But we are still left with a belief in the life after death, and still believe in something beyond experience, and still grope to find those things in heaven and earth of which philosophy does not dream. But the characters, not the plot, remain in the mind, after reading _Villette_. Madame Beck, whose prototype was Madame Héger, is as clever as Cardinal Wolsey or Cardinal Richelieu; but she uses all her diplomatic skill in the management of a lady's school, which, under her ever watchful eye, with the aid of duplicate keys to the trunks and drawers of the teachers and pupils, runs without friction of any kind. Lucy Snowe, the English teacher in _Villette_, is far more pleasing than Jane Eyre; she is not so passionate, but her view of life is deeper and broader, and consequently kinder. And there is Paul Emanuel. Who would have believed the rejected professor would have grown into that scholar of middle age? He is so distinctly the foreigner in showing every emotion under which he is labouring. How pathetic and how lovable he is on the day of his fête when he thinks that the English governess has forgotten him, and has not brought even a flower to make the day happier for him! So fretful in little things, so heroic in large things, with so many faults which every pupil can see, but with so many virtues, frank even about his little deceptions, he is a lovable man. But many of Miss Brontë's readers do not find Paul Emanuel as delightful as Paulina, the womanly little girl who grows into the childlike woman. She is as sensitive as the mimosa plant to the people about her. Every event of her childhood, all the people she cared for then, remained indelibly imprinted on her mind, so that, with her, friendship and love are strong and abiding. Notwithstanding their many defects, Charlotte Brontë's novels have left a permanent impression upon English fiction and have won an acknowledged place among English classics. She first made a minute analysis of the varying emotions of men and women, and noted the strange, unaccountable attractions and repulsions which everybody has experienced. Paulina, a girl of six, is happy at the feet of Graham, a boy of sixteen, although he is unconscious of her presence. And so instance after instance can be given of affinities and antipathies which lie beyond human reason. She, like her sister Emily, though with less clear vision, was searching for the hidden sources of human feeling and human action. Charlotte Brontë wrote to a friend: "I always through my whole life liked to penetrate to the real truth; I like seeking the goddess in her temple, and handling the veil, and daring the dread glance." Her truthfulness in painting emotion, which to her own generation seemed most daring, even coarse, has given an abiding quality to her work. And besides she created Paulina and Paul Emanuel. CHAPTER XVI Mrs. Gaskell