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.
i.e.
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
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.”
ANEYRE
CURRER BELL.

December 21st, 1847.
Decemberst