There are different classes of great minds. Some are great in collecting, others in creating. The former is talent, the latter is genius. Some have the power of absorbing what they see and hear in the external world: they “gather honey all the day from every opening flower;” but they add no new thoughts. Others are characterized by originality of thought; they investigate new subjects, form new worlds, and spin new creations out of their own minds. Currer Bell belonged to this class. Some are capable of receiving much knowledge, but are unable to turn it to any purpose; they have read the standard authors, and have plenty of facts, but they know not how to use them. Currer Bell could form a system, she knew how to write a book.
Through the whole of her life she had a sacred regard for the rules of morality. One of her school-fellows informs us that she could get on with those who had bumps at the top of their heads. An intelligent old man living at Haworth, said to her biographer:—“Charlotte would sit and inquire about our circumstances so kindly and feelingly!... Though I am a poor working man (which I never felt to be any degradation), I could talk with her with the utmost freedom. I always felt quite at home with her. Though I never had any school education, I never felt the want of it in her company.”
“Prior to her demise, hope had long become certainty, and prophecy passed into truth; and assemblies of the learned, through means of just though unusual tributes to herself, had recognised the immortality of the name she bore!”
In most other sciences, the mind is so often lost in details, that it is difficult to stand where you may gaze freely out upon the unknown. In astronomy, however, you are brought almost at once to stand face to face with the Infinite. A wonderful study are these old heavens. They have excited the curiosity, and called forth the discoveries of both male and female students. What an immensity of sublime magnificence God has crowded into a few yards of sky. There is truth in the well-known lines:—
“When science from creation’s face Enchantment’s veil withdraws, What lovely visions yield their place To cold material laws.”
But if science has torn from the heavens the false lustre of fiction, it has supplied the clear light of fact. From points, the stars have magnified into worlds, and from thousands they have multiplied into millions.