Round Charlotte it has gathered to such an extent that it is difficult
to see her plainly through the mass of it. Much has been cleared away;
much remains. Mrs. Oliphant's dreadful theories are still on record. The
excellence of Madame Duclaux's monograph perpetuates her one serious
error. Mr. Swinburne's _Note_ immortalizes his. M. Héger was dug up
again the other day.

It may be said that I have been calling up ghosts for the mere fun of
laying them; and there might be something in it, but that really these
ghosts still walk. At any rate many people believe in them, even at this
time of day. M. Dimnet believes firmly that poor Mrs. Robinson was in
love with Branwell Brontë. Some of us still think that Charlotte was in
love with M. Héger. They cannot give him up any more than M. Dimnet can
give up Mrs. Robinson.

Such things would be utterly unimportant but that they tend to obscure
the essential quality and greatness of Charlotte Brontë's genius.
Because of them she has passed for a woman of one experience and of one
book. There is still room for a clean sweep of the rubbish that has been
shot here.

In all this, controversy was unavoidable, much as I dislike its
ungracious and ungraceful air. If I have been inclined to undervalue
certain things--"the sojourn in Brussels", for instance--which others
have considered of the first importance, it is because I believe that it
is always the inner life that counts, and that with the Brontës it
supremely counted.

If I have passed over the London period too lightly, it is because I