SISTERS

(1816-1855)

The least that can be said of Charlotte Bronte is that she is a unique
figure in literature. Nowhere else do we find another personality
combining such extraordinary qualities of mind and heart,--qualities
strangely contrasted, but still more strangely harmonized. At times they
are baffling, but always fascinating. Nowhere else do we find so
intimate an association of the personality of the author with the work,
so thorough an identification with it of the author's life, even to the
smaller details. So true is this in the case of Charlotte Bronte that
the four novels 'Jane Eyre,' 'Shirley,' 'Villette,' and 'The Professor'
might with some justice be termed 'Charlotte Bronte; her life and her
friends.' Her works were in large part an expression of herself; at
times the best expression of herself--of her actual self in experience
and of her spiritual self in travail and in aspiration. It is manifestly
impossible therefore to consider the works of Charlotte Bronte with
justice apart from herself. A correct understanding of her books can be
obtained only from a study of her remarkable personality and of the sad
circumstances of her life.

Public interest in Charlotte Bronte was first roused in 1847. In October
of that year there appeared in London a novel that created a sensation,
the like of which had not been known since the publication of
'Waverley.' Its stern and paradoxical disregard for the conventional,
its masculine energy, and its intense realism, startled the public, and
proclaimed to all in accents unmistakable that a new, strange, and
splendid power had come into literature, "but yet a woman."

And with the success of 'Jane Eyre' came a lively curiosity to know
something of the personality of the author. This was not gratified for
some time. There were many conjectures, all of them far amiss. The
majority of readers asserted confidently that the work must be that of a
man; the touch was unmistakably masculine. In some quarters it met with
hearty abuse. The Quarterly Review, in an article still notorious for
its brutality, condemned the book as coarse, and stated that if 'Jane
Eyre' were really written by a woman, she must be an improper woman, who
had forfeited the society of her sex. This was said in December, 1848,
of one of the noblest and purest of womankind. It is not a matter of
surprise that the identity of this audacious speculator was not
revealed. The recent examination into th