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riannewerring 's review for:
The Professor
by Charlotte Brontë
The first of Charlotte Brontë's novels is one of a peculier kind in the realm of romance, even when taking the British tradition of romance in account.
The main character, a William Cramsworth, has excellent connections which could supply him with a comfortable living, but since those connections - his uncles - wronged his mother in ways he can't even remember since he was too young at the time and his mother has died, decides to become 'a tradesman'. He thus becomes a clerk for his vain, unkind older brother. A Mr Hunsden, an equally unfriendly but well-meaning figure points out to him that his brother is using him as a slave, and directs Cramsworth to Brussels, where he can go and work as an English teacher (un professeur, hence the title).
In Brussels he is employed at an all boys school. The headmistress of the neighbouring girls school invites him over for a talk and she employs him to teach at her school as well. Cramsworth sorta fancies her, but not outrightly of course because his British blood always retains a temperature far below zero,and when he overhears a private conversation of hers in which she says she doesn't find him attractive whatsoever, his 'love' dissipates completely. Instead, his eye falls upon a Frances Evans Henri, half English, raised in Switzerland, who teaches lace-mending at the school. The headmistress then proceeds to try and remove miss Henri from the school because she is a mean-spirited and jealous woman.
The romance between Cramsworth and Frances is slow, colder than a grave in December and completely devout of passion. The only sputter of fervor erupts when Mr Hunsden and Frances have a dispute over her native Switzerland and he butchers her idolisation of England - she does have an pretty pastoral idea of the country she's never been to.
Despite the lukewarm characters, Cramsworths anything-but-cheerful descriptions of just about everything and anything and the very dilligent marriage he ends up with, this book was an interesting read because it is so a-typical. Cramsworth doesn't end up with some deus-ex-dead-family-member fortune, he and Frances do not get to live out a dreamy, too-good-to-be-true happy ending. Oh sure, they do end up happy. But it's all rather moderate, rather Protestant, unembellished and suitably boring.
The main character, a William Cramsworth, has excellent connections which could supply him with a comfortable living, but since those connections - his uncles - wronged his mother in ways he can't even remember since he was too young at the time and his mother has died, decides to become 'a tradesman'. He thus becomes a clerk for his vain, unkind older brother. A Mr Hunsden, an equally unfriendly but well-meaning figure points out to him that his brother is using him as a slave, and directs Cramsworth to Brussels, where he can go and work as an English teacher (un professeur, hence the title).
In Brussels he is employed at an all boys school. The headmistress of the neighbouring girls school invites him over for a talk and she employs him to teach at her school as well. Cramsworth sorta fancies her, but not outrightly of course because his British blood always retains a temperature far below zero,and when he overhears a private conversation of hers in which she says she doesn't find him attractive whatsoever, his 'love' dissipates completely. Instead, his eye falls upon a Frances Evans Henri, half English, raised in Switzerland, who teaches lace-mending at the school. The headmistress then proceeds to try and remove miss Henri from the school because she is a mean-spirited and jealous woman.
The romance between Cramsworth and Frances is slow, colder than a grave in December and completely devout of passion. The only sputter of fervor erupts when Mr Hunsden and Frances have a dispute over her native Switzerland and he butchers her idolisation of England - she does have an pretty pastoral idea of the country she's never been to.
Despite the lukewarm characters, Cramsworths anything-but-cheerful descriptions of just about everything and anything and the very dilligent marriage he ends up with, this book was an interesting read because it is so a-typical. Cramsworth doesn't end up with some deus-ex-dead-family-member fortune, he and Frances do not get to live out a dreamy, too-good-to-be-true happy ending. Oh sure, they do end up happy. But it's all rather moderate, rather Protestant, unembellished and suitably boring.