Page:The Galaxy (New York, Sheldon & Co.) Volume 24 (1877).djvu/48

. And the girl who projected them against the background of that inhuman story was diseased in feeling and in judgment unsound. Yet, all through that book of warped but giant growth, what a keen relish of nature's delights is shown, what tenderness for wild birds, what joy in the purple moss, what passionate love for the freedom and gladness of outward life! Surely such influences are kindly; and subject to them, Emily Bronte, had she lived, might one day have found healing.

But Charlotte did such service for justice and humanity, did so exalt duty and self-sacrifice, that the world must come more and more to recognize both the service and the spirit. Author and woman cannot be separated; in Jane, Caroline, and especially Lucy, are laid bare the struggles of a heart which could find its only rest in the many-mounded churchyard at Haworth. Incomparably better than Mrs. Gaskell, do these tell her history—the roots which that biographer said "struck down deeper than she could penetrate" are shown in the so-called fictions.

As Mr. Reid remarks, this daughter of an obscure clergyman among the moors of Yorkshire startled both hemispheres by her first book. All classes read it; even those who object to novels eagerly possessed themselves of its contents; and not a few were in a state of mental intoxication over it. No one who ever read it has forgotten it; other books, with the names of hero and heroine, may have slipped away beyond recall, but who ever forgot Mr. Rochester or Jane Eyre? And on writers such was its influence, that much of the fictitious literature for a dozen years after took a coloring from it; while small, plain women, and middle-aged men, of curt speech and ungracious manners, became quite too common in that class of writings.

Marvellous power of words! What is there about the book to stir one like that? What is that immortal element which the author's spirit imparted, to make of a few hundred printed pages such a power?

In incident "Shirley" falls far short of "Jane Eyre," and yet "Shirley" was read with equal avidity; by those of sound literary taste with greater interest. The mass of readers do not, of course, stop to investigate the mechanism of a book that pleases them, or ask why it does; but even the most superficial felt that there was something real about "Jane Eyre," as if the people were actually alive; and they were not uninfluenced by the circumstance that it was written as if it were fact. The author was one of such integrity of motive that she had not swerved aside from the main purpose, but as scrupulously put the events on record as if they were historical verities. And to do this she used words with a rigid adherence to their precise meaning, selecting the right one with almost unfailing accuracy. Her style has been objected to; but if the object of writing is to express what one has to communicate, in pure, strong prose, then by whom have the point and force, the purity, and pathos, and directness of which the English tongue is capable, been brought out more fully than by Currer Bell?

Those readers who were susceptible to the merits of "Jane Eyre" must have felt the charm of keen analysis and descriptive power of the highest order, the easy flow of narrative, and perfect harmony as a whole. But beyond all this they must have been conscious of soundness of tone—notwithstanding the objectionable hero—moral healthfulness, a principle of cheerfulness, and courage, and endurance, and patient endeavor. It is in "Villette" that the greatest trial over self is reached; but in "Jane Eyre" it is evident enough that feeling must be set aside when it comes in conflict with duty. There are no good "reflections" in the book; but the truth is bravely enforced that it is the work of every man and woman to do his or her part,