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 Chenaanah 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
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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 sheet-lightning playing under the edge of the summer-cloud does to
the electric death-spark hid in its womb. Finally, I have alluded to Mr. Thackeray,
because to him—if he will accept the tribute of a total stranger—I have dedicated this
second edition of “JANE EYRE.”
CURRER BELL.
December 21st, 1847.
