When Brontë Met Thackeray: The Puncturing Of Inflated Expectations

by Stephen J. Gertz

This is what introduced Charlotte Bronte to William Makepeace Thackeray:

This is what introduced William Makepeace Thackeray to Charlotte Brontë aka Currer Bell:

 "There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital - a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of 'Vanity Fair' admired in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those amongst who he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time - they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.

"Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day - as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison that suits him, the terms which rightly characterize his talent. They say he's like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humor, comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture: Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never does. His wit is bright, his humor attractive, but both bear the same relation, to his serious genius that the mere lambent sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud, does to the electric death-spark his in its womb. Finally: I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray, because to him - if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger - I have dedicated this second edition of Jane Eyre. Currer Bell Dec. 21st, 1847."

This is what Thackeray thought of Brontë's tribute:

"January 1848

My dear Mr. [William Smith] Williams,

I am quite vexed that by some blundering of mine I should have delayed answering Currer Bell's enormous compliment so long. I didn't know what to say in reply; it quite flustered and upset me. Is it true, I wonder? I'm - But a truce to egoism. Thank you for your kindness in sending me the volumes, and (indirectly) for the greatest compliment I have ever received in my life.

Faithfully yours,

W.M. Thackeray"

What happened when the two finally met face to face was a textbook case of romanticized notions of an author's greatness deflated upon meeting the superman; he was merely human and nothing at all  like Brontë had built up in her imagination. Her hero was just a guy; the glorious prophet in print was pedestrian in person, a holy man defrocked by reality and stripped of his sanctity. Lewis Melville, in his biography of Thackeray, tells the story.

"It has already been mentioned that 'Currer Bell' dedicated the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' to Thackeray, and Thackeray later acknowledged the compliment, before even he knew her name or sex, by sending her a copy of 'Vanity Fair' [first edition in book form, 1848] inscribed with his 'grateful regards.' Charlotte Bronte had been much disturbed by the widespread rumour that she had drawn Thackeray and his wife [who was mentally ill and institutionalized] as Mr. and Mrs. Rochester, though she was indifferent to those other lying reports that said she had been a governess in his family and subsequently his mistress; and when she came to London in December 1849, she eagerly accepted the offer of George Smith [1824-1901, partner in Smith, Elder & Co., publisher of Jane Eyre, The Cornhill Magazine, and Thackeray's friend], to introduce Thackeray to her.

Thackeray's inscription on his presentation copy to Brontë of Vanity Fair.

"When they did meet, she was much astonished. As the dedication to the second edition of 'Jane Eyre' shows, she had expected to find a fervent prophet, and Thackeray was simply a quiet, well-bred gentleman, with nothing in appearance to distinguish him from hosts of other men. A delightful story has been related of their meeting. It is worthy of being repeated, for, though probably apocryphal, it is amusingly true of the lady's attitude to her hero.

"'Behold, a lion Cometh up out of the North!' she quoted under her breath, as Thackeray entered the drawing-room. Thackeray, being informed of this, remarked: 'Oh, Lord ! and I'm nothing but a poor devil of an Englishman, ravenous for my dinner.' 

"At dinner. Miss Bronte was placed opposite him. 'And,' said Thackeray, 'I had the miserable humiliation of seeing her ideal of me disappearing, as everything went into my mouth, and nothing came out of it, until, at last, as I took my fifth potato, she leaned across, with clasped hands and tearful eyes, and breathed imploringly, 'Oh, Mr. Thackeray! Don't!'"

"Oh, Mr. Thackeray! Don't!"

"Thackeray was an enigma to Charlotte Bronte; she could not understand him; she was never certain whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest; but she was determined to take him seriously.

"'All you say of Mr. Thackeray is most graphic and characteristic,' she wrote to Ellen Nussey, on December 19 [1849]. 'He stirs in me both sorrow and anger. Why should he lead so harassing a life? Why should his mocking tongue so perversely deny the better feelings of his better moods?…Mr. Thackeray is a man of very quiet, simple demeanour; he is, however, looked up to with some awe and even distrust…Thackeray is a Titan of mind. His presence and powers impress one deeply in an intellectual sense; I do not know him or see him as a man. All the others are subordinate…I felt sufficiently at my ease with all but Thackeray; with him, I was fearfully stupid.'

"Charlotte Bronte came again to London in the following June [1850], and Thackeray called on her at George Smith's house, and the host, who was alone with them, afterwards described the interview as 'a queer scene.'

"'I suppose it was,' the lady wrote to Ellen Nussey. 'The giant sat before me: I was moved to speak of some of his shortcomings (literary, of course); one by one the faults came into my head, and one by one I brought them out, and sought some explanation or defence. He did defend himself, like a great Turk and heathen; that is to say, the excuses were often worse than the crime itself. The matter ended in decent amity; if all be well I am to dine at his house this evening (June 12).'

"The dinner, it must be confessed, was not a success. The party included Mrs. Crowe, the Brookfields, the Carlyles, Mrs. Procter and her daughter, and Mrs. Elliot and Miss Perry, and it should have been a bright gathering. Instead it was a gloomy and silent evening, conversation languished, the guest in whose honour all were assembled said nothing, and Thackeray, too much depressed by the failure of the entertainment, but little. Mrs. Brookfield made an effort.

"'Do you like London, Miss Bronte?' she asked; then, after a pause, the other said gravely, 'Yes — no.'

"Charlotte Bronte was the first to leave, and so soon as she had gone Thackeray slipped out of the drawing-room, and his eldest daughter was surprised to see him open the front door with his hat on.

"'He put his fingers to his lips, walked out into the darkness, and shut the door quietly behind him. When I went back to the drawing-room again, the ladies asked me where he was. I vaguely answered that I thought he was coming back,' Lady Ritchie [Thackeray's daughter] has written. 'Long years afterwards, Mrs. Procter, with a good deal of humour, described the situation — the ladies, who had all come expecting so much delightful conversation, and the gloom and constraint, and how finally, overwhelmed by the situation, my father had quietly left the room, left the house, and gone off to his club. The ladies waited, wondered, and finally departed also; and as we were going up to bed with our candles, after everybody was gone, I remember two pretty Miss L 's, in shiny silk dresses, arriving full of expectation…We still said we thought our father would soon be back, but the Miss L's declined to wait upon the chance, laughed, and drove away again almost immediately.'

"Once more Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray met, and again a letter of the lady tells the tale.

"'I came here (London) on Wednesday, being summoned a day sooner than I expected, in order to be in time for Thackeray's second lecture, which was delivered on Thursday afternoon. This, as you may suppose, was a great treat, and I was glad not to miss it,' she wrote to Ellen Nussey, on June 2, 1851. 'As our party left the (lecture) Hall, he (Thackeray) stood at the entrance; he saw and knew me, and lifted his hat; he offered his hand in passing, and uttered the words, 'Qit'eii dttes-vous?' — a question eminently characteristic and reminding me, even in this his moment of triumph, of that inquisitive restlessness, that absence of what I considered desirable self-control, which were among his faults. He should not have cared just then to ask what I thought, or what anybody thought; but he did care, and he was too natural to conceal, too impulsive to repress, his wish. Well! if I blamed his over-eagerness, I liked his naivete. I would have praised him ; I had plenty of praise in my heart; but, alas! no words on my lips. Who has words at the right moment? I stammered lame expressions; but was truly glad when some other people, coming up with profuse congratulations, covered my deficiency by their redundancy.'

"Indeed, though intensely appreciative, Charlotte Bronte proved so severe a critic, both of himself and his works, that Thackeray was not quite pleased with the various letters (printed in Mrs. Gaskell's 'Life') in which she expressed her opinions, and he said so much in his 'Last Sketch,' prefixed to 'Emma,' when, under his editorship, that fragment appeared in the Cornhill Magazine.

"'I can only say of this lady, vidi tantiim. I saw her first just as I rose out of an illness from which I had never thought to recover. I remember the trembling little frame, the little hand, the great honest eyes. An impetuous honesty seemed to me to characterise the woman. Twice, I recollect, she took me to task for what she held to be errors in doctrine. Once about Fielding we had a disputation. She spoke her mind out. She jumped to conclusions (I have smiled at one or two passages in the 'Biography' in which my own disposition or behaviour form the subject of talk). She formed conclusions that might be wrong, and built up whole theories of character upon them. New to the London world, she entered it with an independent indomitable spirit of her own; and judged of contemporaries, and especially spied out arrogance or affectation, with extraordinary keenness of vision. She was angry with her favourites if their conduct or conversation fell below her ideal. Often she seemed to be judging the London folks prematurely; but perhaps the city is rather angry at being judged...

"An austere little Joan of Arc."
The ecdysiast edition for Kindle.

"'I fancied an austere little Joan of Arc marching in upon us, and rebutting our easy lives, our easy morals. She gave me the impression of being a very pure and lofty, and high-minded person. A great and holy reverence of right and truth seemed to be with her always. Such, in our brief interview, she appeared to me'" (Melville, The Life of William Makepeace Thackeray [1899], pp. 310-314).

• • •

While we know what Brontë and Thackeray thought when they met we have no idea what the designers of the above modern editions of their work were thinking when they met these two classics of English literature. We only know that when Brontë and Thackeray met modern packaging travesty ensued and bore two further examples of the death of civilization as we know it, whether through ignorance or a good case of bad taste while trying to breathe new life into old bones and resuscitate the once lively now near dead for 21st century readers.

But it appears to be fact of modern life that until a product of culture is sexualized it hasn't truly been integrated into the culture that produced it. In that regard, the sexualization of Jane Eyre and Vanity Fair for sales purposes may be, however dubious, the greatest compliment that can be paid to these old standards. 

"The moral world has no particular objection to vice, but an insuperable repugnance to hearing vice called by its proper name" (William Makepeace Thackeray, Vanity Fair). Thackeray, the great social observer, would have been, it seems, in Playland in the 21st century; so much to satirize. His challenge, of course, would be how to satirize a society that is already a parody of itself, the modern humorist's dilemma.

"To those who think with their heads, life is a comedy, to those who think with their hearts, life is a tragedy" (Henry Miller). That's the difference between Thackeray, the cool satirist, and his contemporaries, Dickens, the warm sentimentalist, and Brontë, the suffering gothic naturalist.

“If I am against the condition of the world it is not because I am a moralist, it is because I want to laugh more. I don't say that God is one grand laugh: I say that you've got to laugh hard before you can get anywhere near God" (Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn). And cry hard. While we shed tears over the perversion of culture we are amused by it. It is not unreasonable to suspect that Thackeray would have shared that view. Sorrow is the root of comedy and to be able to laugh in the midst of tears is the best defense against utter despair. 

And so, painful though the prospect is, I look forward to Jane Erred and Venery Fair, proof-positive that there's still life in these old cougars pathetically porned-up to attract younger partners. Brontë, the judgmental moralist, would be appalled. Thackeray would be appalled, too, but the temptation to slit his wrists would be tempered by wit, the folly of human behavior trumping stern righteousness.

That's the conversation I'd have enjoyed eavesdropping on when Brontë met Thackeray, if only Thackeray had stopped shoveling potatoes into his mouth long enough to participate. She was hungry for wisdom. He was just plain hungry.

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Henry Miller Loathed Salvador Dali (And Anais Nin Wasn't Crazy About Him, Either)

by Stephen J. Gertz

For a few months during late summer 1940, Henry Miller and Anais Nin visited their mutual friend from Paris, Caresse Crosby (1892-1970), for  an extended stay at Hampton Manor, a 486 acre estate  in Bowling Green, Virginia with a dilapidated Greek Revival mansion built in 1847 by John Hampton DeJarnette that Crosby had bought and renovated. At the same time Salvador Dali and his not-yet wife, Gala, were living at the estate.

Miller had met Dali years earlier in Paris. He was not impressed. Their relationship was antagonistic from the start. When Salvador and Gala, and Henry and Anais were thrown together at Hampton Manor Dali's antics and eccentricities, Miller's personality, and Gala's domineering nature led to a train wreck, when egos collide.

As Nin wrote in her dairies 1934-1944, "They hadn’t counted on Mrs. Dali’s talent for organization. Before anyone realized what was happening, the entire household was there for the sole purpose of making the Dalis happy. No one was allowed to set foot in the library because he wanted to work there. - Would [John] Dudley be so kind and drive to Richmond to pick up something or other that Dali needed for painting? Would she [Nin] mind translating an article for him? Was Caresse going to invite LIFE magazine for a visit? In other words, everyone performed the tasks assigned to them. All the while, Mrs. Dali never raised her voice, never tried to seduce or flatter them: it was implicitly assumed that all were there to serve Dali, the great, indisputable artist."

Amongst a laundry list of things the Dalis did to annoy Miller and Nin was the couple's incessant public displays of affection, pawing each other at every opportunity; it was a bit much. Dali's art projects at Hampton Manor proved tiresome; everything had to be subsumed to Dali's muse, Gala. Caresse Crosby was away in Reno, Nevada at this time and there was no one to serve as referee. Dali's sympathies for Franco in Spain were further reason for clashes; Miller and Nin were anti-Fascist.

Yes, Crosby invited it and in its April, 1941 issue Life magazine ran story on Dali, Gala, and the hubbub at Hampton Manor. "Their host, Mrs. Crosby…likes interesting guests," Life reported, "and does not object when her visitors linger on, but they must be as industrious as they are stimulating." Life said that Dali arose every morning at 7:30, put on dark trousers, a velvet jacket and a red vest, and "spent his days painting and 'enchanting' and his evenings writing" his autobiography.

According to Life, for one of the paintings Dali had black servants pose in ankle-deep snow in front of the mansion with a piano and a slaughtered deer. One of the photographs that accompanied the story depicted Dali, Gala, and Caresse Crosby having their afternoon coffee while a live Hereford bull kneeled on the floor between them.

"Here today," Life continued, "Dali busies himself from dawn to dusk 'enchanting' the grounds and gardens with such surrealistic fancies as floating pianos, multi-colored rabbits and spiders with the faces of girls."

"The Divine Dali," as he called himself, was not so divine to Miller, who, as many, considered the artist more a poseur-exhibitionist than genius, a talent flawed by his ego-centrism - a pitfall Miller, with no small ego himself managed to escape; his ego was central to his talent, a friend and not an enemy. What was enchanting to Dali  - who once grandly proclaimed, "I am Surrealism!" to the disdain of every other Surrealist in the world - was clap-trap to Miller, the realist who called a prick a prick in his work and knew one when he saw one.  

The visit ended in a wild shouting match at dinner when the man who Crosby was divorcing in Nevada showed-up in Virginia and raised a ruckus. Miller and Nin fled Hampton Manor, and Dali, already holding a place of prominence, zoomed to the top of Miller's Z-list and became persona non grata.

On two occasions, Miller expressed his feelings about Dali in books inscribed to Pierre Sicari,  Henry's barber in Southern California, friend, and confidant, as well as one of the foremost Miller collectors in the world.  On the front endpaper to a copy of Billy Rose's Dali-illustrrated Wine, Women and Words (1948) Miller wrote, "To me S.D. is a prick of the first water, I know, from intimate contact. May he live to screw himself!  Henry Miller  1/31/73  Especially inscribed for  Pierre Sicari  recently of Corsica."

On the front free endpaper to a copy of Dali (NY: Abrams, 1968), Miller, a month later, wrote "For Pierre - Dali is the biggest 'prick' of the 20th century! (Entre nous) Henry Miller 2/25/73."

From left: Dali, Gala, Miller, Barnet B, Ruder, Sept. 10, 1940.

There is a photograph of Miller, Dali and Gala, and New York bookseller Barnet B. Ruder (the NY agent for Ardmore, Oklahoma oil millionaire Roy M. Johnson, the man who anonymously commissioned, through Ruder, Miller, Nin, Crosby, etc., etc. to write clandestine porn manuscripts for his personal satisfaction) at Hampton Manor dated September 10, 1940. This was surely a calm moment before the Hereford bull hit the fan, a brief respite during the Hampton Manor tumult when two giant egos, one literary, the other, artistic, met on the field of battle and crossed swords as two big, sharp-edged pricks, one from Catalonia the other from Brooklyn. There is no record, as far as I've learned, of Dali's recollections of this affair; Miller, the writer, has the last word. Dali, like Boris in Tropic of Cancer, was lousy but without the lice.

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Photoprint of Henry Miller, Barnet B. Ruder, and Mr. & Mrs. Salvador Dali, Accession # 7022-h, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.

Inscription image from Wine, Women and Words courtesy of Royal Books, with our thanks.

In 2010, Joseph Kishton wrote and directed a documentary, Perceptions and Memories, about the contentious relationship between Miller and Dali.

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The Hands (and Notebooks and Little Black Book) of Henry Miller

Handprint of Henry Miller's right palm.

...A man of good taste, intellectual quality of mind, and the ability to translate his ideas into words and action...he has a broad-minded attitude toward people and situations...He has a quick wit, he likes being with people who have alert minds so there can be a stimulating exchange of ideas...

In 1957, novelist Henry Miller made handprints of his right and left palms. In 1966, Miller sent the handprints, with instructions, to graphologist Dorothy Sara for analysis, the above quotation an excerpt from her report.

The left hand of god.

The prints are amongst 120 Miller-related items from the library of collector Roger Wagner, which PBA Galleries will be auctioning on March 18, 2010.

In addition to Miller’s handprints - which I strongly suspect that if sent to Ms. Sara under the name Joe Miller might have yielded another analysis altogether (what was she supposed to tell the famous novelist, that these are the hands of a guy with nothing better to do with his time?) - is a nine-page holograph notebook containing a list of Miller’s lovers throughout his life, with one to three-star ratings appended to their names. N.B.: By Miller’s count, he had forty lovers between childhood and 1948, the approximate date of this artifact. Compared to Warren Beatty, he's a virgin. His wife, June, and Anaïs Nin earned three stars. Three stars do not seem enough to allow for behavioral nuances.

A leaf from Miller's little black book.

The last three pages contain Miller’s translations of Japanese phrases not found in the Berlitz guide, i.e.: “I’m dying for you!”

...and another. Note the ratings to the left of each name.

As fascinating, cool, curious, and amusing as these items are, they’re novelties, with sale estimates of $1200-$1800 and $2500-$3000 respectively.

One of the erotic watercolor paintings
within the Miller notebooks 1932-1936.

The five-star, holy mackerel mama mia! lot in the collection is Miller’s Paris notebooks 1932-1936, in three volumes of typed and holograph manuscript. These extraordinary journals capture the thoughts, feelings, and reflections of Henry Miller during his most creative and productive years and provide source material for Tropic of Cancer, Black Spring, and Tropic of Capricorn, the works that brought him from obscurity to international fame. The notebooks also contain keys to the names of characters, typed and handwritten excerpts from Lady Chatterly’s Lover and Anaïs Nin’s diaries, lists of his debts, letters from friends, watercolors, erotic cartoons, photographs and much more. Apart from the original manuscripts to his first three novels, these notebooks are, with little argument, the single most significant and highly important items of Milleriana to come to market in a long time.

Leaves from Miller's notebooks 1932-1936.

The auction estimate for the notebooks of Henry Miller 1932-1936 is a cool $100,000-$150,000.

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Images courtesy of PBA Galleries.
The auction catalogue for the entire Library of Roger Wagner, a total of 214 lots including the Miller material, can be found here.