It is Emily Brontë's spirit that burns in Shirley Keeldar; and it is the spirit of Shirley Keeldar that gives life to the unwilling mass of this vast novel. It is almost enough immortality for Shirley that she is the only living and authentic portrait of Emily Brontë in her time. Charlotte has given her the "wings that wealth can give", and they do not matter. She has also given her the wings of Emily's adventurous soul, the wealth of her inner life.
"A still, deep, inborn delight glows in her young veins; unmingled—untroubled, not to be reached or ravished by human agency, because by no human agency bestowed: the pure gift of God to His creature, the free dower of Nature to her child. This joy gives her experience of a genii-life. Buoyant, by green steps, by glad hills, all verdure and light, she reaches a station scarcely lower than that whence angels looked down on the dreamer of Bethel, and her eye seeks, and her soul possesses, the vision of life as she wishes it."
"Her eye seeks, and her soul possesses, the vision of life as she wishes it—" That was the secret of Emily's greatness, of her immeasurable superiority to her sad sisters.
And again: "In Shirley's nature prevailed at times an easy indolence: there were periods when she took delight in perfect vacancy of hand and eye—moments when her thoughts, her simple existence, the fact of the world being around—and heaven above her, seemed to yield her such fulness of happiness, that she did not need to lift a finger to increase the joy. Often, after an active morning, she would spend a sunny afternoon in lying stirless on the turf, at the foot of some tree of friendly umbrage: no society did she need but that of Caroline, and it sufficed if she were within call; no spectacle did she ask but that of the deep blue sky, and such cloudlets as sailed afar and aloft across its span; no sound but that of the bee's hum, the leaf's whisper."
There are phrases in Louis Moore's diary that bring Emily Brontë straight before us in her swift and vivid life. Shirley is "Sister of the spotted, bright, quick-fiery leopard." "Pantheress!—beautiful forest-born!—wily, tameless, peerless nature! She gnaws her chain. I see the white teeth working at the steel! She has dreams of her wild woods, and pinings after virgin freedom." "How evanescent, fugitive, fitful she looked—slim and swift as a Northern streamer!" "… With her long hair flowing full and wavy; with her noiseless step, her pale cheek, her eye full of night and lightning, she looked, I thought, spirit-like—a thing made of an element—the child of a breeze and a flame—the daughter of ray and raindrop—a thing never to be overtaken, arrested, fixed."
Like Emily she is not "caught". "But if I were," she says, "do you know what soothsayers I would consult?… The little Irish beggar that comes barefoot to my door; the mouse that steals out of the cranny in the wainscot; the bird that in frost and snow pecks at my window for a crumb; the dog that licks my hand and sits beside my knee."
And yet again: "She takes her sewing occasionally: but, by some fatality, she is doomed never to sit steadily at it for above five minutes at a time: her thimble is scarcely fitted on, her needle scarce threaded, when a sudden thought calls her upstairs; perhaps she goes to seek some just-then-remembered old ivory-backed needle-book, or older china-topped work-box, quite unneeded, but which seems at the moment indispensable; perhaps to arrange her hair, or a drawer which she recollects to have seen that morning in a state of curious confusion; perhaps only to take a peep from a particular window at a particular view where Briarfield Church and Rectory are visible, pleasantly bowered in trees. She has scarcely returned, and again taken up the slip of cambric, or square of half-wrought canvas, when Tartar's bold scrape and strangled whistle are heard at the porch door, and she must run to open it for him; it is a hot day; he comes in panting; she must convoy him to the kitchen, and see with her own eyes that his water-bowl is replenished. Through the open kitchen-door the court is visible, all sunny and gay, and peopled with turkeys and their poults, peahens and their chicks, pearl-flecked Guinea fowls, and a bright variety of pure white and purple-necked, and blue and cinnamon-plumed pigeons. Irresistible spectacle to Shirley! She runs to the pantry for a roll, and she stands on the doorstep scattering crumbs: around her throng her eager, plump, happy, feathered vassals…. There are perhaps some little calves, some little new-yeaned lambs—it may be twins, whose mothers have rejected them: Miss Keeldar … must permit herself the treat of feeding them with her own hand."
Like Emily she is impatient of rituals and creeds. Like Emily she adores the Earth. Not one of Charlotte's women except Shirley could have chanted that great prose hymn of adoration in which Earth worships and is worshipped. "'Nature is now at her evening prayers; she is kneeling before those red hills. I see her prostrate on the great steps of her altar, praying for a fair night for mariners at sea, for travellers in deserts, for lambs on moors, and unfledged birds in woods…. I see her, and I will tell you what she is like: she is like what Eve was when she and Adam stood alone on earth.' 'And that is not Milton's Eve, Shirley,' says Caroline, and Shirley answers: 'No, by the pure Mother of God, she is not.' Shirley is half a Pagan. She would beg to remind Milton 'that the first men of the earth were Titans, and that Eve was their mother: from her sprang Saturn, Hyperion, Oceanus; she bore Prometheus…. 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.'"