[In the following essay, the critic offers a plot summary and dismisses The Professor as incomplete, lacking the “descriptive or womanly touches” of Brontë's other novels.]

After nine years—the fitting Horatian interval—Currer Bell's rejected novel makes its posthumous appearance in print. The wondrous story of Jane Eyre has so much gratified, and the more wondrous, “ower true,” and over-tragic life-drama of Charlotte Brontë so much amazed the world, that it feels disposed rather to err on the side of gentleness than rigour, and to question the justice of the criticism which refused, rather than the constructive power which was latent in the earlier tale. Accordingly friends, lovers, and biographer have moved for a new trial, and The Professor comes before the public with every advantage of typography, and with the best prospects of a hearing. Whether the counsel which prompted, or the love which consented, to publication was wise or considerate, is as fairly open to doubt as the friendship which is disinclined to consider a dog Diamond as on some occasions providential. The world has not gained greatly by ‘The Prelude,’ and perhaps we ought to be resigned to the loss of a few sheets more of ‘The Opium-Eater.’ That the work before us will be read and discussed by all who have read the Life of Charlotte Brontë is certain enough, but the interest excited will be rather curious than deep, and the impression left on the reader one of pain and incompleteness. It is a mere study for Jane Eyre or Shirley,—certainly displaying effects of the same force, the same characteristic keenness of perception, the same rough, bold, coarse truthfulness of expression, the same compressed style, offence of dialogue, preference for forbidden topics, and pre-Raphaelitish contempt for grace,—but with scarcely any relief or shadow, and with fewer descriptive or womanly touches. Unity or arrangement there is none. The sketches are carelessly left loose for the reader to connect or not, as he chooses,—a carelessness the result of a deliberate intention, as is clear enough from the Preface.—

I said to myself that my hero should work his way through life as I had seen real living men work theirs—that he should never get a shilling he had not earned—that no sudden turns should lift him in a moment to wealth and high station; that whatever small competency he might gain, should be won by the sweat of his brow; that, before he could find so much as an arbour to sit down in, he should master at least half the ascent of ‘the Hill of Difficulty;’ that he should not even marry a beautiful girl or a lady of rank. As Adam's son he should share Adam's doom, and drain throughout life a mixed and moderate cup of enjoyment.

The incidents of the story are few; the principal parts are sustained by an unnatural brother, a rough manufacturer, of the type of Mr. Helstone, who interposes ex machinâ and rescues the hero, an obstinate but well-regulated character in difficulties. The hero, a younger son of a Yorkshire blue-dyer, is of patrician race by the mother's side, but though educated at Eton he declines to adopt the Church and the opinions of his titled uncles, and in preference offers himself as a clerk to his brother, a rich Yorkshire manufacturer, the husband of a childish-looking, red-haired lady, whom he terrifies by driving a restive quadruped,—“only opening his lips to damn his horse.”

Here is a portrait of Mr. Crimsworth, the elder brother, and a peep into the manufacturing “concern”:—

Workpeople were passing to and fro; a waggon was being laden with pieces. Mr. Crimsworth looked from side to side, and seemed at one glance to comprehend all that was going on; he alighted, and leaving his horse and gig to the care of a man who hastened to take the reins from his hand, he bid me follow him to the counting-house. We entered it; a very different place from the parlours of Crimsworth Hall—a place for business, with a bare, planked floor, a safe, two high desks and stools, and some chairs. A person was seated at one of the desks, who took off his square cap when Mr. Crimsworth entered, and in an instant was again absorbed in his occupation of writing or calculating—I know not which. Mr. Crimsworth, having removed his mackintosh, sat down by the fire. I remained standing near the hearth; he said presently—‘Steighton, you may leave the room; I have some business to transact with this gentleman. Come back when you hear the bell.’ The individual at the desk rose and departed, closing the door as he went out. Mr. Crimsworth stirred the fire, then folded his arms, and sat a moment thinking, his lips compressed, his brow knit. I had nothing to do but to watch him—how well his features were cut! what a handsome man he was! Whence, then, came that air of contraction—that narrow and hard aspect on his forehead, in all his lineaments? Turning to me he began abruptly:—‘You are come down to———shire to learn to be a tradesman?’—‘Yes, I am.’—‘Have you made up your mind on the point? Let me know that at once.’—‘Yes.’—‘Well, I am not bound to help you, but I have a place here vacant, if you are qualified for it. I will take you on trial. What can you do? Do you know anything besides that useless trash of college learning—Greek, Latin, and so forth?’—‘I have studied mathematics.’—‘Stuff! I dare say you have.’—‘I can read and write French and German.’—‘Hum!’ He reflected a moment, and then opening a drawer in a desk near him took out a letter and gave it to me. ‘Can you read that?’ he asked. It was a German commercial letter; I translated it; I could not tell whether he was gratified or not—his countenance remained fixed. ‘It is well,’ he said, after a pause, ‘that you are acquainted with something useful, something that will enable you to earn your board and lodging: since you know French and German, I will take you as second clerk to manage the foreign correspondence of the house. I shall give you a good salary—90l. a year—and now,’ he continued, raising his voice, ‘hear once for all what I have to say about our relationship, and all that sort of humbug! I must have no nonsense on that point; it would never suit me. I shall excuse you nothing on the plea of being my brother; if I find you stupid, negligent, dissipated, idle, or possessed of any faults detrimental to the interests of the house, I shall dismiss you as I would any other clerk. Ninety pounds a year are good wages, and I expect to have the full value of my money out of you; remember, too, that things are on a practical footing in my establishment—business-like habits, feelings, and ideas, suit me best. Do you understand?’—‘Partly,’ I replied. ‘I suppose you mean that I am to do my work for my wages; not to expect favour from you, and not to depend on you for any help but what I earn; that suits me exactly, and on these terms I will consent to be your clerk.’ I turned on my heel, and walked to the window; this time I did not consult his face to learn his opinion: what it was I do not know, nor did I then care. After a silence of some minutes he recommenced:—‘You perhaps expect to be accommodated with apartments at Crimsworth Hall, and go and come with me in the gig. I wish you, however, to be aware that such an arrangement would be quite inconvenient to me. I like to have the seat in my gig at liberty for any gentleman whom for business reasons I may wish to take down to the hall for a night or so. You will seek out lodgings in X———.’ Quitting the window, I walked back to the health. ‘Of course I shall seek out lodgings in X———,’ I answered. ‘It would not suit me either to lodge at Crimsworth Hall.’ My tone was quiet. I always speak quietly. Yet Mr. Crimsworth's blue eye became incensed; he took his revenge rather oddly. Turning to me he said bluntly—‘You are poor enough, I suppose; how do you expect to live till your quarter's salary becomes due?’—‘I shall get on,’ said I.—‘How do you expect to live?’ he repeated in a louder voice.—‘As I can, Mr. Crimsworth.’—‘Get into debt at your peril! that's all,’ he answered. ‘For aught I know you may have extravagant aristocratic habits; if you have, drop them; I tolerate nothing of the sort here, and I will never give you a shilling extra, whatever liabilities you may incur—mind that.’

The engagement proves unsatisfactory, and a Mr. Hunsden, who talks a language that partly recalls Mephistopheles and partly Mr. Carlyle, exhorts, if you “cannot get up to the pitch of resistance, why, God made you to be crushed, and lie down by all means, and lie flat, and let Juggernaut ride well over you.” The advice takes; there is a hot quarrel between the brother and William Crimsworth,—the hero quits the works. The contrast between the hot scene in the counting-house and the cool wintry evening is in exquisite feeling.—

There was a great stillness near and far; the time of the day favoured tranquillity, as the people were all employed within doors, the hour of evening release from the factories not being yet arrived; a sound of full-flowing water alone pervaded the air, for the river was deep and abundant, swelled by the melting of a late snow. I stood awhile leaning over a wall; and looking down at the current, I watched the rapid rush of its waves. I desired memory to take a clear and permanent impression of the scene, and treasure it for future years. Grovetown church clock struck four; looking up I beheld the last of that day's sun, glinting red through the leafless boughs of some very old oak trees surrounding the church—its light coloured and characterized the picture as I wished. I paused yet a moment, till the sweet, slow sound of the bell had quite died out of the air; then ear, eye and feeling satisfied, I quitted the wall and once more turned my face towards X———.

With a letter from Mr. Hunsden, fifteen pounds, and a watch, our hero starts for Brussels. Here is a piece of writing that strongly reminds us of Jane Eyre:—

Three—nay four—pictures line the four-walled cell where are stored for me the records of the past. First, Eton. All in that picture is in far perspective, receding, diminutive; but freshly coloured, green, dewy, with a spring sky, piled with glittering yet showery clouds; for my childhood was not all sunshine—it had its overcast, its cold, its stormy hours. Second, X———, huge, dingy; the canvas cracked and smoked; a yellow sky, sooty clouds; no sun, no azure: the verdure of the suburbs blighted and sullied—a very dreary scene. Third, Belgium; and I will pause before this landscape. * * Green, reedy swamps; fields fertile but flat, cultivated in patches that made them look like magnified kitchen-gardens; belts of cut trees, formal as pollard willows, skirting the horizon; narrow canals, gliding slow by the roadside; painted Flemish farm-houses; some very dirty hovels; a grey, dead sky; wet road, wet fields, wet house-tops: not a beautiful, scarcely a picturesque object met my eye along the whole route; yet to me, all was beautiful, all was more than picturesque.

Arrived in Brussels, we are introduced to M. Pelet, a schoolmaster in the Rue Royale, the prototype of M. Paul in Villette, who engages the hero as Professor of English and Latin at a thousand francs a year. The Professor's first essay with the class of moon-faced Flemings, who snuffle, snort, and wheeze the English tongue, is vigorous, but wanting in humour. We pass over the odd ménage,—quit the Professor's chamber, which has one window boarded up, les convenances forbidding irregular insight into a “Pensionnat de Demoiselles,”—and, along with the Professor, enter in due form the clear and bright, though somewhat chill, salon of Mdlle. Reuter, the fair directrice, a lady who wears her pretty nut-brown hair in curls, and is very quiet, interesting, and cat-like. There Mr. Creemsvort is engaged as occasional Professor, at five hundred francs a year; and we make the acquaintance of a triad that reminds us in idea of Blanche, Rose, and Violet. The morality of the school is thus sketched:—

The first picture is a full length of Aurelia Koslow, a German fräulein, or rather a half-breed between German and Russian. She is eighteen years of age, and has been sent to Brussels to finish her education; she is of middle size, stiffly made, body long, legs short, bust much developed but not compactly moulded, waist disproportionately compressed by an inhumanly braced corset, dress carefully arranged, large feet tortured into small bottines, head small, hair smoothed, braided, oiled, and gummed to perfection; very low forehead, very diminutive and vindictive grey eyes, somewhat Tartar features, rather flat nose, rather high cheek bones, yet the ensemble not positively ugly; tolerably good complexion. So much for person. As to mind deplorably ignorant and ill-informed; incapable of writing or speaking correctly even German, her native tongue, a dunce in French, and her attempts at learning English a mere farce, yet she has been at school twelve years; but as she invariably gets her exercises, of every description, done by a fellow pupil, and reads her lessons off a book concealed in her lap, it is not wonderful that her progress has been so snail-like. I do not know what Aurelia's daily habits of life are, because I have not the opportunity of observing her at all times; but from what I see of the state of her desk, books, and papers, I should say she is slovenly and even dirty; her outward dress, as I have said, is well attended to; but in passing behind her bench, I have remarked that her neck is grey for want of washing, and her hair, so glossy with gum and grease, is not such as one feels tempted to pass the hand over, much less to run the fingers through. Aurelia's conduct in class, at least when I am present, is something extraordinary, considered as an index of girlish innocence. The moment I enter the room, she nudges her next neighbour and indulges in a half-suppressed laugh. As I take my seat on the estrade, she fixes her eye on me; she seems resolved to attract, and, if possible, monopolize my notice; to this end she launches at me all sorts of looks, languishing, provoking, leering, laughing. As I am found quite proof against this sort of artillery—for we scorn what, unasked, is lavishly offered—she has recourse to the expedient of making noises; sometimes she sighs, sometimes groans, sometimes utters inarticulate sounds, for which language has no name. If, in walking up the school-room, I pass near her, she puts out her foot that it may touch mine; if I do not happen to observe the manœuvre, and my boot comes in contact with her brodequin, she affects to fall into convulsions of suppressed laughter; if I notice the snare and avoid it, she expresses her mortification in sullen muttering, where I hear myself abused in bad French, pronounced with an intolerable low German accent.

The story oscillates betwixt the two establishments for nearly three hundred pages,—M. Pelet or Mdlle. Reuter predominating by turns in endeavours to enlist the heart of the Professor and the interest of the reader. An Anglo-Swiss pupil-teacher, Mdlle. Frances Evans Henri, carries the day, and is dismissed in consequence. Love-making on the part of the directrice—jealousy on that of M. Pelet—several pages of search, and the discovery of the young lady in a cemetery weeping over her aunt's grave—a proposal—the appearance of Mr. Hunsden—and a wedding, are the chief events in the second volume. The Professor's proposal is original and Shirley-like. This is the scene:—

Frances rose, as if restless; she passed before me to stir the fire, which did not want stirring; she lifted and put down the little ornaments on the mantel-piece; her dress waved within a yard of me; slight, straight, and elegant, she stood erect on the hearth. There are impulses we can control; but there are others which control us, because they attain us with a tiger-leap, and are our masters ere we have seen them. Perhaps though, such impulses are seldom altogether bad; perhaps Reason, by a process as brief as quiet, a process that is finished ere felt, has ascertained the sanity of the deed Instinct meditates, and feels justified in remaining passive while it is performed. I know I did not reason, I did not plan or intend, yet, whereas one moment I was sitting solus on the chair near the table, the next, I held Frances on my knee, placed there with sharpness and decision, and retained with exceeding tenacity. ‘Monsieur!’ cried Frances, and was still; not another word escaped her lips; sorely confounded she seemed during the lapse of the first few moments; but the amazement soon subsided; terror did not succeed, nor fury; after all, she was only a little nearer than she had been before, to one she habitually respected and trusted; embarrassment might have impelled her to contend, but self-respect checked resistance where resistance is useless. ‘Frances, how much regard have you for me?’ was my demand. No answer; the situation was yet too new and surprising to permit speech. On this consideration, I compelled myself for some seconds to tolerate her silence, though impatient of it; presently, I repeated the same question—probably not in the calmest of tones; she looked at me; my face, doubtless, was no model of composure, my eyes no still wells of tranquillity.—‘Do speak,’ I urged; and a very low, hurried, yet still arch voice said—‘Monsieur, vous me faîtes mal; de grâce lâchez un peu ma main droite.’ In truth I became aware that I was holding the said ‘main droite’ in a somewhat ruthless grasp: I did as desired; and, for the third time, asked more gently—‘Frances, how much regard have you for me?’—‘Mon maître, j'en ai beaucoup,’ was the truthful rejoinder.—‘Frances, have you enough to give yourself to me as my wife?—to accept me as your husband?’ I felt the agitation of the heart, I saw ‘the purple light of love’ cast its glowing reflection on cheek, temples, neck; I desired to consult the eye, but sheltering lash and lid forbade. ‘Monsieur,’ said the soft voice at last,—‘Monsieur désire savoir si je consens—si—enfin, si je veux me marier avec lui?’—‘Justement.’—‘Monsieur sera-t-il aussi bon mari qu'il a été bon maître?’—‘I will try, Frances.’ A pause; then with a new, yet still subdued inflexion of the voice—an inflexion which provoked while it pleased me—accompanied, too, by a ‘sourire à la fois fin et timide’ in perfect harmony with the tone:—‘C'est à dire, monsieur sera toujours un peu entêté, exigeant, volontaire?’—‘Have I been so, Frances?’—‘Mais oui; vous le savez bien.’—‘Have I been nothing else?’—‘Mais oui; vous avez été mon meilleur ami.’—‘And what, Frances, are you to me?’—‘Votre dévouée élève, qui vous aime de tout son cœur.’—‘Will my pupil consent to pass her life with me? Speak English now, Frances.’ Some moments were taken for reflection; the answer, pronounced slowly, ran thus:—‘You have always made me happy; I like to hear you speak; I like to see you; I like to be near you; I believe you are very good, and very superior; I know you are stern to those who are careless and idle, but you are kind, very kind to the attentive and industrious, even if they are not clever. Master, I should be glad to live with you always;’ and she made a sort of movement, as if she would have clung to me, but restraining herself she only added with earnest emphasis—‘Master, I consent to pass my life with you.’—‘Very well, Frances.’ I drew her a little nearer to my heart; I took a first kiss from her lips, thereby sealing the compact, now framed between us; afterwards she and I were silent, nor was our silence brief. Frances' thoughts, during this interval, I know not, nor did I attempt to guess them; I was not occupied in searching her countenance, nor in otherwise troubling her composure. The peace I felt, I wished her to feel; my arm, it is true, still detained her; but with a restraint that was gentle enough, so long as no opposition tightened it. My gaze was on the red fire; my heart was measuring its own content; it sounded and sounded, and found the depth fathomless. ‘Monsieur,’ at last said my quiet companion, as stirless in her happiness as a mouse in its terror. Even now in speaking she scarcely lifted her head. ‘Well, Frances?’ I like unexaggerated intercourse; it is not my way to overpower with amorous epithets, any more than to worry with selfishly importunate caresses. ‘Monsieur est raisonnable, n'est ce pas?’—‘Yes; especially when I am requested to be so in English: but why do you ask me?’—‘You see nothing vehement or obtrusive in my manner; am I not tranquil enough?’—‘Ce n'est pas cela—’ began Frances. ‘English!’ I reminded her. ‘Well monsieur, I wished merely to say, that I should like, of course, to retain my employment of teaching. You will teach still, I suppose, monsieur?’—‘Oh yes, it is all I have to depend on.’—‘Bon!—I mean good. Thus we shall have both the same profession. I like that; and my efforts to get on will be as unrestrained as yours—will they not, monsieur?’—‘You are laying plans to be independent of me,’ said I.—‘Yes, monsieur; I must be no incumbrance to you—no burden in any way.’—‘But, Frances, I have not yet told you what my prospects are. I have left M. Pelet's; and after nearly a month's seeking, I have got another place, with a salary of three thousand francs a year, which I can easily double by a little additional exertion. Thus you see it would be useless for you to fag yourself by going out to give lessons; on six thousand francs you and I can live, and live well.’ Frances seemed to consider. There is something flattering to man's strength, something consonant to his honourable pride, in the idea of becoming the providence of what he loves—feeding and clothing it, as God does the lilies of the field. So to decide her resolution, I went on:—‘Life has been painful and laborious enough to you so far, Frances; you require complete rest; your twelve hundred francs would not form a very important addition to our income, and what sacrifice of comfort to earn it! Relinquish your labours: you must be weary, and let me have the happiness of giving you rest.’ I am not sure whether Frances had accorded due attention to my harangue; instead of answering me with her usual respectful promptitude, she only smiled and said—‘How rich you are, monsieur!’ and then she stirred uneasy in my arms. ‘Three thousand francs!’ she murmured, ‘while I get only twelve hundred!’ She went on faster. ‘However it must be so for the present; and, monsieur, were you not saying something about my giving up my place? Oh no! I shall hold it fast;’ and her little fingers emphatically tightened on mine.—‘Think of my marrying you to be kept by you, monsieur! I could not do it; and how dull my days would be! You would be away teaching in close, noisey school-rooms, from morning till evening, and I should be lingering at home, unemployed and solitary; I should get depressed and sullen, and you would soon tire of me.’—‘Frances, you could read and study—two things you like so well.’—‘Monsieur, I could not; I like a contemplative life, but I like an active life better; I must act in some way, and act with you. I have taken notice, monsieur, that people who are only in each other's company for amusement, never really like each other so well, or esteem each other so highly, as those who work together, and perhaps suffer together.’—‘You speak God's truth,’ said I at last, ‘and you shall have your own way, for it is the best way. Now, as a reward for such ready consent, give me a voluntary kiss.’

The pair open a school in Brussels, where Mr. Hunsden sends them pupils “to be polished off.” In ten years they make a fortune, secure a pretty English home that lies among the moors thirty miles from X———. “The smoke of mills has not yet sullied the verdure, the waters still run pure.” There is a long, green, shady lane starred with daisies, which gives a title to the house. There is a fine boy and a favourite mastiff;—and the story ends.

Miss Brontë does not exhibit her characters in critical action, or under strong temptation. Low chicane, astuteness, sensuality, and tyranny, are keenly and observantly drawn; but throughout the novel the quietness is unnatural, the level of fact too uniform, the restraint and the theory of life too plain. The principles and the art of the writer, though true, excite no corresponding sympathy on the part of the reader,—few demands being made on his softer or gentler nature. There is no Helen Burns that we can watch or weep over,—no sprightly little Adele that we can sport with. Frances may possibly be the mother of Lucy Snow, and Mdlle. Reuter and M. Pelet the co-efficients of Madame Modeste and Paul Emmanuel. Similarities of opinion respecting marriage may be traced, not as a crime, but an imbecility. Now and then there is a touch of grandiloquence that astonishes us. Words and events are utilized in a way that now, knowing the author's opportunities, appear to us remarkable. On the whole, this tale bears to Currer Bell's later works the relation which a pre-Shakespearian story does to the drama,—it is curious to an artist or psychologist. On closing this posthumous chapter, and ending Charlotte Brontë's strange literary history, we are reminded of a saying of Jean Paul's—“God deals with poets as we do with nightingales, hanging a dark cloth round the cage until they sing the right tune.”