proffered violets carries a load of significance!  These violets from M Paul were in Lucy’s drawer where she kept her valuables; they were there when she stowed John’s letters away in that same drawer for safe keeping.  Imagine_ the scent of the violets from M Paul adding their fragrance to John’s letters?  This reminder of the violets certainly speaks to an initial opening toward their eventual relationship sometime early in Lucy’s residence at the pensionnat!

The discussion then moves toward a revelation between them of something they have both seen in the Garden.  At first M Paul is fishing; he wants to discover if what he suspects about Lucy may be true.  When Lucy queries what he means, sensing that she might know but being unwilling to divulge having seen the Nun – still troubled by John’s dismissive reaction to her experience – he confesses “I have seen, Miss Lucy, things to me unaccountable, that have made me watch all night for a solution, and I have not yet found it.” (¶67).  In preparation for further revelation, he queries her whether or not Protestants believe in the supernatural, and whether she is superstitious.  After some back and forth between them in relation to these religious questions, M Paul confesses:

“Something comes and goes here: there is a shape frequenting this house by night, different to any forms that show themselves by day.  I have indisputably seen a something, more than once; and to me its conventual weeds were a strange sight, saying more than they can do to any other living being.  A nun!”  (¶ 83)

 To which Lucy replies – I always sense when I read it – with a liberated feeling of relief:

 “Monsieur, I, too, have seen it.” (¶ 84)

 This is a significant moment in the story, as in it, Lucy begins to recognize in M Paul a kindred spirit.  While his attitudes towards her are often patronizing and even overbearing, he struggles, through the course of the novel, to achieve a better understanding of Lucy, until his eventual profession that “I know you, Lucy Snowe,” rings truer.

M Paul is open to extra-ordinary experience, and in his sharing with Lucy that he has also seen the Nun – whatever and whomever it may be – he does not reduce her to a subordinate position in regard to himself.  They seem to me more like equals in this exchange; the acceptance of one another’s equality being a necessary basis of true friendship – each acknowledging an experience the other has had, and neither rationalizing the other person’s experience away.  Whereas John ‘stood above’ Lucy in his evaluation of her experience of the Nun, M Paul is confessing to Lucy that he has seen a ‘something’ and is hoping Lucy might accept his acknowledgment of it.  She does.

M Paul’s confession frees Lucy from the doubts she has had as to the reality of what she has actually seen; the Nun! – regardless of what or who the Nun may be.  This shared avowal of having seen a ‘something’ in the Garden is then confirmed at the experiential level by another ‘apparition’ of the Nun, right after their mutual confession!  They both see her!

His confession and then the strange experience that they share reveals to Lucy that in M Paul she has found someone who, while oft too-assuredly asserting that he does in fact ‘know her,’ she has something in common with; their state-of-soul and their bearing toward the world are in some sense in alignment, though they are different persons from differing backgrounds.  These differences – even the religious ones – they eventually come to accept and affirm in their equality as true friends.

There are other moments in the narrative when M Paul is shown to be a better friend to Lucy than John Graham Bretton ever was or could be.  While her feelings for John are never completely assuaged (she admits at one point that she dug-up the letters and re-read them later in her life) by this point in the novel she clearly realizes that he is not ‘for her,’ nor her ‘for him.’  Their relationship would have perhaps remained ‘superficial’ or at least ‘formal,’ whereas Lucy desires depth; depth of feeling and passionate, significant experiences.  I was as stunned as she was, I think, when John confessed to her that, had she been a boy back in Bretton, instea of a girl, they should have been ‘great friends!’[3]  _i.e., ‘just friends.’

By counterpoint, her feelings for M Paul Emmanuel are deepening as they journey through the novel together until their love becomes manifest and true friendship is avowed.  He mentors her, but allows her to maintain her independence.  She learns from him without being reduced to being ‘just a student.’  She stands up to him; she is free to criticize him and the way he treats her—helping to free him from certain cultural and personal biases he has had toward her.  They are friends sharing together in an experience of learning and growing in relationship with each other.

How does this analysis inform for me the question as to Lucy’s state-of-soul at the end of the novel?  How is she faring?  How does she stand in relation to her life and her experiences; to John and M Paul especially?  Is she (1) successful and contented, or (2) succeeding in the world, as a teacher, yet still not fully resolved with regard to her losses; first that of her family and second, the loss of M Paul?

On the one hand, she professes her success and attributes it to M Paul’s influence, his gift of the school, and his mentoring of her before he left on his voyage.  She is a “genial flame,” “genial” being an adjective related to cheerfulness, cordiality, being warm and amiable, friendly and even affable.  On the other hand, we have the three storms she passes through; the first storm being a metaphor for the tragedy of circumstances she underwent during that unnarrated 8-year period between chapter III and chapter IV. Though no actual external ‘storm’ occurred, she uses the metaphor of “storm” to express – without explaining the particulars – how her life became a “shipwreck.”  The second “storm” – both an actual and an existential one – brought about her collapse on the steps of the Beguine Church (Chapter XV, “The Long Vacation” ¶’s 54-55); the description of the storm being resonant with that of a storm at sea; herself once again being the ship that is being wrecked.  She sank, but then she rose again.  The third storm is that which took M Paul.  He died in what was probably a massive hurricane on the Atlantic Ocean.  What kind of storm did that cause in Lucy’s soul?  The reader is not told.

Though the last two storms are actual meteorological events, one can easily imagine, as the reader, what the emotional and psychological effect of those storms might have been upon her.  Of the second storm we have an account, as poignant as brief.  When she awakes afterwards, she finds herself in a ‘replica’ of the Bretton house she visited as a girl, and muses whether or not she is dreaming or dead and passed over into an Otherworld.  Much to her surprise, she finds herself in the company of Mrs Bretton, and is soon reunited with John and Paulina.  This fosters a noticeable change in Lucy’s life; she grows and matures through the experience.  How does she respond to the third storm and the loss of M Paul?  As with the first “storm,” she does not say.  In fact, she prevaricates and does not describe the actual events which took place around that loss in any more than a summary way.  It takes less than a page to share with us the loss of M Paul Emmanuel!

Only two paragraphs describe the assumed shipwreck at sea in which M Paul was lost.  I still sense – as I did on my first read – that her trauma over the loss of M Paul may be manifest in the disruption of her narrative at that point, when she suddenly leaves off a description of the disaster and says:

“Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life.” (Chapter XLII, ¶ 17)

Only two lines follow this disruption, relating the long and happy lives of Madame Beck, Madame Walravens and Père Silas.  As such, the paragraph above first seemed to me like an evasion of a narrative that could have been given; and perhaps suggests a reluctance – even an inability – even after a number of years (untallied in the narrative itself) to face or reconcile herself with what happened.  Or is it simply that she no longer has any need – psychological or emotional – to go over the story of her loss of M Paul, once more, now for her readers?

So what do I now understand about Lucy at the end of her story?

Is she a success and a happy, congenial, etc., person, living the life of a teacher in her own school, thanks to the generosity of M Paul?  Does that, or could that possibly, sum her up?  Or is this avowal of success a stance – a plausibly necessary one – by and in which she persists in her career over the course of however many years it has been since M Paul’s death, making the most of what she has and trying not to allow the storms that have hit her wreck her ship ultimately?

I am moved by all of these reflections toward the second possibility.  I think she had, by the end, steeled herself and lived her life as well as she could, as a reasonably independent woman, given what she has been through, and in that way is a ‘success,’ though not in the superficial sense in which that term is usually bandied about.  She has weathered the storms and come through still being functional and able to live as fully as any mortal can in the circumstances in which they find themselves, having made the choices they have made and weathered the consequences resulting from those choices.  In Lucy’s case, much of what she has weathered was not a direct result of her choices, but indirectly flows from choices arising through and after what has happened to her.  She is a survivor.

Seen in this second sense, I have a great respect for Lucy Snowe, and while I am still trying to understand – much less comprehend – her pilgrim-like journey through the story on many levels; through the various experiences she has had and how she responded to them—and while I don’t think it probable that I will ever ‘understand’ her in any full psychological sense – can anyone really be so understood? (I don’t think so!) – I resonate with her story and will no doubt read this novel again (and again) in the years to come.

The understanding at which I have now arrived regarding Lucy Snowe allows a blending of my initial reaction to the ending with the subsequent emendations – via reading Quales and Chase – showing that there was indeed a positive aspect to it.  After all of my reflection on the end of Villette, I am also encouraged to allow this ending to stand as ambiguous; it is ultimately left to us as readers of her story to try and understand her state-of-soul in the later years of her life, when she is a ‘gray-haired old woman.’

To those who have read the novel, would you agree at all with this analysis and the stance I have come to as to Lucy’s state-of-soul at the end of the novel?   I would be curious to know.

- Montague Whitsel 

 

Finis

 

[1] “Jane, Shirley & Lucy Snowe” (28 August 2024) and then “The End of Villette – Reconsidered” (17 October 2024)

[2] “Jar of Confinement” – in Chapter XXVI “A Burial” Lucy engages in what seems to me like an old magical ritual I am familiar with from occult literature, the purpose of which is the containing and/or preserving of some object.  Lucy’s going to an old “Broker’s Shoppe,” whereat she found a jar in amongst “ancient” things and then the way in which she treated it (¶’s 23-27), sealing John’s letters within it and then burying it, reminds me very much of this old occult ritual.  That she buries the jar beneath the old, mysterious Methuselah tree – beneath which a nun was said to have been buried alive – connects the ritual with the protective forces of the Underworld.

[3] In Chapter XXVII The Hotel Crecy, John says: “I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl—my mother’s god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends: our opinions would have melted into each other.”  -- which stings Lucy’s conscience and her understanding of her relationship with John.

Reason, Feeling and Imagination in Villette (13 April 2025)

“The essential meaning of the Romantic emphasis on feeling is not cultivation of one quality or power at the expense of others, but the pursuit of an ideal of unity or compleatness of being.” (10)

‑ David Perkins (ed)  English Romantic Writers (1967)

 Since finishing my re-read of Villette this winter, I have been doing word studies.  One of the most recent has been for every use of the word “Imagination,” of which there are only 12 in the entire text.  While several instances have a rather simple usage and implications, one passage in particular stands out as revealing something about the character of Lucy and her life-philosophy in relation to Imagination, involving Reason and Feeling.  This passage comes in Chapter XXI – “The Reaction” – when, during a struggle between Reason and Feeling, Lucy appeals to Imagination to arbitrate between them.

[If you have not read the novel and do not want spoilers, please read no further.]

At this point in her story, Lucy has returned to the pensionnat after spending some months with the Brettons in La Terrasse.   When John Bretton drops her off, he promises to write her letters; sensing she might feel alone and isolated being back at the school and not with him and his family. (¶ 3)  Lucy questions the offer (¶ 18), assuming Dr John is too busy and important a man to trifle with writing letters to her, her Reason – here making its first appearance in the coming conflict – telling her not to expect more than one such letter (¶ 19).  Lucy argues with Reason that, as she is not eloquent or of strong physical presence, that a letter might be the best way to communicate one’s feelings. (¶ 24):

Reason only answered, “At your peril you cherish that idea, or suffer its influence to animate any writing of yours!”

 

“But if I feel, may I _never_ express?”

 

“_Never!_” declared Reason.   (¶s 25-27)

Lucy tells us that Reason laid a withering hand on her shoulder, in this moment, and that her ear ‘froze’ as Reason gave this command!  Thereinafter begins a debate between Reason and Feeling; Feeling telling Lucy she must drink in all that John will write and then write him back expressively of her own reaction and feelings.  Then, after she has imagined writing such an attentive, expressive and grateful reply, Reason steps in and sternly assures her that it would be foolish to reply in such terms, insisting that she must destroy any such letter, should she ever write it!  Lucy tells us:

I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never—never—oh, hard word! This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. [1] (¶28)

Where does this stance of her Reason come from?  It may well stem from what Lucy herself has actually experienced; which has kept her from any broader understanding what life-in-the-world might – or could – really be.  The eight-year hiatus – between the early Bretton chapters and the Miss Marchmont chapter; wherein some undisclosed tragedy unfolded – is where her Reason has weighed anchor.  She continues to draw her ‘truth’ from that fateful period as a sentient, reasoning person now in her mid-20’s, not – at least yet – having had disconfirming experiences that might serve to re-educate her Reason.

             This all-too-often happens to people whose lives have been hard and treacherous, especially if unbearably dehumanizing, from an early age—giving rise to the belief that life can only be a trial to be endured, and nothing – or at least little – more.  You cannot but feel for those persons for whom their Reason has been entrained only by the awful things they have experienced.  She avers:

    Reason might be right; …

I am sad for Lucy when she says this, not because ‘Reason’ is intrinsically some villain, but because hers is so badly grounded.  Yes, Reason is in part right; but so is Feeling, in part.  Unfortunately, Lucy has not had much experience to assure her that life is other than what her Reason now tells her.

            As Reason holds her down, oppressing her with Her logic, Lucy rebels and turns to another source of inspiration; Imagination – whom, she says, understands her and her longings.  Lucy, having called Reason a Hag, now speaks of liberating herself from Reason, if only for a short time – calling upon Imagination as a “divine” persona, saying—

… yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination—_her_ soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine Hope.  We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible revenge that awaits our return. (¶ 28)

I revel with her when she says she is ready to defy the tyrant (as we should rightly defy all tyrants) and rush out from under the oppressive, withering hand!  Fortunately for her, Lucy has this other divine power to which she can appeal; Imagination!

             This is a deep-rooted theme, in which the Imagination is seen to be able to empower us, enabling us to break-open our acquired bonds; hopefully for the better or at least to better see the truth of ourselves and our situation in life—whether these bonds be sociocultural, psychological or spiritual.  While Reason, properly used, can enable us to see that which limits and constrains_ as well as that which nurtures and empowers_ us, Romanticists generally understood that, when it is vaunted up as the supreme power over our other ‘faculties,’ it may become a drying, constraining force in one’s life.

            Reason, from a Romanticist point of view, was considered not only useful but a valuable ‘tool’ facilitating greater insight into life, promoting a non-superstitious understanding of Earth & Cosmos and our role and place in this physical dimension of reality.[2]  However, left to its own devices (i.e., logic, critical thinking, the scientific method—all of which are good when wisely wielded), uncomplemented by other ‘faculties’ such as emotion and intuition, it can become a barrier to the pursuit of wisdom; both about the Natural world and ourselves as a manifestation of the Cosmos.

             Feeling, on the other hand, at least when untethered from Reason, tends to bend toward sentimentalism (in the sense of over-vaunted emotion; an emotional response not in proportion to the object of that emotion).  Romanticists, as well as many adherents to the principles of the Enlightenment, saw the problem with excessive emotional response; of being so subsumed in one’s emotions that one is in danger of being existentially incapacitated; unable to deal with the realities of life and the world.

  Lucy’s debate here, between Reason and Feeling, vividly dramatizes this dilemma; one with which we still struggle today.  Her emotions want her to express everything she feels for John Graham, anticipating the wondrous happiness she will have in response to getting his first letter.  A perfectly natural response, and one many of us have probably had; in one form or another, at one time or another and possibly many times in our lives, if we’ve been fortunate.  But then in steps Reason, conditioned by Lucy’s past experiences, and counterdicts the honest passion she feels in response to the possibility of receiving a letter from John.  I take it that, given what little we understand of her past, she possibly never had a friend write her a letter before?  _Just a supposition.  If so, I can imagine the excitement that first communique might stir up; indeed, I remember the moment in my own young life!  But her Reason is the dominant authority figure in her world, undermining and attempting to block Lucy’s self-expression at every turn, nurturing her fear of rejection, which I believe haunts her at a deep level.

Unfortunately, our Reason can only process the ‘data’ it has been fed via our experiences; which include internal as well as external experiences—and the intuitions we may have had in reflecting upon those experiences.  Beyond intuition and experience, education plays a heady role in forming a correctly grounded and life-enhancing Reason.  Education can correct both misconceptions and mistakes in our thinking and in our emotional life.  This, both Romanticists and the practitioners of the Enlightenment philosophy also understood.

For the Romanticist, Reason and Feeling each have value, but left to their own devices, they have a tendency to contradict and frustrate one another.  Here, then, is where Imagination may step in; and for Lucy She is divine; it might not be an exaggeration to call Her a kind of ‘goddess’ figure?  To rush from a Reason so narrowly construed and its solutions so constructed as to imprison a soul, one needs Hope; and this is what Imagination provides Lucy.   Note what she calls Her: Reason’s “soft, bright foe, _our_ sweet Help, our divine Hope.”  It is a ‘divine’ Hope (with a capital ‘H’).  The imperative to “break bounds,” she knows, is necessary for her survival, despite the cost that is coming.  That cost will be counted the very next morning; she knows – from former experiences – that it will be so.  Nevertheless, she continues to castigate Reason, averring that—

Reason is vindictive as a devil: for me she was always envenomed as a step-mother. If I have obeyed her it has chiefly been with the obedience of fear, not of love. Long ago I should have died of her ill-usage, her stint, her chill, her barren board, her icy bed, her savage, ceaseless blows; but for that kinder Power who holds my secret and sworn allegiance.  Often has Reason turned me out by night, in mid-winter, on cold snow, flinging for sustenance the gnawed bone dogs had forsaken: sternly has she vowed her stores held nothing more for me—harshly denied my right to ask better things…. (¶28)

Her Reason acts as the evil-stepmother from fairy tales; one of several fairy themes in the novel—and Lucy has been abused by Her.  Fear has cowed Lucy into obeisance to this slave-driver, Reason.  She is an unwilling prisoner, enduring Her “savage, ceaseless blows.”  Love plays no free role in her oppressed state.  Reason would have slain her, ultimately, she avers, had she not had a saviour, “that kinder Power” with whom she holds a “secret and sworn allegiance.”  Secret from whom?  Reason, for sure.  Feeling as well, I would argue.  And perhaps there are other forces in the world that demand that our Hope be kept secret, as in ours, today, though Hope always asks to be acted upon as best we can.

To illustrate and amplify her experience of this oppressor, Reason, Lucy here uses a metaphor[3] of being an outcast in the darkest time of the year; mid-winter—thrown into the cold snow, having a gnawed bone tossed to her by the Hag as her only sustenance; that is—a bone the ‘dogs’ have rejected after eating off it all they could get—leaving no meat for Lucy!  Lucy is being starved by her Reason.  Despite this, she is often in obeisance to Reason throughout the story she is telling us.

She has learned – as her Reason declares – that expressing your feelings will call down some peril upon you, resulting in suffering.  Does this, we have to wonder, shed any light on whatever happened to her in that unnarrated term of years?  Nothing, I can discern, but a slight peek through the crack in the wall of her walled-in being-in-becoming, cast in yet another complex metaphor (like the one in Chapter IV of the shipwreck).   Fortunately, Lucy does have Hope.

She then describes an encounter with Imagination that supports the idea of Her being “divine.”   This encounter is an epiphany – like the one in Chapter V wherein Aurora Borealis spoke to her – here the mortal Lucy seeing a heavenly manifestation of her Hope:

 Then, looking up, have I seen in the sky a head amidst circling stars, of which the midmost and the brightest lent a ray sympathetic and attent.   A spirit, softer and better than Human Reason, has descended with quiet flight to the waste—bringing all round her a sphere of air borrowed of eternal summer; bringing perfume of flowers which cannot fade—fragrance of trees whose fruit is life; bringing breezes pure from a world whose day needs no sun to lighten it.  (¶ 28)

Note that she says, “have I seen’ instead of the affirmation “I have seen.”  As the sentence is not marked as a question, this suggests to me the humility of the poet and mystic; never boldly stating in literal terms the scenes of visions; the stuff of epiphanic experiences.  Always suggesting what you have seen, without lording it over others.

This “head midst circling stars” that she ‘sees’ in the sky is mythic imagery.  The goddess Diana and the Virgin Mary are just two examples of beings who have been associated with stellar phenomena.  The circling stars, while certainly referencing the circumpolar movement of the stars around the North Star, also serve to reference the starry crown worn by such mythic beings associated with the heavens.  Lucy receives a “sympathetic” and attentive light from the brightest star.  This bright star thus comes to her in a caring way; to offer succor.  I might suggest that the one bright star is a Muse-like descriptor; coming down to help the mortal under Her care.  Imagination is, for Lucy, “softer and better” than Reason.  She descends into “the waste,” which can be understood as the wasteland of Lucy’s life and soul as well as the wasteland of modern society.

The divinity of Imagination is referenced in both fairy and biblical terms.  The references to “eternal summer” and the “perfume of flowers” that can never fade have resonances with the lore of the fairy world.  Some fairy stories suggest that the Otherworld is one without a harsh wintry season.  The fragrance of flowers in the fairy realm is said to be more delightful even than it is in our actual world, and it does not fade.  When you have been visited by fairies, a perfume is sometimes detected and may remain pleasantly – and perhaps enchantingly – present for many hours to days; longer than the fragrance of natural flowers.  The “fragrance of trees whose fruit is life” can certainly be understood as a biblical allusion, but also has fairy-resonance, in either case evoking both the time of human Innocence and the possibility of eternal life.  A fairy Tree of Life is fragrant with blossoms; the fruit of which sustains and perpetuates the life of the one gifted with finding it—providing sustenance for traveling in the Otherworld.  The last descriptor – “a world whose day needs no sun to lighten it” – at one level alludes to the Christian Heaven, but is also suggestive of the fairy realm; where the Moon is ‘the Sun at Night’ and ‘the Lamp of the Fairyfolk;’ that world not being experienced as lighted by the Sun.  The fairyfolk are generally associated with the nighttime; they are nocturnals.  Lucy often has powerful experiences at night, being ‘visited’ in the dark hours, and so may may be one of those mortals who have a fairy connection.  Lucy then proclaims that:

My hunger has this good angel appeased with food, sweet and strange, gathered amongst gleaning angels, garnering their dew-white harvest in the first fresh hour of a heavenly day; tenderly has she assuaged the insufferable fears which weep away life itself—kindly given rest to deadly weariness—generously lent hope and impulse to paralyzed despair.  Divine, compassionate, succourable influence! (¶ 28)

Whereas Reason starves her, Imagination provides true sustenance.  What Lucy gains from her turn to Imagination is like the food of the gods; “sweet,” “strange” and connected with “angels.”  She is amongst “gleaning angels,” which may simply refer to other heavenly beings; other ‘goddesses’ perhaps—metaphored here as “angels” in the sense of ‘helpful beings.’  Are they ‘gleaning’ food for other mortals that they are assisting, or for Lucy herself?  The food is a “harvest” that is “dew white;” being another term associated with the fairy realm, in the lore of which “dewy” is oft used to describe our experience of their world or the places in this world where fairies may be encountered.  “When the dew falls, the fairies arise.”[4]  The food comes as if at dawn in ‘heaven’ or, again in the fairy realm, where every ‘day’ is heavenly and fresh as the dawn dew.[5]  Imagination is to Lucy “this good angel,” provisioning her with Hope.

Seen from another metaphorical angle, the food is “sweet and strange” like the manna that the Israelites ate in the desert when on their 40-year wandering journey to the Promised Land.  The descriptor “dew-white harvest” could refer to that miraculous manna as well, but in being linked symbolically to ‘heaven’ is yet another side-ways referencing of the fairy realm; which has long been seen as an ‘alternate heaven’ to the Christian one; dew on the leaves and grass also signifying the presence of fairies in our world—bringing ‘heaven’ to us, at least for a single night.

This divine Imagination – described in such terms -- has helped Lucy slip the noose of the fears her poorly grounded Reason has instilled in her; fears leading to the kind of weeping that destroys a soul and may even bring one to the precipice of death; whether of the soul or of the flesh.  Lucy has taken true rest in the ministering of this “good angel,” the ministrations of which are restoring her from “deadly weariness.”  Imagination has been generous with the Hope with which She has instilled Lucy, energizing her against the kind of despair that robs a person of the ability to fully live this ever-so-brief mortal life.

She then finishes with a paean, calling Her “Divine, compassionate,” and a “succourable influence!”  “Succor” being a relief from distress as well as assistance in a time of trouble.  As such, Imagination is, for Lucy, something that aids and sustains her in her distress, liberating her briefly from the bondage of Reason.   At the height of this ode to Imagination, she then declares:

When I bend the knee to other than God, it shall be at thy white and winged feet, beautiful on mountain or on plain. Temples have been reared to the Sun—altars dedicated to the Moon.  Oh, greater glory! (¶28)

Lucy here makes a pledge of loyalty to Imagination; she ‘bends the knee’ to Her.  “White and winged feet” is also mythic language.  It is notable that the Sun and Moon are here put on a par with each other, compared without making one or the other ‘dominant’ or more important.  As such, the Sun could well represent Reason, while the Moon might represent Feeling?  These heavenly bodies played a symbolic role in both Jane Eyre and Shirley, but here – at least in this chapter – their role is somewhat subordinated to Imagination.  [I will have to go back to those two earlier novels, now, and see if the same relationship holds there.]  The “greater glory” she extols refers to Imagination!  Lucy concludes with this avowal:

Sovereign complete! thou hadst, for endurance, thy great army of martyrs; for achievement, thy chosen band of worthies. Deity unquestioned, thine essence foils decay! (¶29)

Notice here that “Heaven” is capitalized, perhaps intimating the Christian Heaven and not the alternate fairy ‘heaven.’  This implies that for Lucy – as for Charlotte Brontë – Imagination’s divinity is connected to God’s Realm and grace.  This speaks to an interesting ambivalence in Lucy; as, I believe, in Charlotte – Reason, Feeling and Imagination being runed in fairy terms from folklore and myth while also being woven into Christian mythos and cosmology.  There is a willingness in Charlotte’s novels to blend Pagan and Christian elements into an imagery and a narrative that is open to more than just one system of belief—an element of her storytelling world that I love and fully embrace.

I would have liked to be able to ask Lucy to expound on the remark about Imagination having many martyrs!  Does she mean the Poets and other creative people who in Her service perished from the hard work of creating?  Or perhaps_ those who have been persecuted and victimized – on account of their art and the Imagination-illumined lives that they led – by a society that did not – and still often does not – understand them?  I tend to connect the “army of martyrs” and the “chosen band of worthies” as complementary; a poetic parallelism—that is – they refer to the same group of people, who both endured and achieved much?

Lucy then avows that Imagination’s divinity is unquestioned, and that the ‘essence’ of Imagination keeps the imaginative person from “decay,” this intimating the creeping failure of spirit that often undermines our imaginative, creative life.

At the end of this paean, Imagination speaks to Lucy, comforting her after her weeping.  Lucy tells us:

This daughter of Heaven remembered me to-night; she saw me weep, and she came with comfort: “Sleep,” she said. “Sleep, sweetly—I gild thy dreams!” (¶30)

Lucy tells us that Imagination did as She said (¶31).  However, the monster Reason does return, just as she feared, once Lucy is awake in the morning, re-igniting the struggle within her between Reason and Feeling.

Lucy’s first anticipations of actually receiving a letter from John touched upon and lit-up a passion in Lucy’s heart and, turning to Imagination, she allowed herself to think of what she hoped for; deep down, with John—though his heart is turned toward others (first Ginevra and later Paulina); and by this point in the story, does Lucy know it?  What does she ultimately do?  Does she follow Imagination’s lead?

The first actual letter from John does not come until a fortnight later (Chapter XXI ¶s 97-98).  Lucy has a deep and warming, heart-felt reaction to it – as anyone, especially a young person, inexperienced in such matters, might – and when she finally has it in her hands, she takes it – as a treasure – immediately to the dormitory where she sleeps.  There she secures it away “in silver paper,” committing “it to the case,” putting it in a “box” and then putting the box in a “drawer” after which she “reclosed, relocked the dormitory, and returned to class,” exclaiming to the reader, “feeling as if fairy tales were true, and fairy gifts no dream.” (¶ 105).  It is in the next chapter that she goes up to the attic (called the ”garret” in the text) to read the letter in private, there encountering the ghostly Nun for the first time! (Chapter XXII – The Letter – ¶s 12-20)

In the next chapter (XXIII “Vashti”) we are given a much more familiar and ‘snowy’ version of Lucy as she describes for the reader how she eventually dealt with her letters from Dr John.  She begins the account by telling us:

It was three weeks since the adventure of the garret,[6] and I possessed in that case, box, drawer up-stairs, casketed[7] with that first letter, four companions like to it, traced by the same firm pen, sealed with the same clear seal, full of the same vital comfort.  (¶ 3)

The letters from John have continued to come, and she is treasuring them by keeping them secreted away in what strikes me as a ‘Chinese box’ way of securing them: the case goes in the box which gets put in a drawer.  Lucy then speaks of them, from her future point-of-view, saying:

Vital comfort it seemed to me then: I read them in after years; they were kind letters enough—pleasing letters, because composed by one well pleased; in the two last there were three or four closing lines half-gay, half-tender, “by _feeling_ touched, but not subdued.” Time, dear reader, mellowed them to a beverage of this mild quality; but when I first tasted their elixir, fresh from the fount so honoured, it seemed juice of a divine vintage: a draught which Hebe might fill, and the very gods approve. (¶ 3)

Hebe was a Greek goddess of youth in whose cups the gods and goddesses were served nectar and ambrosia.[8]  When Lucy first read these letters, she says, they were like the offering in Hebe’s cup.  They affected her as an elixir; a magical or medical potion—a brew intended to heal or aid the recipient in some way; whether mystical or practical.  For Lucy, therefore, John’s letters had at first affected her as a magical concoction of divine origin.  What might they have effected, in Lucy’s soul; in her character—had things gone otherwise with John than they did?  Later in her life, they had diminished in effect and were simply pleasing, pleasant and tender.  I have been unable to find the source of the reference “by feeling touched, but not subdued,” [If you know where it is from, please let me know.], this phrase expressing the Romanticist understanding that Feeling is a good and a boon to human nature, so long as one is not overwhelmed by_ or subsumed in_ it.

Interlude—

If I may step aside from the main analysis for a moment—

This passage, while acknowledging Lucy’s pleasure in keeping the letters, also shows that something which happened in a later chapter must have been undone at some point.  In “The Burial" (Ch XXVI) Lucy inters John’s letters – in a jar that she specifically purchases for the purpose – under the Methuselah tree in the garden.  The immediate impulse was Madame Beck having purloined them – twice! – Lucy fearing that M Paul had actually perused them in Madame Beck’s presence. (¶ 20).   Yet she also surely buried them because she had finally accepted that John was not interested in her, romantically, and probably never would be, as in the previous chapter John’s attentions to Paulina had begun to show Lucy that his romantic interest had shifted from Ginevra to Miss Bassompierre.   

John, she finally accepts, had treated her as a friend and confidant only, but never in a romantic way.  Lucy had wept over her realization that no more letters were to be coming to her from that “goodly river” (¶ 15), and so buries his letters under the tree beneath which the Nun was supposed to have been buried-alive in a century long past; yet here she says that in “after years” she had re-read the letters and found their effect “mellowed.”  

 I wonder when she dug them up; perhaps before she took up her position as teacher at the new school M. Paul purchased and set up for her?  _Only a guess.  Thinking about this burial, does the place and manner of interment indicate that she has buried her letters from John “alive” in some sense? _What do you think, ‘dear Reader?’

And now, back to the main analysis—

            After Lucy describes the effect of the letters on her, she finally tells us how she dealt with responding to these valued epistles—

Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to ask how I answered these letters: whether under the dry, stinting check of Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?  (Chapter XXIII; ¶ 4)

Yes, the reader would be interested to know, Lucy.  How did Imagination aid you in making your replies?  To this she admits:

To speak truth, I compromised matters; I served two masters: I bowed down in the houses of Rimmon, and lifted the heart at another shrine. I wrote to these letters two answers—one for my own relief, the other for Graham’s perusal.  (¶5)

Alas, she did not follow Imagination’s lead but made a compromise between Reason and Feeling; a plausible resolution—and one many people have no doubt made in their lives.  However, to understand the full heft of this confession, we need to explore to what “the houses of Rimmon” refers.   It is a metaphor based on a story in the Bible (II Kings 5:15) in which a military commander serving the King of Aram, became devoted to Yahweh after the prophet Elisa healed him of leprosy.  Naaman later begged forgiveness of the prophet, as he was tempted – and was willing – to stand by his king in the worship of the god Rimmon.  In the scriptural story, worldly conformity undermined devotion to Yahweh.

The phrase “house of Rimmon” has been used metaphorically to mean being fork-tongued; saying one thing and doing or believing another; perhaps paying lip-service to an idea or principle one has not sincerely embraced or, more seriously, sacrificing one’s integrity for the sake of mere conformity and voluntary obeisance to the conventional.  This is important to the text as it suggests Lucy is like the commander, bowing in subservience to Reason and Feeling, when she has just recently devoted herself to her great benefactor, Imagination!  Like Naaman, she has been healed by the One to whom she has vowed herself; Imagination had relieved her of her fears and “gilded” Lucy’s dreams that night.  Thankful of this, Lucy declared Imagination to be her “Sovereign.”  This biblical story, however, clearly illumines how Lucy handled the letters:

To begin with: Feeling and I turned Reason out of doors, drew against her bar and bolt, then we sat down, spread our paper, dipped in the ink an eager pen, and, with deep enjoyment, poured out our sincere heart.  When we had done—when two sheets were covered with the language of a strongly-adherent affection, a rooted and active gratitude— … (¶ 6)

The battle is still going on in her, between Feeling and Reason, apparently in the absence of Imagination, who is left out of the conversation not long after the allegiance had been pledged; just as Naaman had broken his vow to God very soon after making it.  Lucy, under Feeling’s direction and influence, has penned a letter full of affectionate words, promulgated from a Heart that is “sincere” and expressive of “gratitude;” for the letters received as well as for John’s attention to her since she left the comforting world of the Brettons at La Terrasse.  Then, before she continues, putting off telling us once again what she in fact did with John's letters, we have this insert—

(once, for all, in this parenthesis, I disclaim, with the utmost scorn, every sneaking suspicion of what are called “warmer feelings:” women do not entertain these “warmer feelings” where, from the commencement, through the whole progress of an acquaintance, they have never once been cheated of the conviction that, to do so would be to commit a mortal absurdity: nobody ever launches into Love unless he has seen or dreamed the rising of Hope’s star over Love’s troubled waters)  (¶ 6)

But Lucy, we know you had warmer feelings, didn’t you? _as you expressed them to us when you received the very first letter!

            I include this parenthesis in the analysis, here, as it reveals Lucy’s feelings regarding John, and may help explain the eventual burying of his letters.  This is a cold self-reprimand and a repudiation of her own warm feelings for John; however repressed – perhaps from the future Lucy who is writing this narrative many years later? – and for what she may have been hoping in her relationship with John at the time.  Lucy here expresses a cultural ‘rule’ – so entrenched in her worldly milieu still at that time – that a woman was not be the one to express herself freely in matters of love but must await the man’s confession or profession of love.  This bias is something Romanticists worked to controvert and overthrow in their narratives!  Yet here, whether she really believes it or not, Lucy declaims that women do not entertain these “warmer feelings” until given some assurance that the man feels something for her that might permit her to return the affection.  Unless she is given some confidence of the man’s feelings and intentions, Lucy is suggesting, it would be dangerous – to her reputation?  _to her relationship with the man? – for the woman to express herself.  Yet she did feel them, didn’t she?

            Here is the cold, snowy Lucy again, repressing her feelings that did not come to fruition.  She struggles with her willingness and desire to express to John her true feelings, in part because of her culture’s convention regarding this; as expressed in this parenthesis, but also out of her own self-denying tendency—to think of herself as unworthy of other people’s attention, much less their love.  To enter into Love, she avers, it is necessary for "Hope's Star” to at least be “dreamed” if not “seen” to be rising, shining above “Love’s troubled waters.”  This, in her relationship with John, she did not have or, if she thought she did, she was slowly and finally freed of the illusion.  It would be finally dashed later in the story by John’s avowal that he would have been her ‘great friend’ had she been a boy when they knew each other back in Bretton. (Chapter XXVII, ¶49-51) [9]

After this parenthesis, then, Lucy finally finishes her account of how she handled the letters:

—when, then, I had given expression to a closely-clinging and deeply-honouring attachment—an attachment that wanted to attract to itself and take to its own lot all that was painful in the destiny of its object; that would, if it could, have absorbed and conducted away all storms and lightnings from an existence viewed with a passion of solicitude—then, just at that moment, the doors of my heart would shake, bolt and bar would yield, Reason would leap in vigorous and revengeful, snatch the full sheets, read, sneer, erase, tear up, re-write, fold, seal, direct, and send a terse, curt missive of a page. She did right.

Lucy is here like Naaman kneeling at the altar of Rimmon; she has broken her vow to Imagination and fallen back under a self-sacrificing surrender to Reason and Feeling; who are at odds, as usual.  And I must ask, “Lucy, wouldn’t “closely-clinging” perhaps suggest those “warmer feelings” you were just decrying?”

            Here we see the full struggle depicted as between opposing divine contenders; the third – Imagination – apparently being wholly left out (like Yahweh and Naaman’s allegiance to him at the resolution of the scene from II Kings).  This could be seen as a dialectic from one angle; Feeling and Reason as thesis and antithesis, Imagination then being the fruition and resolution of their struggle?  No mention here, though, of Imagination in all of Her qualities; beauty and aid in times of trouble, et cetera.  This is cold Lucy Snowe back under the yoke of her Reason.

            I was disappointed to read this after the earlier epiphanic description of the rule of Imagination over both Reason and Feeling; seen almost as a kind of Romanticist Charioteer who guides the other two ‘faculties,’ bringing them into bridled cooperation – just two chapters earlier.[10]

            Lucy’s letters, dictated under the auspices of Feeling had been full of a sense of attachment with John; a deep, sincere attachment that was admitting of the troubles and trials of life (“all that was painful in the destiny of its object”), offering to absorb these “storms and lightnings” in John’s existence, which she says she views with “a passion of solicitude.”  Note that she believes herself willing to take to herself things that she normally fears – storms and lightnings!  Here is also one of those moments in the story when Lucy avows a passion; would this constitute “warmer feelings” again? – over against her oft repeated assertion that she is a person who likes to remain quiet, calm and alone.  The word “solicitude” implies genuine care and concern for another’s well-being.  As such, she expresses here a willingness to be passionately engaged with John in his life-journey, for his welfare.  These letters – though never shared with us – have allowed Lucy to reveal to us just how much she cared for John; though she only – and then, ever obliquely – expressed it at earlier points in the story.

            Then, like a monster, Reason broke down her Heart’s door, devouring Lucy’s allegiance with Feeling. “She did right,” Lucy tries to assure us.  Thus says the willingly defecting Naaman, bowing at a false altar with her worldly dictator, in an act of disloyalty to her true “good angel;” her Sovereign, Imagination!  Here, the description of Reason as a tyrant, a Hag and Oppressor is now conspicuously missing.  Lucy seems to have accepted the tenets of her Overlord, and ‘knows’ – or at least ‘believes’ – that her shorter, less affectionate, passionless replies to Dr John’s letters are more appropriate; as they might cause less ‘trouble?’  While this could well be true, her past experience is dictating this re-submission to the tyrant; her Reason—which is not healthily grounded.

            “She did right.”

            We here see Lucy retreating once again from passion; from a full expression of her being-in-becoming, as she does repeatedly throughout the novel.  She is accepting the prison into which Reason – grounded in her traumatic life-experience in that eight-year hiatus in the narrative – has caged her.  She seems to have been unable to imagine-her-way-out of it.

            “She did right.”  Thus says the willingly submissive soul.

If, however, she had continued to kneel at the altar of Imagination, Lucy may have come to a more balanced – and possibly more honest – address to John in response to his letters.  And what might John have felt or done in answer to her replies?  I wonder, did he see Lucy only as a friend because she had never expressed her true feelings?  Those “warner feelings” she had but denies.?  His potential response is what she has lost-out-on in re-submitting to the warring faculties within her and abandoning her Sovereign.

 Finis

 

I welcome comments and questions, so please feel free to respond.

Thanks for reading!

 

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[1] The text I am quoting from is The Project Gutenberg eBook of Villette.  The underscores (“_”) surrounding various words I take to indicate italicized words.  I am using paragraph numbers, as there are no page numbers in the downloaded text.

[2] I think of Coleridge as I write this, who was into the physical sciences and philosophy, using reason to figure out the nature of reality, while using the imagination to create his poetical works.

[3] Charlotte Brontë’s use of metaphor in this novel is often startling and incisive!  This one is as nuanced as that of the “ship’’ in Chapter IV, used to try and describe what happened to her in that eight-year hiatus.

[4] This quote comes from an old poem; probably in a book of 19^th century fairy poetry I read years ago, but I have lost the citation.

[5] Fairy lore is conflicted about whether there is ‘daylight’ in the fairy realm, or if the light of their ‘day’ is some preternatural light, or even the light of the Moon, always in the sky overhead.  Different stories and traditions have different views on this.  However one wishes to untangle this, there is a ‘day’ in the fairy world as well as ‘night.’  This lack of consensus in the lore the of Mystery of the Fairy Otherworld and our relationship to it; the strangeness any mortal might feel in visiting it.

[6] “The adventures in the garret” refers to the first visitation of the Nun in the garret where she went to read the first epistle from John.

[7] The word “Casket” does not mean a coffin, as we tend to use the word today,  but a small, secure box used for some valued thing.

[8] Hebe was a daughter of Zeus and Hera and later became the divine wife of Heracles. She had influence over eternal youth and the ability to restore youth to mortals, a power that appears exclusive to her in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

[9] Chapter XXVII – The Hotel Crecy –  John says: “I believe if you had been a boy, Lucy, instead of a girl—my mother’s god-son instead of her god-daughter, we should have been good friends:  our opinions would have melted into each other.” (¶49)  To which Lucy responded—

 “Trying, then, to keep down the unreasonable pain which thrilled my heart, on thus being made to feel that while Graham could devote to others the most grave and earnest, the manliest interest, he had no more than light raillery for Lucy, the friend of lang syne, I inquired calmly,—“On what points are we so closely in accordance?” (¶ 49)

[10] I think of the Tarot here, “The Chariot” (Major Arcana VII), as an image of this relationship, rightly envisioned.  This card has to do with overcoming obstacles, self-discipline and hard work.  The two sphinxes – as I know them at least from the Rider-Waite deck – could be interpreted as Reason and Feeling, with the Charioteer standing in for Imagination.