Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/49

 find here impaled once more as on the horns of that old divine's dilemma between the irreconcilable attributes of goodness and omnipotence in the supposed Creator of suffering and of sin. If the one quality be predicable, the other quality cannot be predicable of the same subject. As between and, we must choose. Lady Percy on the lap of Falstaff, bidding him patch up his old body for heaven; Miranda nestling in the arms of Trinculo; Virgilia seeking consolation for her husband's exile in the rival devotion of Brutus and Sicinius; Desdemona finding refuge from her troubles on the bosom of Roderigo—could no longer pretend to be the widow of Hotspur, the bride of Ferdinand, the wife of the noblest Roman, the fellow-martyr of the