h in the artistic and in the philanthropic light. The passion of the
lover throbs furiously through the odd weltering current of social
problems indicated, as a stream in lonely meadows may be seen and heard
to pulsate at the beat of some neighbouring mill which it serves to
turn. Yet the philanthropic motive is there, in that love is depicted
as a redeeming power, a cure for selfishness, a balm for unrest; and
the artistic impulse finally triumphs in the death of Argemone
unwedded.

In the hands of women-writers, love naturally tends to be depicted from
the humanitarian point of view. It is the one matchless gift which the
woman has to offer, the supreme opportunity of exercising influence,
the main chance of what is clumsily called self-effectuation. The old
proverb says that all women are match-makers; and Mr. Bernard Shaw goes
further and maintains that they act from a kind of predatory instinct,
however much that instinct may be concealed or glorified.

Now there was one great woman-writer, Charlotte Bronte, to whom it was
given to treat of love from the artistic side. She has been accused of
making her heroines, Jane Eyre, Caroline Helstone, Lucy Snowe, too
submissive, too grateful for the gift of a man's love. They forgive
deceit, rebuffs, severity, coldness, with a surpassing meekness. But it
is here that the artistic quality really emerges; these beautiful,
stainless hearts are preoccupied with what they receive rather than
with what they give. In that crude, ingenuous book _The Professor_, the
hero, who is a good instance of how Charlotte Bronte confused rigidity
of nature with manliness, surprised by an outbreak of passionate
emotion on the part of his quiet and self-contained wife, and still
more surprised by its sudden quiescence, asks her what has become of
her emotion and where it is gone. "I do not know where it is gone,"
says the girl, "but I know that whenever it is wanted it will come
back." That is a noble touch. It may be true that Paul Emmanuel and
Robert Moore cling too closely to the idea of rewarding their humble
mistresses, after testing them harshly and even brutally, with the gift
of their love--though even this humility has a touching quality of
beauty; but the supreme lover, Mr. Rochester, who, in spite of his
ridiculous affectations, his grotesque _hauteurs_, his impossible
theatricality, is a figure of flesh and blood, is absorbed in his
passion in a way that shows the fire leaping on th