Chapter XXX. Chapter XIV.

Hareton contented himself with Mr. Rochester had been looking ... looking at Catherine instead ... at the fire, and I had been of the book. She continued looking at him, when, turning reading. His attention became suddenly, he caught my gaze ... quite centred in the study fastened on his physiognomy. of her ... curls ... and perhaps not quite aware to what he did "You examine me, Miss Eyre," ... he put out his hand and said he; "do you think me stroked one curl as gently as if handsome?" it were a bird. He might have stuck a knife into her neck, she "No sir." started with such a taking.... "And so under the pretence of stroking and soothing me into placidity, you stick a sly penknife under my ear."

Mr. Rochester and Jane Eyre were of course M. Héger and Miss Brontë. It is indeed important and interesting to find at the old farmstead of Wuthering Heights scenes reminiscent of the intimately pedagogic relations that existed between Charlotte Brontë and M. Héger of the school at Brussels.

Discovering _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_ are practically as the same book, I have disclosed their relationship in parallel columns--the most satisfactory and conclusive evidence in the world. Herewith we see both volumes agree in scenes and chapters virtually word for word, and from beginning to end. Both works we now find are one in origin, each containing not less than four identical characters portrayed by Charlotte Brontë from her own life, she herself being the original of the heroine in each book, and her friend M. Héger in the main the original of the hero thereof. Charlotte Brontë's brother, Branwell Brontë, in agreement with her estimate of him as a wreck of selfishness, is the unhappy fool of both books; while her life-long companion, Tabitha Aykroyd, who was to her as nurse, mother, and friend, is therein the indispensable domestic servant and motherly good woman of the humble class.

I will not occupy my preface with an enumeration of the many important and interesting Brontë discoveries I have been enabled to make and present herewith in _The Key to the Brontë Works_. I may briefly indicate my chief sensational discoveries:--The discovery of the origin of _Wuthering Heights_ and _Jane Eyre_; the discovery that in _Jane Eyre_ Charlotte Brontë immortalized not only herself and M. Héger, but also her father, the Rev. Patrick Brontë, her brother, four sisters, her aunt and a cousin, and Tabitha Aykroyd, the Brontë servant or housekeeper; the discovery first revealing the history of Charlotte Brontë's life at Brussels and friendship with M. Héger, the original of her chief heroes; and the discovery of the most sensational fact that Charlotte Brontë and not Emily wrote _Wuthering Heights_, and was herself the original of the heroine and M. Héger that of the hero, as I have mentioned.

My warm thanks are due to Mr. Harold Hodge, who commissioned me to write my article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" for _The Saturday Review_;[3] and to Mr. W. L. Courtney, M.A., LL.D., the editor of _The Fortnightly Review_, who commissioned me to write my article "The Lifting of the Brontë Veil: A New Study of the Brontë Family."[4] Mr. Courtney's words of encouragement--those of a true gentleman and an eminent literary scholar and author--have made bright to me the accomplishment of this work.

I thank Lady Ritchie--the gifted author-daughter of Thackeray the writer of _Vanity Fair_ to whom Charlotte Brontë in her second edition dedicated _Jane Eyre_--for her kind permission to use in _The Key to the Brontë Works_ what her ladyship had written me privately in regard to her sitting at dinner beside Charlotte Brontë on June 12th, 1850, with Mr. Thackeray and Mr. George Smith the publisher, when Miss Brontë was wearing a light green dress, an incident that has relation to the green dress in the interesting Héger portrait of Charlotte Brontë drawn in 1850, now the property of the nation and in the National Portrait Gallery, London.

I desire to express my gratitude to Miss Catherine Galbraith Welch, who introduced an outline of my Brontë discoveries to the readers of _The New York Times Saturday Review of Books_. I thank _The Spectator_, _The Outlook_, and other organs for their open acknowledgment of the fact that I have made a discovery at last throwing light upon Charlotte Brontë's Brussels experiences and her relations with the Hégers at Brussels. And I wish also to thank the anonymous and scholarly writer who penned the long and careful article in _The Dundee Advertiser_ under the heading "The Original of Jane Eyre," containing an encouraging appreciation of the importance of my discovery I dealt with in my article "The Key to _Jane Eyre_" in _The Saturday Review_.

I would like to give a pressure of the hand to my subscribers for the first edition of _The Key to the Brontë Works_. Your kind letters to me and your active interest in _The Key to the Brontë Works_ will ever dwell among my pleasant memories. One I grieve will never see on earth these pages--the late Most Honourable Marquis of Ripon, K.G., who numbered with my earliest subscribers.

The readers of _The Key to the Brontë Works_ will love Charlotte Brontë more and know her better than ever they have loved or known her in the past. They will see her books are rich with new-found treasures, and will recognize her to be a world's writer--a character of signal eminence, one of the most illustrious of women.

Truth will out, and facts have their appointed day of revelation; thus I cannot help it that more than sixty years of writing on the Brontës is placed out of date by my discoveries.

JOHN MALHAM-DEMBLEBY.

THE KEY TO THE BRONTË WORKS.