d. If the
researcher had not followed a false scent across the Channel, if his
_flair_ for tragic passion had not destroyed in him all sense of
proportion, he could not possibly have missed it; for it stared him in
the face, simple, obvious, inevitable. But miss it he certainly did.
Obsessed by his idea, he considered it a negligible circumstance that
Charlotte should have read _Wuthering Heights_ before she wrote _Jane
Eyre_. And yet, I think that, if anything woke Charlotte up, it was
that. Until then, however great her certainty of her own genius, she did
not know how far she could trust it, how far it would be safe to let
imagination go. Appalled by the spectacle of its excesses, she had
divorced imagination from the real. But Emily knew none of these cold
deliberations born of fear. _Wuthering Heights_ was the fruit of a
divine freedom, a divine unconsciousness. It is not possible that
Charlotte, of all people, should have read _Wuthering Heights_ without a
shock of enlightenment; that she should not have compared it with her
own bloodless work; that she should not have felt the wrong done to her
genius by her self-repression. Emily had dared to be herself; _she_ had
not been afraid of her own passion; she had had no method; she had
accomplished a stupendous thing without knowing it, by simply letting
herself go. And Charlotte, I think, said to herself, "That is what I
ought to have done. That is what I will do next time." And next time she
did it. The experience may seem insufficient, but it is of such
experiences that a great writer's life is largely made. And if you
_must_ have an influence to account for _Jane Eyre_, there is no need
to go abroad to look for it. There was influence enough in her own home.
These three Brontes, adoring each other, were intolerant of any other
influence; and the strongest spirit, which was Emily's, prevailed. To be
sure, no remonstrances from Emily or Charlotte could stop Anne in her
obstinate analysis of Walter Huntingdon; but it was some stray spark
from Emily that kindled Anne. As for Charlotte, her genius must have
quickened in her when her nerves thrilled to the shock of _Wuthering
Heights_. This, I know, is only another theory; but it has at least the
merit of its modesty. It is not offered as in the least accounting for,
or explaining, Charlotte's genius. It merely suggests with all possible
humility a likely cause of its release. Anyhow, it is a theory that does
Charlotte's