ul Emanuel. The assumption, which is absolutely groundless, has
had certain plausible points in its favour, not the least obvious, of
course, being the inclination to read autobiography into every line of
Charlotte Bronte's writings. Then there is a passage in a printed letter
to Miss Nussey which has been quoted as if to bear out this suggestion:
'I returned to Brussels after aunt's death,' she writes, 'against my
conscience, prompted by what then seemed an irresistible impulse. I was
punished for my selfish folly by a total withdrawal for more than two
years of happiness and peace of mind.'

It is perfectly excusable for a man of the world, unacquainted with
qualifying facts, to assume that for these two years Charlotte Bronte's
heart was consumed with an unquenchable love for her professor--held in
restraint, no doubt, as the most censorious admit, but sufficiently
marked to secure the jealousy and ill-will of Madame Heger. Madame Heger
and her family, it must be admitted, have kept this impression afloat.
Madame Heger refused to see Mrs. Gaskell when she called upon her in the
Rue d'Isabelle; and her daughters will tell you that their father broke
off his correspondence with Miss Bronte because his favourite English
pupil showed an undue extravagance of devotion. 'Her attachment after
her return to Yorkshire,' to quote a recent essay on the subject, 'was
expressed in her frequent letters in a tone that her Brussels friends
considered it not only prudent but kind to check. She was warned by them
that the exaltation these letters betrayed needed to be toned down and
replaced by what was reasonable. She was further advised to write only
once in six months, and then to limit the subject of her letters to her
own health and that of her family, and to a plain account of her
circumstances and occupations.' {109a} Now to all this I do not hesitate
to give an emphatic contradiction, a contradiction based upon the only
independent authority available. Miss Laetitia Wheelwright and her
sisters saw much of Charlotte Bronte during this second sojourn in
Brussels, and they have a quite different tale to tell. That misgiving
of Charlotte, by the way, which weighed so heavily upon her mind
afterwards, was due to the fact that she had left her father practically
unprotected from the enticing company of a too festive curate. He gave
himself up at this time to a very copious whisky drinking, from which
Charlotte's home-comin