36
CHARLOTTE BRONTË.
nobler Moor. No higher tribute can be claimed and no deeper condemnation can be incurred by perverse or intermittent genius than is conveyed or implied in such comparisons as these. The hideous transformation by which Maggie is debased—were it but for an hour—into the willing or yielding companion of Stephen's flight would probably and deservedly have been resented as a brutal and vulgar outrage on the part of a male novelist. But the man never lived, I do believe, who could have done such a thing as this: as the man, I should suppose, does not exist who could make for the first time the acquaintance of Mr. Stephen Guest with no incipient sense of a twitching in his fingers and a tingling in his toes at the notion of any con-
