The Bard John Martin, 1817 © Laing Art Gallery
This is a short novelette, written by Charlotte Bronte when she was seventeen, between her Roe Head schooldays and her first post as a teacher there. Much of it is drawn from her and her siblings' juvenilia, all those tales and adventures inspired by the box of wooden toy soldiers her brother Branwell was given. Isolated in Haworth parsonage, Branwell and his sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, created the imaginary worlds of Angria and Gondal. Much of their juvenilia was inspired by their reading of Sir Walter Scott, Lord Byron, the Arabian Nights Entertainment and the visionary landscapes of artist John Martin*, popular through his engravings.
The Fire Worshippers, battle scene John Martin (1789-1854)
For this tale, Charlotte has taken the city of Verdopolis in Africa, the setting for the "African Olympic Games" and its war with the Ashantee tribe, as the background to the romance between the lovely Lady Emily, her countenance of "a most fascinating but indescribable charm" and her beloved, the painter Mr Leslie. Her artist hero is in fact the noble Scot, Lord St. Clair, but his humble disguise does not deceive his rival, the handsome but treacherous Colonel Percy, a man with "a spirit of deep, restless villainy".
The plot is convoluted, with several fey characters who are not what they seem, but under cover of darkness Colonel Percy double-crosses the lovers and abducts Lady Emily, to make her his wife. "Behold me, fair lady, and know into whose power you have fallen!"
Drawing of a fair young lady, by Charlotte Bronte
© British Library
Emily is all too human a heroine: she repudiates Percy's evil power over her with this stirring riposte:
"Then here I remain till death or some happier chance relieves me, for not all the tortures that man's ingenuity could devise should ever induce me to marry one whose vices have sunk him so low in the ranks of humanity as yours have, one who openly renounces the dominion of honour, and declares that he has given himself up to the blind guidance of his own departed inclinations."...
but then - somewhat breathless? - she succumbs to Percy's taunts of how her uncle ("her careful and affectionate guardian") will be suffering at her disappearance:
"She leant her head upon her hand and burst into a flood of bitter tears". Readers of Jane Eyre will note that Lady Emily is left in her gloomy prison to the care of her attendant "the withered hag Bertha".
Much of the story's charm is seventeen year old Charlotte's evident relish in her fantasy drama, larded with adjectives, but with some wonderful descriptions:
here is the Ashantee battle array at daybreak: "It was a gorgeous but terrific spectacle as the first sunbeams flashed on that dusky host, and lit up to fiercer radiance their bright weapons and all the barbarous magnificence of gold and gems in which most of the warriors were attired",
and here the forest at night: "Darkly and dimly, branch rose above branch, each uplifting a thicker canopy of night like foliage, till not a single ray of light could find an opening by which to direct the belated travellers passing underneath."
Twilight in the Woodlands John Martin 1850
© Fitwilliam Museum
Introducing the African Olympics, which is a pivotal occasion in the narrative, "It is not my intention to give a full and detailed account of all that took place on that memorable day, I shall merely glance at the transactions which followed and then proceed to topics more nearly connected with my tale."
Further interjections dot the narrative : "Having given the reader this necessary information I will now proceed with my narrative in a more detailed and less historical style…."With his opportune arrival my reader is already acquainted, … and "I must beg my reader to imagine that a space of six weeks has elapsed before he again beholds my hero…"
These interjections are Charlotte reining in her runaway enthusiasm for the story she is presenting, much like a teacher who has strayed far from the topic, returning to her text.
" It may now be as well to connect the broken thread of my rambling narrative before I proceed further … and now, having cleared scores, I may trot on unencumbered. "
She herself describes The Green Dwarf as a brief and 'jejune' narrative, but it is full of spirit and style, with a clear underlying sense of its unreality, which her readers (originally her siblings) are invited to share and enjoy.
Charlotte Bronte, 1816-1855,
probably a posthumous portrait by John H. Thompson (1808-1890), a close friend of Branwell
© Bronte Parsonage Museum
*John Martin appears in the story as the character Edward de Lisle, a successful artist.
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