The Professor

Charlotte Brontë was the third oldest sister of a really erudite family. Jane Eyre is her masterpiece and although it is the first novel of Charlotte Brontë to be published, it actually is not the first one she wrote. The Professor is the first one.
This novel has been refused by many editors and it was published posthumously in 1857.
The Professor has confirmed my positive opinion about this wonderful writer.
The book has a rhythm and a language of its time and it is one of its main characteristic .
The story turns around William Cromsworth, a young man who has to choose his profession after his studies.
After the death of his parents, William grow up far from his older brother and he stayed with his maternal uncles. He has to decide to be a clergyman or to stay with his relatives that however didn't help her mother when she needed help, or to become a tradesman like his older brother and his father.
He decides to be a tradesman and he is taken by his brother in his firm.
But his brother humiliated him considering William a sort of slave. In addition to this he is underpaid.

"There was a kind of gratuitous menace in his eye as he looked at me in finishing this observation. I served Edward as his second clerk faithfully, punctually, diligently , but antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward Crimsworth had for me " William says .

But at this points he meets Monsieur Hundsen a rich and single man who asks him if

‘Is it your intention to become a tradesman?’.
‘It was my serious intention three months ago.’
‘Perhaps I have no choice.’
No man likes to acknowledge that he has made a mistake in the choice of his profession.

‘You're a mighty difficult customer to suit. You won't be a tradesman or a parson; you can't be a lawyer, or a doctor, or a gentleman,
because you've no money. I'd recommend you to travel.’ says to him.Monsieur Hundsen
‘You must travel in search of money, man. You can speak French - with a vile English accent, no doubt - still, you can speak it. Go on to
the Continent, and see what will turn up for you there.’
‘God knows I should like to go!’ exclaimed Williawm with involuntary ardour.
‘Go: what the deuce hinders you? You may get to Brussels, for instance, for five or six pounds, if you know how to manage with economy.’ says Monsieur Hundsen.

‘Come, William Crimsworth,’ said my conscience, or whatever it is that within ourselves takes ourselves to task - ’come, get a clear notion of what you would have, or what you would not have‘. thinks William.

William is young, he has good health, pleasure and he had never met, no indulgence of hers has enervated or sated one faculty of his nature.
Monsieur Hundsen writes for him a letter of presentation to a male college where he finds a work as a professors and later, thanks to his kill,he finds another employment in a female college too. Here he starts to understand women and their soul better.

‘The idea of marrying a doll or a fool was always abhorrent to me: I know that a pretty doll, a fair fool, might do well enough for the honeymoon; but when passion cooled, how dreadful to find a lump of wax and wood laid in my bosom, a half idiot clasped in my arms, and to remember that I had made of this my equal - nay, my idol - to know that I must pass the rest of my dreary life with a creature incapable of understanding what I said, of appreciating what I thought, or of sympathizing. ‘ tells William.

Here he meets a fourth maitresse he sometimes saw who seemed to come daily to teach needlework, or netting, or lace-mending, or some such flimsy art; her name is Mdlle Frances Evan Henri.

‘I felt assured, at first sight, that she was not a Belgian; her complexion, her countenance, her lineaments, her figure, were all distinct from theirs, and, evidently, the type of another race - of a race less gifted with fullness of flesh and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material, unthinking.
I can pronounce no encomiums on her beauty, for she was not beautiful. Frances, I fear, suffered much; acontinual weight seemed to oppress her spirits. I prescribed to her a course of reading and composition too. ‘

She changes, indeed, changed obviously and rapidly; but it was for the better.
Thus improved, thus wakened to life, Mdlle. Henri begins to take a new footing in the school; she can smile brightly, converse gaily, move with vivacity and alertness.

‘To speak truth, I watched this change much as a gardener watches the growth of a precious plant, and I contributed to it too, even as the said gardener contributes to the development of his favorite Constancy of attention - a kindness as mute as watchful, always standing by her, cloaked in the rough garb of austerity, and making its real nature known only by a rare glance of interest, or a cordial and gentle word.
I love the courage of the strong heart, the fervour of the generous blood; I loved with passion the light of Frances Evans' clear hazel eye when it did not fear to look straight into mine; I loved the tones with which she uttered the words - ‘Mon maitre! mon maitre!
I loved the movement with which she confided her hand to my hand; I loved her as she stood there, penniless and parentless; for a sensualist charmless, for me a treasure - my best object of sympathy on earth, thinking such thoughts as I thought, feeling such feelings as I felt; my ideal of the shrine in which to seal my stores of love‘

È una giovane ed idealista Charlotte a scrivere questo romanzo, ma già si sente lo spirito della sua ben più famosa Jane tra le pagine. Si legge piacevolmente, anche se alcune parti sono un po' ridondanti e noiose, altre assurdamente fuori tempo e persino un po' ingenue nelle arringhe di carattere religioso o nei giudizi sui caratteri umani.

Lo leggo per migliorare l'inglese. Noiosetto, niente a che vedere con Jane Eyre, o con la potenza di Emily Bronte.

I'm reading this book to improve my English. This romance is a bit boring, impossible to compare it with Jane Eyre, or with the power writing of Emily Bronte.