Jane
Austen, of course, covered an infinitely smaller field than any of her
later rivals; but I have always believed in the victory of small
nationalities.
The Brontes suggest themselves here; because their superficial
qualities, the qualities that can be seized upon in satire, were in this
an exaggeration of what was, in George Eliot, hardly more than an
omission. There was perhaps a time when Mr. Rawjester was more widely
known than Mr. Rochester. And certainly Mr. Rochester (to adopt the
diction of that other eminent country gentleman, Mr. Darcy) was simply
individualistic not only in practice, but in theory. Now any one may be
so in practice: but a man who is simply individualistic in theory must
merely be an ass. Undoubtedly the Brontes exposed themselves to some
misunderstanding by thus perpetually making the masculine creature much
more masculine than he wants to be. Thackeray (a man of strong though
sleepy virility) asked in his exquisite plaintive way: "Why do our lady
novelists make the men bully the women?" It is, I think, unquestionably
true that the Brontes treated the male as an almost anarchic thing
coming in from outside nature; much as people on this planet regard a
comet.
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