Chapter XIII.

Mrs. Dean continues:-- Convalescent, Caroline whispers:-- In those two months [Catherine] encountered and conquered the "... I am better now.... I feel worst shock of what was where I am: this is Mrs. Pryor denominated as brain fever. The near me.... I was dreaming.... first time she left the chamber Does the churchyard look ... on her pillow [was] a peaceful?... Can you see many handful of golden crocuses; her long weeds and nettles among the eye, long stranger to any gleam graves, or do they look turfy or of pleasure, caught them in flowery?" waking. "I see closed daisy-heads, "These are the earliest flowers gleaming like pearls on some at the Heights!... Is there not mounds," replied Mrs. Pryor.[85] a south wind, and is not the snow gone?"

It is in _Shirley_ that Charlotte Brontë gives, inadvertently or purposely, the origin of the title of _Wuthering Heights_, and we see therewith why she came afterwards to choose for her autobiographical-self in _Villette_, the name of Lucy Snowe. We perceive she had been singularly impressed by an old Scottish ballad, entitled, "Puir Mary Lee," and it is important and interesting to note that Dr. Joseph Wright's _English Dialect Dictionary_ refers readers to this very same poem in connection with the origin of the northern word "wuthering," in the form of the verb "whudder," or "wuther." And so, in a letter to Mr. W. S. Williams, of November 6th, 1852, Miss Brontë wrote of Lucy Snowe[86]:--

As to the name of the heroine, I can hardly express what subtlety of thought made me decide upon giving her a cold name; but at first I called her 'Lucy Snowe' (spelt with an 'e'), which 'Snowe' I afterwards changed to 'Frost.' Subsequently I rather regretted the change, and wished it 'Snowe' again. If not too late, I should like the alteration to be made now throughout the MS. A _cold_ name she must have; partly, perhaps on the _lucus a non lucendo_ principle--partly on that of the 'fitness of things,' for she has about her an external coldness.

Thus we understand Charlotte Brontë was anxious that her autobiographical-self in _Villette_ should be called Snowe. While, in mentioning the matter to her publishers, she endeavoured to show a superficial and commonplace reason for her singular choice, the truth underlies her words wherein she says she "can hardly express what subtlety of thought" made her decide upon "a cold name."

The subtlety of thought that dictated the choice of the "cold name" Snowe had, we shall see, a connection with the old Scottish ballad, "Puir Mary Lee," which evidence shows was responsible at the dark season to which I have referred for Charlotte Brontë's choice of the title of _Wuthering Heights_--for her identifying her own bitterness with that of "Puir Mary Lee."

It is in _Shirley_, Chapter VII., that Charlotte Brontë writes:--

Nature ... is an excellent friend, sealing the lips, interdicting utterance, commanding a placid dissimulation; a dissimulation often wearing an easy and gay mien at first, settling down to sorrow and paleness in time, then passing away, and leaving a convenient stoicism, not the less fortifying because half-bitter. [As Lucy Snowe, Charlotte Brontë writes in _Villette_ in perfect sympathy with this: "If I feel, may I never express? I groaned under her (Reason's) bitter sternness ... 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. Reason might be right."] Who has read the ballad of 'Puir Mary Lee'?--that old Scotch ballad, written I know not in what generation nor by what hand. Mary had been ill-used--probably in being made to believe that truth which is falsehood; she is not complaining, but she is sitting alone in the snow-storm, and you hear her thoughts ... those of a deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl. Anguish has driven her from the ingle-nook of home, to the white-shrouded and icy hills: crouched under the 'cauld drift,' she recalls every image of horror, ... she hates these, but 'waur' she hates 'Robin-a-Ree!'

"Oh! ance I lived happily by yon bonny burn-- The warld was in love wi' me; But now I maun sit 'neath the cauld drift and mourn, And curse black Robin-a-Ree!

"Then whudder awa' thou bitter biting blast, And sough through the scrunty tree, And smoor me up in the snaw fu' fast And ne'er let the sun me see!

"Oh, never melt awa' thou wreath o' snaw, That's sae kind in graving me; But hide me frae the scorn and guffaw O' villains like Robin-a-Ree!"

Thus internal evidence proves that the name of _Wuthering Heights_ for the abode of the "deeply feeling, strongly resentful peasant girl," Catherine Earnshaw, was primarily chosen by Charlotte Brontë because of its special appeal to her own mood at a given period, in relation to the ballad of "Puir Mary Lee," and proves that the choice of the name of Snowe for her "cold and altered" autobiographical self in _Villette_ was dictated by its connection therewith.

In this light glance at Charlotte Brontë's poem "Mementos," and at the following verses from her "Frances":--

"And when thy opening eyes shall see Mementos, on the chamber wall, Of one who has forgotten thee, Shed not the tear of acrid gall.

* * * * *

"Vain as the passing gale, my crying; Though lightning-struck,[87] I must live on; I know, at heart, there is no dying Of love and ruined hope alone.

* * * * *

"The very wildness of my sorrow Tells me I yet have innate force; My track of life has been too narrow, Effort shall trace a broader course."

There is an apparent relationship of this last verse with the remarks in