erest in the outer world and the material
event. She does not yet know that it is in the inner world that her
great conquest and dominion is to be. The people in this first novel are
of the same family as the people in _Jane Eyre_, in _Shirley_, in
_Villette_. Crimsworth is almost reproduced in Louis Moore. Yorke
Hunsden is the unmistakable father of Mr. Yorke and Rochester; Frances,
a pale and passionless sister of Jane Eyre, and a first cousin of Lucy.
Yet, in spite of these relationships, _The Professor_ stands alone. In
spite of its striking resemblance to _Villette_ there is no real, no
spiritual affinity. And the great gulf remains fixed between _The
Professor_ and _Jane Eyre_.

This difference lies deeper than technique. It is a difference of
vision, of sensation. The strange greyness of _The Professor_, its
stillness, is not due altogether to Charlotte's deliberate intention. It
is the stillness, the greyness of imperfect hearing, of imperfect
seeing. I know it has one fine piece of word-painting, but not one that
can stand among Charlotte Bronte's masterpieces in this kind.

Here it is. "Already the pavement was drying; a balmy and fresh breeze
stirred the air, purified by lightning; I left the west behind me, where
spread a sky like opal, azure inmingled with crimson; the enlarged sun,
glorious in Tyrian dyes, dipped his brim already; stepping, as I was,
eastward, I faced a vast bank of clouds, but also I had before me the
arch of an even rainbow; a perfect rainbow--high, wide, vivid. I looked
long; my eye drank in the scene, and I suppose my brain must have
absorbed it; for that night, after lying awake in pleasant fever a long
time, watching the silent sheet-lightning, which still played among the
retreating clouds, and flashed silvery over the stars, I at last fell
asleep; and then in a dream was reproduced the setting sun, the bank of
clouds, the mighty rainbow. I stood, methought, on a terrace; I leaned
over a parapeted wall; there was space below me, depth I could not
fathom, but hearing an endless splash of waves, I believed it to be the
sea; sea spread to the horizon; sea of changeful green and intense blue;
all was soft in the distance; all vapour-veiled. A spark of gold
glistened on the line between water and air, floated up, appeared,
enlarged, changed; the object hung midway between heaven and earth,
under the arch of the rainbow; the soft but dark clouds diffused behind.
It hovered as on wings; p