Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/48

 all womanhood; Madame de Merteuil would never have believed it. For a higher view and a more cheering aspect of the sex, we must turn back to these gentler teachers, these more flattering painters of our own; we must take up 'La Double Méprise'—or 'Le Rouge et le Noir'—or 'Les Liaisons Dangereuses,'

But I for one am not prepared or willing to embrace a belief so much too degrading and depressing for the conception of those pure and childlike souls. My faith will not digest at once the first two volumes and the third volume of 'The Mill on the Floss'; my conscience or credulity has not gorge enough for such a gulp. Whatever capacity for belief is in me I