New-York daily tribune. [volume] (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, 1856-03-03

heol ana then to play The pant Of Gov
tafve ~ ~ 'readfu dummy IN the English game Of
eIhess-tbatN tie went 10 Brussels and came back
NE; DO" CnsN wing IN the pitful parsonage, alone
to find her r-terst. Nv Yorkshire hills how the two
there among the dfN said 10 her, I" You csnno,
pale, rlnlng SISTERS ing II abe il not beau
tiful," and bow she hein. - and wrote her beart
cose to her near-sghted - q plain woman Tnors
into Jane Eyre and did matS y English fiction
interesting than any beauty IN = sisters pub
Eshed-Jane Eyre, Wutherng Be.FA csn. -
Tenant Of wildfel Hall, announced tie 'rsI rea
was beginning to be surmsed, that English - mai
WAS not al green lanes and velvet lawns tina. ii
England was not one vast placid pasture. aud ~ ''
Engshmen one vast flock Of sheep plscidly pssturI~
upon it. More clearly than any English stories that
were written they revealed the great sh.iow in
the lovely picture Of English country life little shy
goverDess from Yorkshire, with soft lghtish brown
hair, reddish complexion, wide mouth, a bread,
square and Overhsnging forehead, hands ike bird.
claws and so short-sghted that she could nothing
that was close TO her eyes but with the sweetes.
light in those eyes and radiant heroism besmiDg all
the little face shining over the corpse Of lost
youth which lay in her memory as heaven shines
grave, this woman came and shook the world by the
heart and said: "This Ia Jane Eyre; goddess but
80 govemess; she owes Of your sympathy If you
"give it, to the red Of her checks the yellow OF her
"gold but everything TO the integrity and loyalty Of
her character" For il was not only its vivid char
Attenuation, Its startling and brilliant description its
the plot, the skill Of the story but its profound
humanity It's quiet Of the conventional acces-
SORES of success ia felton, its bold faith IN human
nature its perfect freedom from daHdyism and diet
tantesm and its tone Of religious earnestDess without
cant or meanness, which instantly gave Jane Eyre
that hold Of the heart which it would
not let 90. Jane Eyre the coming-up of
an immense ally to the great battle of humanity
which the Literature Of Fiction, beaded by Dickens,
ives already fighting, and the little shy. brown
barred goverDess with the subtle truthfuness Of
mans instinct, hailed Thackeray as her leader, and
rode into the field showing his colors 1t had lately
been Mr.. CuTtss duty TO look over the whole ground
of Contemporary Englsh fiction, and he was amused
at the quantity of womens novels which he bad read
in the last few months. But, with the sole exception
of Mrs. Ga-kel s, they all seemed to him second-rate.
The lady of all hs acquaintance Of the most surprising
novel-peadiDg power, confessed that she could not
keep up with the supply. The semi;annua ap-
proach Of the spnghty Mrs. Cores and the Mrs.
Marshes with their secOndhan patbos, and the Miss
Kavsnaghs Whose Heart s-Ease made the head ache,
and the Miss YOnges and Miss Sewels and lady Geor-
giana Fulertons and Mr.. TrOOpes and the naneless
crowd beyond reminded one of the appalled, servant at
the ball, who announced Mr.. Digby Waters, Miss
Waters Mr.. Water, jr., Miss Jemima Waters, Mr.
Augustus Waters-until seeing an endless Hood OF
Waters still pouring in be exclaimed In hopeless dis
may "and more of the same Every moraing'-
newspaper that servant for the pen of the ladies
few as nimbly as their needle. Nathalie a fair
type of this immense drift Of female hction-a palId
imitation Of Jane Eyre, but so papaby unreal that 1t
seemed strange that II cDul0 nave 80 sOOu
after the blazing burst of the original upon the world
Like the innumerable host around it, it was
only piece of literary worsted-work. No
BODY wrote reviews of these novels there
was nothing to be said about them. One fancied the
amable auhOresses tired of crochetlng and 30 taking
TO this cue work. They had great huency, pens that
run sentiment freely and they wrote on sheet after
sheet in the pleasant Summer day. until life and ma
ture were thoroughly worsted and the embroidery
complete. The moral Of these novels was suspicious,
because il not pure; it was the temporal beatit-
cation Of virtue They remembered what the teacher
told Miss Jane Eyre when her "benefactreSs," Mrs.
Reed. sent her TO Lowood School, have little
boy Younger than you who knows six psalms by heart
and when you ask him which he would rather have. a
gingerbread nut TO eat or verse OF psalm to learn
be says: 60 the verse of a psalm. Angels sing
palms Says he Il wish to be little angel here
below He then gets two nuts in recompcnse for his
infant pety" The moral of life was not of this kind
The industrious apprentice did not always end az Lor1
Mayor and many an idle apprentice Gied IN comfort
able bed leaving vast supplies OF gingerbread nuts
for small boys who wished to be little angels here be-
low. The great value of Jane Eyre in the fiction Of
to-day was the splendor OF Its vndication OF woman as
woman, deprived of all the accessories which gener-
ally nvegled interest. 1t was pure character which
trumphed in the book. Its strong indignant tone
was the wall of thousand hearts in thousand
was intense with subdued passion to that degree
that no other novel seemed passionate. Nowhere
else in prose fiction did we find such identica-
ton of the individual with the landscape as IN
the description ol inc PiCtuiee tno' int0'''''
Jane Eyre at Mrs. Reeds, and those She afterwsrd
painted at Mr.. Rochtster's 1t was the Yorkshire
loneliness of desonte hills, pressing through Miss
Bronte's heart and mind and finding the scenery of
that mind its own reflex. She wrote her later novels
looking from her window upon the churchyard IN
which her sisters were buried. She married toward
the close of her short cad life and the Of Nicho
would be carved upon her tombstone. She always lived
among the Yorkshire hills and surely to every woman
who bonored her sex her feet, like those who bring
glad tidings were beautiful upon those lonely noun
tains Contrasted with the splendols of de Stael, and
with the lurid briancy Of George Sand, and with all
the Pickering, fading CLEANS of the English female
novelist her light shone pure and planetary II was
by that light that female character had been ennobec
Ii was TO that calm power that the literature of En-
gland would long be indebted for truer tone an1 the
lives OF Saxon women for a sweeter Inspiration.