Moore?

"'Is it for nothing the wind sounds almost articulate sometimes--sings
as I have lately heard it sing at night--or passes the casement sobbing,
as if for sorrow to come? Does nothing then haunt it--nothing inspire
it?'"

The awful improbability of Caroline is more striking because of its
contrast with the inspired rightness of the scene of Cathy's delirium in
_Wuthering Heights_. It is Charlotte feebly echoing Emily, and going
more and more wrong up to her peroration.

Delirious Caroline wonders: "'What is that electricity they speak of,
whose changes make us well or ill; whose lack or excess blasts; whose
even balance revives?...'

"'_Where_ is the other world? In _what_ will another life consist? Why
do I ask? Have I not cause to think that the hour is hasting but too
fast when the veil must be rent for me? Do I not know the Grand Mystery
is likely to break prematurely on me? Great Spirit, in whose goodness I
confide; whom, as my Father, I have petitioned night and morning from
early infancy, help the weak creation of Thy hands! Sustain me through
the ordeal I dread and must undergo! Give me strength! Give me patience!
Give me--oh, _give me_ FAITH!'"

Jane Eyre has done worse than that, so has Rochester; but somehow, when
they were doing their worst with it, they got their passion through.
There is no live passion behind this speech of Caroline's, with its wild
stress of italics and of capitals. What passion there was in Charlotte
when she conceived Caroline was killed by Emily's death.

And Mrs. Pryor, revealing herself to Caroline, is even more terrible.
She has all the worst vices of Charlotte's dramatic style. Mrs. Pryor
calls to the spirit of Caroline's dead father: "'James, slumber
peacefully! See, your terrible debt is cancelled! Look! I wipe out the
long, black account with my own hand! James, your child atones: this
living likeness of you--this thing with your perfect features--this one
good gift you gave me has nestled affectionately to my heart and
tenderly called me "mother". Husband, rest forgiven.'"

Even Robert Moore, otherwise almost a masterpiece, becomes improbable
when, in his great scene, Shirley refuses him. When Mr. Yorke asks him
what has gone wrong he replies: "The machinery of all my nature; the
whole enginery of this human mill; the boiler, which I take to be the
heart, is fit to burst."

Shirley herself is impossible with her "Lucifer, Star of the Morning,
thou art fallen,"