rometheus.... I
say, there were giants on the earth in those days, giants that strove to
scale heaven. The first woman's breast that heaved with life on this
world yielded daring which could contend with Omnipotence; the strength
which could bear a thousand years of bondage--the vitality which could
feed that vulture death through uncounted ages--the unexhausted life
and uncorrupted excellence, sisters to immortality, which, after
millenniums of crimes, struggles, and woes, could conceive and bring
forth a Messiah. The first woman was heaven-born: vast was the heart
whence gushed the well-spring of the blood of nations; and grand the
undegenerate head where rested the consort-crown of creation.'...

"'You have not yet told me what you saw kneeling on those hills.'

"'I saw--I now see--a woman-Titan; her robe of blue air spreads to the
outskirts of the heath, where yonder flock is grazing; a veil, white as
an avalanche, sweeps from her head to her feet, and arabesques of
lightning flame on its borders. Under her breast I see her zone, purple
like that horizon: through its blush shines the star of evening. Her
steady eyes I cannot picture; they are clear--they are deep as
lakes--they are lifted and full of worship--they tremble with the
softness of love and the lustre of prayer. Her forehead has the expanse
of a cloud, and is paler than the early moon, risen long before dark
gathers: she reclines her bosom on the edge of Stilbro' Moor; her mighty
hands are joined beneath it. So kneeling, face to face, she speaks with
God.'"

It is the living sister speaking for the dead; for Charlotte herself had
little of Emily's fine Paganism. But for one moment, in this lyric
passage, her soul echoes the very soul of Emily as she gathers round her
all the powers and splendours (and some, alas, of the fatal rhetoric) of
her prose to do her honour.

It is not only in the large figure of the Titan Shirley that Charlotte
Bronte shows her strength. She has learnt to draw her minor masculine
characters with more of insight and of accuracy--Caroline Helstone, the
Yorkes, Robert Moore, Mr. Helstone, Joe Scott, and Barraclough, the
"joined Methody". With a few strokes they stand out living. She has
acquired more of the art of dialogue. She is a past master of dialect,
of the racy, native speech of these men. Not only is Mr. Yorke painted
with unerring power and faithfulness in every detail of his harsh and
vigorous personality, but there is