Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/65

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of Paulina we cannot choose but take thought with Lucy Snowe how such 'a very unique child' will grow up, and what brighter or darker chances may then bring out in full her terrible incalculable capacity of suffering and of love. And, hard though it may be to determine as with legal precision what strange shape and colour may not be taken by human affections under the pressure of circumstance or the strain of suffering, it is yet so difficult to believe, for instance, in the dread and repulsion felt by a forsaken wife and tortured mother for the very beauty and dainty sweet ness of her only new-born child, as recalling the cruel sleek charm of the human tiger who had begotten it, that we are wellnigh moved to think one of the most powerfully and exquisitely written chapters in 'Shirley'