Where they were different, he would make
them seek the origin of that difference by causing them to examine well
into the character and position of each separate writer, and how they
would be likely to affect his conception of truth. For instance, take
Cromwell. He would read Bossuet's description of him in the "Oraison
Funebre de la Reine d'Angleterre," and show how in this he was considered
entirely from the religious point of view, as an instrument in the hands
of God, preordained to His work. Then he would make them read Guizot,
and see how, in this view, Cromwell was endowed with the utmost power of
free-will, but governed by no higher motive than that of expediency;
while Carlyle regarded him as a character regulated by a strong and
conscientious desire to do the will of the Lord. Then he would desire
them to remember that the Royalist and Commonwealth men had each their
different opinions of the great Protector. And from these conflicting
characters, he would require them to sift and collect the elements of
truth, and try to unite them into a perfect whole.
This kind of exercise delighted Charlotte. It called into play her
powers of analysis, which were extraordinary, and she very soon excelled
in it.
Wherever the Brontes could be national they were so, with the same
tenacity of attachment which made them suffer as they did whenever they
left Haworth.
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