ABSTRACT
The aspects of Charlotte Bronte's writing which Dobell had in mind when he compared her to an adolescent boy - there are in fact three singularly interesting male adolescents in her work, Henry Sympson and Martin Yorke in Shirley, and Victor Crimsworth in The Professor - are most embarrassingly on display in the presentation of Louis Moore in Chapters VI and XIII of Volume III of Shirley (pp. 589-99 and 694721). In the earlier chapter, Louis wanders around the house, finds Shirley's untidy desk, soliloquizes, and finally pours out his passion for his former pupil in a journal, relishing Shirley's dependence on his strength, the secret pleasure of writing what he cannot speak concerning his feelings for her, the flattering effect of her shyness, the attraction of her faults, and the way her rebellious manner under instruction loosens his tongue. The fantasy intensifies. He would not want a pretty, flawless wife, like Caroline Helstone, with no faults to correct. His powers need the wild instincts of the 'bete fauve" to manage. When he sees Shirley with Sir Philip Nunnelly he reverses the fable of Semele and indulges in a fantasy of Sir Philip as priest being burned to a cinder by the Goddess Juno. The carriage returns and he scribbles down his intention to take away Shirley's things. She will have to beg for their return.
