But if the manner in which she secures the prize be not inadmissible according to the rules of the art, that in which she manages it when caught, is quite without authority or precedent, except perhaps in the servants’ hall.  Most lover’s play is wearisome and nonsensical to the lookers on—­but the part Jane assumes is one which could only be efficiently sustained by the substitution of Sam for her master.  Coarse as Mr. Rochester is, one winces for him under the infliction of this housemaid beau ideal of the arts of coquetry.  A little more, and we should have flung the book aside to lie for ever among the trumpery with which such scenes ally it; but it were a pity to have halted here, for wonderful things lie beyond—­scenes of suppressed feeling, more fearful to witness than the most violent tornados of passion—­struggles with such intense sorrow and suffering as it is sufficient misery to know that any one should have conceived, far less passed through; and yet with that stamp of truth which takes precedence in the human heart before actual experience.  The flippant, fifth-rate, plebeian actress has vanished, and only a noble, high-souled woman, bound to us by the reality of her sorrow, and yet raised above us by the strength of her will, stands in actual life before us.  If this be Jane Eyre, the author has done her injustice hitherto, not we.

* * * * *

We have said that this was the picture of a natural heart.  This, to our view, is the great and crying mischief of the book.  Jane Eyre is throughout the personification of an unregenerate and undisciplined spirit, and more dangerous to exhibit from that prestige of principle and self-control which is liable to dazzle the eye too much for it to observe the inefficient and unsound foundation on which it rests.  It is true Jane does right, and exerts great moral strength, but it is the strength of a mere heathen mind which is a law unto itself.  No Christian grace is perceptible upon her.  She has inherited in fullest measure the worst sin of our fallen nature—­the sin of pride.  Jane Eyre is proud, and therefore she is ungrateful too.  It pleased God to make her an orphan, friendless, and penniless—­yet she thanks nobody, and least of all Him, for the food and raiment, the friends, companions, and instructors of her helpless youth—­for the care and education vouchsafed to her till she was capable in mind as fitted in years to provide for herself.  On the contrary, she looks upon all that has been done for her not only as her undoubted right, but as falling far short of it.  The doctrine of humility is not more foreign to her mind than it is repudiated by her heart.  It is by her own talents, virtues, and courage that she is made to attain the summit of human happiness, and, as far as Jane Eyre’s own statement is concerned, no one would think that she owed anything either to God above or to man below.  She flees from Mr. Rochester, and has not a being