solitude and her gaucherie, full of the greatest delight that is
possible to a human being, the delight of expectation, the delight of an
ardent and flamboyant ignorance. She serves to show how futile it is of
humanity to suppose that pleasure can be attained chiefly by putting on
evening dress every evening, and having a box at the theatre every first
night. It is not the man of pleasure who has pleasure; it is not the man
of the world who appreciates the world. The man who has learnt to do all
conventional things perfectly has at the same time learnt to do them
prosaically. It is the awkward man, whose evening dress does not fit
him, whose gloves will not go on, whose compliments will not come off,
who is really full of the ancient ecstasies of youth. He is frightened
enough of society actually to enjoy his triumphs. He has that element of
fear which is one of the eternal ingredients of joy. This spirit is the
central spirit of the Brontë novel. It is the epic of the exhilaration
of the shy man. As such it is of incalculable value in our time, of
which the curse is that it does not take joy reverently because it does
not take it fearfully. The shabby and inconspicuous governess of
Charlotte Brontë, with the small outlook and the small creed, had more
commerce with the awful and elemental forces which drive the world than
a legion of lawless minor poets. She approached the universe with real
simplicity, and, consequently, with real fear and delight. She was, so
to speak, shy before the multitude of the stars, and in this she had
possessed herself of the only force which can prevent enjoyment being as
black and barren as routine. The faculty of being shy is the first and
the most delicate of the powers of enjoyment. The fear of the Lord is
the beginning of pleasure.

Upon the whole, therefore, I think it may justifiably be said that the
dark wild youth of the Brontës in their dark wild Yorkshire home has
been somewhat exaggerated as a necessary factor in their work and their