Summer Reading

I came across an interesting passage a little unexpectedly the other night, in the introduction to Jane Eyre. The author had just finished the usual thanks at the beginning of books, but then proceeded to turn to another group of people...

"... I mean the timorous or carping few who doubt the tendency of books such 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 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 vice is 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."

- Currer Bell (aka Charlotte Bronte), 1847


First off, she has my writing-style; that of using way too many semicolons. Secondly, though - she rocks! It's 150 years later, and what she says is just as true now as it was then. The world has changed much, but has still not discovered the distinction of which she speaks. In the meanwhile, sadly, even those who protest and would de-mask the Pharisee have also assumed they must offend the Crown of Thorns to do so.