This page has been validated.
24
CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
solid rock, and planted a steady flagstaff on the splendid summits of supreme and unsurpassable success.
But we will follow neither the brief excursions of tentative and self-distrustful genius, nor the long aberrations of belated and self-confident intelligence, across any line of country never made for them to traverse and return with any trophies of the chase. Britomartis or Bradamante, on her most desperate and forlorn adventure, has a claim at least on the compassionate forbearance of every good knight-errant who may have ridden on the like or any such other quest; and even the felon Sir Breuse Sans Pitié might be moved by some momentary throb of chivalrous condolence at
