SOURCE: "Anne Brontë: Her Life and Writings," in Indiana University Studies, Vol. XVI, No. 83, March, 1929, pp. 3-44.

[In the following excerpt, Hale suggests that Agnes Grey is primarily an autobiographical work and that it is of interest to the scholar of the mid-Victorian novel and for the insights it provides into the mind of Brontë herself.]

Agnes Grey is the barest sort of story, without color and without humor. Unlighted by the least play of fancy, it presents a bald, literal chronicle of events as drab as life itself. It has no improbabilities, no flights of the imagination, no romance. It is realism in the literal sense of the word, life as it actually is, without exaggeration and without adornment. It is just the sort of realism that William Dean Howells asserted that he wrote when he called Dickens' novels romances. Produced at the same time (1846) as The Professor, it seems to have been inspired by the same theory of the novel as Charlotte had in conceiving her first work, which was rejected by six publishers in succession because it lacked thrilling excitement and startling incident. That the young sister should have been influenced by the older seems only natural when one recalls the habit of the Brontë girls to discuss the composition of their stories every night before going to bed as they paced up and down the floor together.

Like Charlotte's other novel, Jane Eyre, it is a domestic novel of humanitarian purpose, and sets forth the ills and humiliations of a governess' life. Both sisters had suffered grievously while serving as governesses, and these works of theirs show how bitterly the remembrances rankled in their breasts. Agnes Grey almost literally describes Anne's own experiences at Mrs. Ingham's and the Robinsons' , evidently with the purpose of informing the public as to the treatment accorded young women who had to make their living by going out to teach. Aside from this didactic purpose and the author's declared aim to instruct the reader,¹⁰⁸ the book contains none of the usual paraphernalia of the novel of instruction: it never preaches, and proclaims no doctrines.

Autobiographical in the main, beyond a doubt, it is, as Charlotte has declared, "the mirror of the mind of the writer."¹⁰⁹ Agnes is Anne in every respect. One sees the strict seclusion in which Anne was brought up, the way the older members of the family dominated her, her going forth, young and inexperienced, into a harsh world, her grief at leaving home and her homesickness while away, the vulgarity and rudeness to which she was exposed, the meanness and hardness of her life as governess, and the terrible agony of a young heart deprived of youth's young dream of love. Only on the last page Agnes does find the love that Anne was never to know; but in the fruition of Agnes' hopes, one can see the terrible frustration of poor Anne. Almost without reserve she exposes her baffled heart, fulfilling more truly than she realized her promise in the first chapter to "candidly lay before the public what I would not disclose to the most intimate friend."¹¹⁰ No more pathetic document can be found than this chronicle of the wild hunger of a blighted human heart robbed of its natural destiny.

Telling for the most part Anne's own story, the novel naturally has no real plot. Agnes goes out as governess in an ill-bred family of impossible children, changes her position after a short time, falls in love with Edward Weston, the curate, and, after some slight difficulties, marries him in the end and has three children, Edward, Agnes, and little Mary. This is all that happens. The characterization, too, is but slight. Described in a sort of catalog method upon their introduction, the different characters make but a dim impression upon the mind and live only while one is reading the novel. It is impossible to visualize them. The dialog, also, adds nothing to the verisimilitude. Unnatural and stilted, it is as lifeless and colorless as the rest of the story. No children ever talked as the youngsters do in this book.¹¹¹ The earmarks of the governess are over it all.

The narrative is permeated, also, with Anne's mid-Victorian evangelical religious conceptions. Since her father's sympathies were with what at that time was known as the Evangelical group in the English Church, it was only natural that her ideas should have been of the same cast.¹¹² This group, which was closest in points of doctrine to the dissenters, was essentially "Low Church" in its attitude towards the ceremonies and symbols of the Church, and in theology was decidedly Calvinistic. Thruout the story Agnes Grey's thinking is dominated by such conceptions, and her whole attitude of mind is colored by them.¹¹³ When the unhappy girl, for example, is enjoying the prospect of going to church, where she will have the pleasure of seeing her lover preach, at once she is disturbed by "the secret reproaches of my conscience, which would too often whisper that I was deceiving my own self, and mocking God with the service of a heart more bent upon the creature than the Creator."¹¹⁴ Again, when she thinks of her future life without her lover and is naturally distressed over the prospect, she takes herself to task thus: "It was wrong to be so joyless, so desponding; I should have made God my friend, and to do His will the pleasure and business of my life; but faith was weak, and passion was too strong."¹¹⁵ Then, when she feels that she would rather die than live without her lover, she checks herself thus: "Should I shrink from work that God has set before me, because it was not fitted to my taste? Did not He know best what I should do, and where I ought to labour? and should I long to quit His service before I had finished my task, and expect to enter into His rest without having laboured to earn it? 'No; by His help I will arise and address myself to my appointed duty. If happiness in this world is not for me, I will endeavour to promote the welfare of those around me, and my reward shall be hereafter.'"¹¹⁶ And when at last she has got her lover, and certainly ought to be satisfied, she declares that her purpose is to "keep in mind the glorious heaven beyond, where both may meet again, and sin and sorrow are unknown … and … endeavour to live to the glory of Him who has scattered so many blessings in our path."¹¹⁷

Hand in hand with this mid-Victorian evangelicalism goes the mid-century's fondness for tears. These flow copiously from page to page upon the slightest provocation; indeed, they were the only luxury the poor governess had. Abundant as they are, they always seem to be voluntary, however, and strictly under her control, to be called forth when she wanted them. For instance, when she thought of leaving her sister to go away to be a governess, she buried her face in her hands, "and they were presently bathed in tears."¹¹⁸ And as she drove away, she drew her veil over her face, "and then, but not till then, burst into a flood of tears."¹¹⁹ Years later, when she feared that Rosalie Murray was going to take her lover from her, she wanted to cry, but had to postpone her tears until after dinner: "Right glad was I to get into the house, and find myself alone once more in my own room. My first impulse was to sink into the chair beside the bed; and laying my head on the pillow, to seek relief in a passionate burst of tears; there was an imperative craving for such an indulgence; but alas! I must restrain and swallow back my feelings still," for the dinner bell was ringing.¹²⁰ And some time afterward, when she thought that she was hearing her lover preach for the last time, she confesses to the reader, "I was often on the point of melting into tears during the sermon—the last I was to hear from him" and when it was over, she continues, "I longed to seek the retirement of my own room, or some sequestered nook in the grounds, that I might deliver myself up to my feelings—to weep my last farewell, and lament my false hopes and vain delusions." But when he suddenly addressed her, she boasts, "I was very much startled; and had I been hysterically inclined, I certainly should have committed myself in some way then. Thank God, I was not."¹²¹ After all that he has been thru, the reader, too, says, "Thank God," from the bottom of his heart.

With such characteristics as have been pointed out, this novel has what value today? Very little except for the scholar who is studying the period or tracing the development of the mid-Victorian novel. For him, however, it has much that is interesting and valuable. In the first place, as a type of the mid-Victorian novel written by a woman, it reveals certain distinctive qualities. It follows the trend of the age in its emphasis upon the emotions, its humanitarian purpose, and its interest in the lower classes.¹¹² Based largely upon the quiet, prosaic experiences of a governess, it lacks excitement of any kind, and what interest it has lies in the revelations of the heroine's personality and her mild adventures of the heart. For herself she has revealed with a good deal of verisimilitude. Everywhere in the book her gentle, charming personality makes itself felt. Transcribing the minute details of a governess' life, however, with literal exactitude and no imagination, the narrative approximates reporting rather than an artistic presentation of life. And yet it does seem real. It has all the actuality of a transcript from Anne's own life. The most probable passages are those that the author drew from her own experience; the least probable are those she manufactured, such as the love scenes. But the whole story includes only the smallest segment of human affairs, shows no knowledge of the developments of the time in scientific achievement or appliances, gives no hint of the material progress of the outside world, and presents no philosophy of life.

In the second place, the scholar of the period will be interested in the picture it paints of the manners and morals in the mid-Victorian English village. It furnishes a vivid insight into the life of a governess at this time and a true, tho circumscribed, view of a woman of the middle class living the inhibited life so common to the female members of the mid-Victorian household.

Lastly, its greatest value, perhaps, will lie in the light it throws upon the mind and character of the author. For it unmistakably reveals much of her inner self: her hatred of the life of a governess, her fondness for children,¹²³ her evangelical ideas, her lack of a sense of humor, her tenderness of heart, and her suppressed, frustrated life. Twenty-seven tho she was when she published this novel, and a woman so far in the twenties in this era was long on her way toward spinsterhood, so little had she seen of the actual world and so much had she lived her life within her own self, she seems like an unsophisticated child revealing things about herself she should not tell. What could be more charming and more child-like than Agnes' agreement with herself not to think so much about her lover?—"So said I in my heart; and from that hour I only permitted my thoughts to wander to Edward Weston—or at least to dwell upon him now and then—as a treat for rare occasions."¹²⁴ What could be more touching than her confessions to the reader of her love for him?—"He had not breathed a word of love, or dropped one hint of tenderness or affection, and yet I had been supremely happy. To be near him, to hear him talk as he did talk; and to feel that he thought me worthy to be so spoken to— capable of understanding and duly appreciating such discourse—was enough."¹²⁵ What could be more womanly and more mid-Victorian?

Notes

¹⁰⁸ Cf. Agnes Grey (The World's Classics), p. 1: "All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity, that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut. Whether this be the case with my history or not, I am hardly competent to judge."

¹⁰⁹ [Clement K. Shorter, Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle, 1896,] p. 162.

¹¹⁰ P. 1. Cf. p. 113: "I began this book with the intention of concealing nothing; that those who liked might have the benefit of perusing a fellow-creature's heart: but we have some thoughts that all the angels in heaven are welcome to behold, but not our brother men—not even the best and kindest among them."

¹¹¹ Cf. pp. 19-20, 46.

¹¹² Charlotte's and Emily's pro-Protestant and anti-Catholic bias was strongly evident during their stay in Belgium. Cf. [Mrs. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell, Life of Charlotte Brontë, edited by Clement K. Shorter (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1901),] pp. 243-4.

¹¹³ Cf. Agnes Grey, pp. 83-4.

¹¹⁴Ibid., p. 139.

¹¹⁵Ibid., p. 153.

¹¹⁶Agnes Grey, p. 177.

¹¹⁷Ibid., p. 207.

¹¹⁸Ibid., p. 12.

¹¹⁹Ibid., p. 12.

¹²⁰Ibid., p. 138.

¹²¹Agnes Grey, pp. 172-3.

¹²² Cf. pp. 86-107, etc.

¹²³Agnes Grey, p. 9.

¹²⁴Ibid., pp. 177-8.

¹²⁵Ibid., pp. 171-2.