Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/76

 lights and shadows, till it gradually opens upon us in human fullness of self-unconscious charm and almost sacred beauty—yet always with the sense of some latent infusion, some tender native admixture of a quality at once loveable and laughable; with something indeed of that quaint sweet kind of earnest affection and half-smiling veneration which all men fit to read him feel to their 'heart's root' for the person even more than for the writings of Charles Lamb. That our smile should in no wise impair for one instant our reverence, that our reverence should in no wise make us abashed or ashamed for one moment at the recollection of our smile—this is the final test and triumph of a genius to which we find no likeness outside the very highest rank of creators in the