Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/63

 fidelity of affection as the spiritual mother of Totty, of Eppie, and of Lillo. The fiery-hearted Vestal of Haworth had no room reserved in the palace of her passionate and high-minded imagination as a nursery for inmates of such divine and delicious quality. There is a certain charm of attraction as well as compassion wrought upon us by the tragic childhood of Jane Eyre; and no study can exceed for exquisite veracity and pathos the subtle and faultless portrait of the child Paulina in the opening chapters of 'Villette'; but the attraction of these is not wholly or mainly the charm of infancy, as felt either in actual fleshly life or in simple reflection from the flawless mirror of loving and adoring genius; it comes rather from the latent suggestion or refraction of the woman yet to be,