Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/103

 of the hero, were worthy of the flat-headed and fork-tongued generation which could produce a notorious comment on 'Jane Eyre,' to the effect that its author must be a woman who long since had deservedly forfeited the society of her own sex. It is of infinitely small moment that we know only by its offence the obscene animal now nailed up for this offence by the ear, though not by name—its particular name being as undiscoverable as its generic designation is unmistakable—to the undecaying gibbet of immemorial contempt. When a farmer used to nail a dead polecat on the outside of his barndoor, it was surely less from any specific personal rancour of retaliatory animosity towards that particular creature than by way of judicial admonition to the tribe as yet