Jane Eyre

A PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION of Jane Eyre being unnecessary,
I gave none: this second edition demands a few words
both of acknowledgment and miscellaneous remark.
My thanks are due in three quarters.
To the Public, for the indulgent ear it has inclined to a plain
tale with few pretensions.
To the Press, for the fair field its honest suffrage has opened
to an obscure aspirant.
To my Publishers, for the aid their tact, their energy, their
practical sense and frank liberality have afforded an unknown
and unrecommended Author.
The Press and the Public are but vague personifications for
me, and I must thank them in vague terms; but my Publishers
are definite: so are certain generous critics who have encouraged
me as only large-hearted and high-minded men know
how to encourage a struggling stranger; to them, i.e., to my
Publishers and the select Reviewers, I say cordially, Gentlemen,
I thank you from my heart.
Having thus acknowledged what I owe those who have aided
and approved me, I turn to another class; a small one, so far as
I know, but not, therefore, to be overlooked. I mean the timorous
or carping few who doubt the tendency of such books as
“Jane Eyre:” in whose eyes whatever is unusual is wrong; whose
ears detect in each protest against bigotry—that parent of
crime—an insult to piety, that regent of God on earth. I would
suggest to such doubters certain obvious distinctions; I would
remind them of certain simple truths.
Conventionality is not morality. Self-righteousness is not
religion. To attack the first is not to assail the last. To pluck
the mask from the face of the Pharisee, is not to lift an impious
hand to the Crown of Thorns.
These things and deeds are diametrically opposed: they are
as distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound
them: they should not be confounded: appearance should not
be mistaken for truth; narrow human doctrines, that only
tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for
the world-redeeming creed of Christ. There is—I repeat it—
a difference; and it is a good, and not a bad action to mark
broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
The world may not like to see these ideas dissevered, for it
has been accustomed to blend them; finding it convenient to
make external show pass for sterling worth—to let whitewashed
walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who
dares to scrutinise and expose—to rase the gilding, and show
base metal under it—to penetrate the sepulchre, and reveal
charnel relics: but hate as it will, it is indebted to him.
Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied
good concerning him, but evil; probably he liked the sycophant
son of Chenaannah better; yet might Ahab have escaped
a bloody death, had he but stopped his ears to flattery,
and opened them to faithful counsel.
There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed
to tickle delicate ears: who, to my thinking, comes before the
great ones of society, much as the son of Imlah came before
the throned Kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth
as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as
dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of Vanity Fair admired
in high places? I cannot tell; but I think if some of those
amongst whom he hurls the Greek fire of his sarcasm, and
over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation,
were to take his warnings in time—they or their seed might
yet escape a fatal Rimoth-Gilead.
Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him,
Reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder
and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognised;
because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day—
as the very master of that working corps who would restore
to rectitude the warped system of things; because I think no
commentator on his writings has yet found the comparison
that suits him, the terms which rightly characterise his talent.
They say he is like Fielding: they talk of his wit, humour,
comic powers. He resembles Fielding as an eagle does a vulture:
Fielding could stoop on carrion, but Thackeray never
does. His wit is bright, his humour attractive, but both bear
the same relation to his serious genius that the mere lambent ...