Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/88

 grandeur of antichristian fortitude and self-controlling self-reliance, that the 'halting slave' of Epaphroditus might have owned for his spiritual sister the English girl whose only prayer for herself, 'in life and death'—a self-sufficing prayer, self-answered, and fulfilled even in the utterance—was for 'a chainless soul, with courage to endure.' Not often probably has such a petition gone up from within the walls of a country parsonage as this:—

And if I pray, the only prayer That moves my lips for me, Is—Leave the heart that now I bear, And give me liberty!

That word which is above every word might surely have been found written on that heart. Her love of earth for earth's sake, her tender loyalty and passionate reverence