Jane Eyre's advice of the day

Jane Eyre will be 161 years old in three days and it lately seems to be giving advice to one and all on current affairs. A few days ago it was Sarah Palin and today The Times aptly uses a fragment to talk about the crisis.

Having done this it should then learn the lessons from both the previous and the current economic cycle and not allow itself to get into a position where a moderate increase in borrowing can lead to the rules being broken. As Jane Eyre said to Mr Rochester: “Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for moments such as this... If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?” (Carl Emmerson)

The quote comes from chapter XXVII.

Meanwhile, The Telegraph reviews the Birmingham stage version of Wuthering Heights.

Watching the Rep's new staging of Wuthering Heights - adapted by April de Angelis, directed by Indhu Rubasingham - I despaired again of the vast auditoria with which so many post-war regional theatres are saddled.
As a distillation of Emily Brontë's novel, it's eminently watchable - fluid, brisk and compact. And you can see a powerful bond of animal attraction between Antony Byrne's Heathcliff and Amanda Ryan's Cathy.
See it but not feel it. This highly portable edition feels like an efficient outline. Acting as narrator, Susannah York's wise old bird Nelly can guide the perplexed outsider Lockwood - and us - across the wild terrain of the book's emotional landscape, but she's only pointing the way, not taking us into the eye of the storm. A different approach might have produced a more visceral account, but it really doesn't help that they might as well be trying to play to a conference centre. (Dominic Cavendish)

Also in stage is The Monk by Matthew Lewis which according to SFStation,

was also greatly admired by the Marquis de Sade, Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Gustave Flaubert and Emily Bronte.

The fabulous site The Brontës actually goes further and points out:

Lewis, Matthew Gregory “Monk” [1775–1818]. Journal of a West Indian Proprietor, Kept during a Residence in the Island of Jamaica. London, 1834 [repr. as Journal of a Residence Among the Negroes in the West Indies. London, 1845]
Maja-Lisa von Sneidern notes:
Visitors to the new world typically were fascinated by animal and plant life not native to the old. “Monk” Lewis … mentions encounters with centipedes a number of times, and one section entitled “Centipedes,” describes an experiment in which a centipede is cut in half, put under “a glass cover” and watched for signs of regeneration … (‘Wuthering Heights and the Liverpool Slave Trade’, ELH, 62: 1 (Spring 1995), 171–196.)
Cf. WH, X:

… [Heathcliff] stared hard at the object of discourse [Isabella Linton], as one might do at a strange repulsive animal, a centipede from the Indies, for instance, which curiosity leads one to examine in spite of the aversion it raises. (WHOUP, 105.)

Not so true to their sources is the Diario de Sevilla. They quote Lytton Strachey's The Queen Victoria, where he's perfectly true to what Charlotte wrote soon after seeing Queen Victoria in Brussels, but they twist it and turn it until it just isn't true any more.

a Charlotte Brontë la reina Victoria le pareció una señora atrozmente vulgar y falta de grandeza. (Manuel Gregorio González)
Charlotte Brontë thought Queen Victoria was atrociously vulgar and lacking in grandeur.

This is what Lytton Strachey actually wrote:

It happened that a still more remarkable Englishwoman was in the Belgian capital, but she was not remarked; and Queen Victoria passed unknowing before the steady gaze of one of the mistresses in M. Heger's pensionnat. "A little stout, vivacious lady, very plainly dressed—not much dignity or pretension about her," was Charlotte Bronte's comment as the royal carriage and six flashed by her, making her wait on the pavement for a moment, and interrupting the train of her reflections.

And indeed that's word by word what Charlotte herself wrote to Emily Brontë on 1st October 1843.

After that we go back to the stage because the Otago Daily Times publishes the Otago Festival highlights and the best play for them was...

Jane Eyre was absolutely top-shelf and everything we have come to expect of the Fortune Theatre. (Nigel Benson)

Did you know there is a band called 4 Poofs and a Piano? Get Reading writes about one of their shows where they did

a loving take on Kate Bush’s famous Wuthering Heights dance (AF Harrold)

And now blogs. Two Brontë miniseries are commented on: Lactating Bookworm writes about Wuthering Heights 1978 and Lights Camera History posts about Jane Eyre 2006. Little Woman discusses Agnes Grey and gives some background information on Anne Brontë.

And let's finish this post with a beautiful image of the Brontë fall, uploaded by Flickr user Andrew 'gonzo'.

Categories: Charlotte Brontë, Emily Brontë, Jane Eyre, Music, Theatre, Victorian Era, Wuthering Heights