ABSTRACT
For Emily Bronte, too, the mind is a spectacle; but while Hume's is a randomly generated virtual reality experience, Emily Bronte's is grandly laid out to her own design. The site of Hume's spectacle is invisible; we are supposed not to know what exactly it is. Emily Bronte's, though equally mysterious, is simultaneously herself, the universe, and 'God', the first being apparently the fons et origo of the other two. Hume takes his seat and reviews the passing scene, a sensible, unobtrusive critic who judges what he observes but cannot control it, and disappears when the lights go out. Emily Bronte's consciousness is at once author, setting, action and audience, and even her putative extinction is a function of her own courageous will.
