| 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 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 Ramoth-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.
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