“Pere Silas in Villette marshals his forces with considerable skill and subtlety. Although he claims to be momentarily taken aback by the young woman to whom his customary set of routine responses does not apply, he soon divines her weak spots and engineers his temptations accordingly. Lucy's passionate nature, frustrated and mortified in her loneliness and desperate for kindness and affection, is one of his three targets. Another is her aesthetic sensibilities, which he hope to impress by way of the splendours of Roman Catholic worship. Finally, she has an extraordinarily active intellect allied to an ascetic, somewhat morbid streak and a conspicuous absence of any talent for contentment. Such people rarely attain serenity in life by their own efforts, and Pere Silas holds a key to that state: soothed by a carefully prescribed routine of good works, just arduous enough to keep her strictly occupied without exhausting her, her searching, irritable mind will surely find peace.”
―
Marianne Thormahlen,
The Brontës and Religion
