The critical blunder in this judgment is that here the authoress of the _Illustrations in Political Economy_ and of the _Atkinson Letters_ sees the authoress of _Villette_ through her own temperament, as an intellectual like herself:--a humane sociologist, and a philosophical freethinker, _whose literary purpose is to use her talent as a writer in the service of her ideas and principles_. Judging _Villette_ and its authoress from this point of view and by these standards, Harriet Martineau decides that _because_ 'all events and characters in _Villette are_ regarded through the medium of one passion, love,' _therefore_ the literary motive and purpose of the authoress must have been to deny--or at any rate to ignore--that '_there are substantial heartfelt interests for women of all ages, and in ordinary circumstances, quite apart from love._'
The mistake lay in assuming that Charlotte Brontë was an intellectual, instead of an imaginative genius; and that her literary purpose was to affirm, or deny, or ignore deliberately, any principle; or in any way to make her genius the servant of her intellect; whereas her intelligence was so coloured by her imagination, so subservient to her genius, that if one were to measure her by intellectual standards--with Harriet Martineau, for instance--she would remain as vastly Harriet's inferior in enthusiasm of humanity, in practical benevolence and warm interest in social reform, and in emancipations from prejudice and insularity and bigotry, as she was Harriet's superior in power of passionate feeling, in wealth of imagination, and in superb gift of expression. But any such comparison would be out of place. Let us admit that Charlotte's thoughts and aspirations, as we find them scattered through her writings, express the ordinary vigorous prejudices of an English gentlewoman of her period, brought up under the influences of a father who was a good sort of Tory clergyman; that her attitude of condescension toward, rather than of sympathy with, the 'common people,' regarded as the 'lower orders,' who should be kindly treated of course, but kept in their place, and taught to 'order themselves lowly and reverently to their betters,' indicates a defective humanitarianism; that her almost rabid patriotism--her conviction that not to be English is a misfortune, and a stamp of inferiority that weighs heavily as an impediment to nobility and virtue, upon every member of every other foreign race, is distinctly narrow; and that her staunch and straitened protestantism, leaves her as far away as the 'idolatrous priests' she denounced, from any claim to enlightened tolerance.