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418 NOTICES OF BOOKS.
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
^».Reprints Hall. . B Mrs Y Ac . Graskel...
from those of tlie model , this model would be easily discoverable from the portrait , though the effects might still be equally as rauch
a matter of deduction as in cases where the conditions were widely different . There is scarcely a -character of hers but what has its
" germ" in reality . How much she felt the necessity of having this real basis on which to work may be seen from what she writes of Paulina in " "Villette . " " I greatly apprehend , however , that the
weakest character in the book is the one I aimed at making the most beautiful ; and , if this be the case , the fault lies in its wanting the
germ of the real _, in its being purely imaginary . I felt that this character lacked substance ; I fear that the reader will feel the same . " She talks too of her " stock of materials for fiction being very slender , "
and confesses that for this reason she cannot be a prolific writer . Her incidents , as her characters , are real or closely imitative of
reality . Lowood is a _very accurate picture of Cowan ' s _Bridg-e , though a one-sided picture . The plot of Rochester marrying or purposing *
to marry the governess of his child , while his wife was yet living , was no -wild dream of imagination . The actual event took place
¦ while Miss Bronte was at Hoe Head and she no _doxxbt heard the story and recalled It afterwards , and from this " germ " worked out
that most enthralling portion of her novel . Again , the supernatural incident of the voice in " Jane Eyre" she asserted solemnly had really
occurred , whether to herself or to another does not appear . Again , the bite of the mad dog in " Shirley " was a literal description of what
had happened to her sister Emily . Those incidents which people would pronounce most surely to be imaginary were strictly based on
the actual . How far she consciously or unconsciously drew from herself in the character of Jane Eyre cannot be precisely
determined . She said that her heroine was only herself inasmuch as she was small and plain ; but nevertheless it would be more difficult to
point out features of dissimilarity than of similarity . Lucy Snowe is different from Jane Eyre , and probably both are very different
from Charlotte Bronte ; but to distinguish exactly how , and why , and in whatis too delicate a matter for criticism .
, But while she clings so closely to reality , while she is so careful to ground her air-castles upon a solid basis , she yet feels and
acknowledges and appreciates rally the semi-divine power of imagination . It seems to us that it was because she knew this power so well ,
because her own imagination was so vigorous and strong , that she scrupulously binds herself under the law of realism . It is seldom
that she lets this mighty-winged bird fly abroad . Sometimes , in free what its we jesses naay . call Thus her p we ersonifications have a " First , she Blue unlioocis -Stocking its eyes , ' or and a picture flings
of " Nature at her sunset prayers , " or of the " Evening Star , " or of _" Hypochondria . " These personifications of hers are glorious poems _.
When we consider her powers of analysis , and find them wedded with this fulness and richness of imagination , we begin to see
lxow complete was her genius . Many authors have a greater faculty
418 Notices Of Books.
418 NOTICES OF BOOKS .
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Feb. 1, 1860, page 418, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01021860/page/58/
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