that, for instance, calls us here together nearly half a century after
she completed her work and passed away. Young persons of genius very
commonly write depressing books; since, the more vivid an unripe
creature's impression of life is, the more acute is its distress. It is
only extremely stupid Sunday-school children who shout in chorus, "We
are so happy, happy, happy!" Genius thrown naked, with exposed nerves,
on a hard indifferent world, is never "happy" at first. Earth is a
"poisoned place" to it, until it has won its way and woven its garments
and discovered its food.

But in the case of Charlotte Brontë, unhappiness was more than juvenile
fretfulness. All her career was a revolt against conventionality,
against isolation, against irresistible natural forces, such as climate
and ill-health and physical insignificance. Would this insubmissive
spirit have passed out of her writings, as it passed, for instance, out
of those of George Sand? I am not sure, for we see it as strongly,
though more gracefully and skilfully expressed, in _Villette_ as in the
early letters which her biographers have printed. Her hatred of what was
commonplace and narrow and obvious flung her against a wall of
prejudice, which she could not break down. She could only point to it by
her exhausting efforts; she could only invite the generation which
succeeded her to bring their pickaxes to bear upon it. Hence, to the
very last, she seems, more than any other figure in our literature, to
be forever ruffled in temper, for ever angry and wounded and indignant,
rejecting consolation, crouched like a sick animal in the cavern of her
own quenchless pride. This is not an amiable attitude, nor is it
historically true that this was Charlotte Brontë's constant aspect. But
I will venture to say that her amiabilities, her yielding moods, are
really the unessential parts of her disposition, and that a certain
admirable ferocity is the notable feature of her intellectual character.