Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

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Title: Jane Eyre
Author: Charlotte Bronte
Edition: 11

Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
Release Date: March, 1998 [eBook #1260] [Most recently updated on
August 4, 2002]
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EYRE, BY BRONTE ***
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Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Bronte
PREFACE
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 white-washed 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