How wonderful it was to join the Brussels Brontë Group for Karen Hewitt's
marvellous talk about what the word "Gentleman" meant to a
Victorian audience. I could not believe I was sharing the experience with
you all, it was almost like being in Brussels.
Like Monica
in Dublin, my memories of all the Brontë events are highlights
of my time in Brussels.
Karen Hewitt is the type of speaker that we really appreciate here at the Brussels Brontë Group. Not only is she very charming and personable in her delivery (even on Zoom), she also considers the Brussels-based Villette as Charlotte Brontë’s best novel.
On October 7, she gave a delightful virtual talk on “the English gentleman” in Villette. And even on Zoom, the Q&A after her talk was just as engaging as the talk itself.
Karen delineated what it
took to be an English gentleman in the nineteenth century (too complicated to include
here). Her bottom line: “There are no English gentlemen now.” (To which many attendants
begged to disagree, I’m sure.)
One example of a gentleman was Patrick Brontë, Charlotte’s father, who worked hard to earn this status, gaining a scholarship to Cambridge University and then being ordained into the Church of England, one of the few avenues to gentleman-hood available if your family wasn’t already there. So Patrick Brontë was a gentleman, and his daughters were therefore the female equivalent – ladies.
On 7 October we came together to listen to a talk. Before COVID, this always happened in a room. But this time we met on Zoom.
My memories of rooms we have gathered in
over the years go back to 2007, when the Brussels Brontë Group started up. There
was the library in the Cercle des Voyageurs, that atmospheric downtown Brussels
restaurant cum cultural centre in Rue des Grand Carmes. Fifty of us crammed into
it for our first-ever talk, by Brussels journalist Derek Blyth. There was the
room in Université Saint-Louis on the Boulevard du Jardin Botanique that became
our permanent venue for a decade. And there is our current venue near the
Woluwe Shopping Centre, where we hope to return post-COVID restrictions.
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| Nicholas Marsh speaking to the BBG at Universite Saint-Louis in 2010. |
One of the things I’ve missed most about Brussels, since leaving the city more than five years ago, has been the wonderful company of fellow Brontë enthusiasts in the Brussels Brontë Group.
How terrific it was, then, to join you again on Oct. 7 for the talk by Karen Hewitt on Charlotte Brontë’s Quarrel With The English Gentleman in Villette, via Zoom technology, from my own living room in Dublin, Ireland!
There is an old joke about someone answering the phone only to hear a grumpy voice saying, “Oh, it’s you! I just wanted to leave a message on the answering machine.” Well, without going so far as to say that I prefer Zoom to a physical meeting, it does have its upside, as was amply demonstrated in the talk given this week to the Brussels Brontë Group by Karen Hewitt on "Charlotte Bronte’s Quarrel with the English Gentleman in Villette".
