Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte

Transcribed from the 1897 Service & Paton edition by David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org

JANE EYRE AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY

by
CHARLOTTE BRONTË

ILLUSTRATED BY F. H. TOWNSEND

London
SERVICE & PATON
5 henrietta street
1897

The Illustrations
in this Volume are the copyright of
Service & Paton, London

TO
W. M. THACKERAY, Esq.,

This Work
is respectfully inscribed

by
THE AUTHOR

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.

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: