Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/24

 honest work done and honest pleasure conferred on us. Of the second order our literature has no more apt and brilliant examples than George Eliot and George Meredith. Of the third, if in such a matter as this I may trust my own instinct—that last resource and ultimate reason of all critics in every case and on every question—there is no clearer and more positive instance in the whole world of letters than that supplied by the genius of Charlotte Brontë.

I do not mean that such an instance is to be found in the treatment of each figure in each of her great three books. If this could accurately be said, it could not reasonably be denied that she might justly claim and must naturally assume that seat by the