Excerpt from the Preface to the second edition of Jane Eyre. As with all words of wisdom, Charlotte Brontë's sentiments expressed here are timeless.
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 face of 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 is vice 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 good, and not a bad action to mark broadly and clearly the line of separation between them.
Excerpt from the Preface to the Second Edition of Jane Eyre and signed:
Currer Bell
December 21st, 1847
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