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She is an answer to every critic, from Mr. Swinburne downwards, who maintains that Charlotte Brontë could not draw children. But Lucy at fourteen is drawn with slight and grudging strokes, sufficient for the minor part she is evidently to play. Lucy at Bretton is a mere foil to little Polly. Charlotte Brontë distinctly stated in her letters that she did not care for Miss Snowe.
How often, with weary feet and a dreary heart, she had paced this secluded walk and thought, with longing almost insupportable, of the dear ones in far-away Haworth parsonage! In this sheltered corner her other self Lucy Snowe sat and listened to the distant chimes and thought forbidden thoughts and cherished impossible hopes. Here she met and talked with Dr. John.
Lucy Snowe is Jane Eyre, otherwise Charlotte Brontë, placed amidst different surroundings; and Ginevra Fanshawe was sketched from one of the pupils in Héger's school. The materials used in "Villette" were taken, in part, from an earlier work, "The Professor," which suffered rejection nine times at the hands of publishers.
"As to the character of Lucy Snowe, my intention from the first was that she should not occupy the pedestal to which Jane Eyre was raised by some injudicious admirers. She is where I meant her to be, and where no charge of self-laudation can touch her." But Lucy is not altogether where she was meant to be.
At another time thei passe the daye likewyse, standing one while on one legge, another while on another in the broilinge sande of that contrie. Froste nor snowe, nor firie heate greued not them. This people longeth for no more then nature requyreth naturallye.
"But," I continued, "don't fret, and don't expect too much of him, or else he will feel you to be troublesome, and then it is all over." "All over!" she echoed softly; "then I'll be good. I'll try to be good, Lucy Snowe." I put her to bed. "Will he forgive me this one time?" she asked, as I undressed myself.
But dear mother looked most exceeding grave; and said that to be sure her opinion could not be expected to count for much, but she really hoped that in three years' time we should both he a little wiser, and have more regard for our interests, and perhaps those of others by that time; and Master Snowe having daughters only, and nobody coming to marry them, if anything happened to the good old man and who could tell in three years' time what might happen to all or any of us? why perhaps his farm would be for sale, and perhaps Lady Lorna's estates in Scotland would fetch enough money to buy it, and so throw the two farms into one, and save all the trouble about the brook, as my poor father had longed to do many and many a time, but not having a title could not do all quite as he wanted.
For although there was nobody now in our family to be churchwarden of Oare, it was well admitted that we were the people entitled alone to that dignity; and though Nicholas Snowe was in office by name, he managed it only by mother's advice; and a pretty mess he made of it, so that every one longed for a Ridd again, soon as ever I should be old enough.
He did not know much about Lucy Snowe; what he knew, he did not very accurately comprehend: indeed his misconceptions of my character often made me smile; but he saw my walk in life lay rather on the shady side of the hill: he gave me credit for doing my endeavour to keep the course honestly straight; he would have helped me if he could: having no opportunity of helping, he still wished me well.
"Well, Master Snowe," I answered him, "it is very handsome of you to say so. And now I am going to be like my father, I am going to speak my mind." "Raight there, lad; raight enough, I reckon. Us has had enough of pralimbinary." "Then what I want to say is this I won't have any one courting my mother."
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