Jane Eyre
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Preface of Jane Eyre, an autobiography by Charlotte Bronte. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Rebbe Dawn Sutton, Jane Eyre, an autobiography 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 acknowledgement and miscellaneous remark. My thanks are due in three quarters to the public, for the indulgent ear that is inclined to a plain tale with few pretensions, to the press, for the fair field, its honest suffrage is open 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 un-recommended 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 of 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 recent 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, indeed, are diametrically opposed. There is distinct as is vice from virtue. Men too often confound them. They should not be confounded. Appearance should not be mistaken for truth. All human doctrines, that only tend to elate and magnify a few, should not be substituted for the world-regaining 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-paz for Stirlingworth to let white-washed walls vouch for clean shrines. It may hate him who dares to scrutinize and expose, to raise the gilding and show base metal under it to penetrate the sepulcher 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,