[1] I have to thank Mr. Clement Shorter, who has purchased the copyright of Charlotte Brontë's manuscripts, for his generous permission to quote from these letters freely for the purposes of my criticism.—(F.M.)
[2] Childe Harold, note 9 to canto iii.
[3] The author of Childe Harold adds on this note as a comment upon what he has said of 'Love' as the inspiration of the greatest of all Romantics, J.-J. Rousseau:—
'His love was passion's essence—as a tree
On fire by lightning; with ethereal flame
Kindled he was, and blasted; for to be
Thus, and enamour'd, were in him the same.
But his was not the love of living dame,
Nor of the dead who rise upon our dreams,
But of Ideal beauty, which became
In him existence and o'erflowing teems
Along his burning page, distemper'd tho' it seems.
This breathed itself to life in Julie, this
Invested her with all that's wild and sweet;
This hallow'd too the memorable kiss
Which every morn his fever'd lip would greet,
From hers, who but with friendship his would meet:
But to that gentle touch, thro' brain and breast
Flash'd the thrill'd spirit's love-devouring heat;
In that absorbing sigh perchance more blest
Than vulgar minds may be with all they seek possest.'
[4] Rudyard Kipling.
[5] See Letter, 18 Nov. I am giving my own translation from the French of Charlotte's Letters in these extracts, not certainly on account of any dissatisfaction with Mr. Spielmann's English versions of them, but in order to avoid the risk of any infringement of Mr. Spielmann's copyright in his Introduction.
[6] Mrs. Gaskell's Life, p. 290.
[7] Charlotte had been a year and ten months in England in October 1845. This phrase, however, proves that the Letter belongs to this year and not to 1844, and consequently that the Letter that follows it, January 8, is 1846.