The afternoon wore on; Bronte sat at the table, watching the features of the reader as they changed from somber to gay, and from flinty fierceness to melting pathos. When the servant went in to remove the tea things and light the candles, both men were sitting silent in the gloaming. McKee, roused from his state of abstraction, observed Bronte sitting at the _debris_ and empty plates. "Hughey," he said, breaking the silence, "the book bears the Bronte stamp on every sentence and idea, and it is the grandest novel that has been produced in my time;" and then he added: "The child 'Jane Eyre' is your father in petticoats, and Mrs. Reed is the wicked uncle by the Boyne." The cloud passed from Hugh Bronte's brow, and the apologetic tone from his voice. He started up as if he had received new life, wrung Mr. McKee's hand, and hurried away comforted, to comfort others. Mr. McKee had said the novel was "_gran_" and that was enough for the Irish Brontes. There was joy in the Bronte house when Hugh returned and reported to his brothers and sisters what Mr. McKee had said. They needed no further commendation, for they knew no higher court on such a matter. They had all been alarmed lest Charlotte had done something to be ashamed of; but on Mr. McKee's approval, pride and elation of spirit succeeded depression and sinking of heart. Mr. McKee's opinion did not long remain unconfirmed. Reviews from the English magazines were quoted in the Newry paper, probably by Mr. McKee, and found their way quickly into the uncles' and aunts' hands. The publication of the book created a profound impression generally. It was felt in literary circles that a strong nature had broken through conventional restraints, that a fresh voice had delivered a new message. Men and women paused in the perusal of the pretty, the artificial, the inane, to listen to the wild story that had come to them with the breeze of the moorland and the bloom of the heather. And so exquisite was the gift of thought blended with the art of artless expression, that only the facts appeared in the transparent narrative. "The Times" declared: "Freshness and originality, truth and passion, singular felicity in the description of natural scenery, and in the analyzation of human thought, enable this tale to stand boldly out from the mass." "The Edinburgh Review" said: "For many years there has been no work of such power, piquancy, and originality." "Blackwood's Magazine" spoke thus: "'Jane Eyre' is an episode in this work-a-day world; most interesting, and touched at once by a daring and delicate hand." In "Frazer's Magazine" Mr. G. H. Lewes said: "Reality--deep, significant reality--is the characteristic of the book. It is autobiography, not perhaps in the naked facts and circumstances, but in the actual suffering and experience."