e my sisters to
regard the affair precisely from my point of view, and I feel as if I
would rather run the risk of loss than hurt Emily's feelings by
acting in direct opposition to her opinion. She managed in a most
handsome and able manner for me when I was at Brussels, and prevented
by distance from looking after my own interests; therefore, I will
let her manage still, and take the consequences. Disinterested and
energetic she certainly is, and if she be not quite so tractable or
open to conviction as I could wish, I must remember perfection is not
the lot of humanity. And as long as we can regard those we love, and
to whom we are closely allied, with profound and very unshaken
esteem, it is a small thing that they should vex us occasionally by,
what appear to us, unreasonable and headstrong notions. You, my dear
Miss Wooler, know full as well as I do the value of sisters'
affection to each other; there is nothing like it in this world, I
believe, when they are nearly equal in age, and similar in education,
tastes, and sentiments.

'You ask about Branwell. He never thinks of seeking employment, and
I begin to fear he has rendered himself incapable of filling any
respectable station in life; besides, if money were at his disposal
he would use it only to his own injury; the faculty of
self-government is, I fear, almost destroyed in him. You ask me if I
do not think men are strange beings. I do, indeed--I have often
thought so; and I think too that the mode of bringing them up is
strange, they are not half sufficiently guarded from temptations.
Girls are protected as if they were something very frail and silly
indeed, while boys are turned loose on the world as if they, of all
beings in existence, were the wisest and the least liable to be led
astray.

'I am glad you like Bromsgrove. I always feel a peculiar
satisfaction when I hear of your enjoying yourself, because it proves
to me that there is really such a thing as retributive justice even
in this life; now you are free, and that while you have still, I
hope, many years of vigour and health in which you can enjoy freedom.
Besides, I have another and very egotistical motive for being
pleased: it seems that even "a lone woman" can be happy, as well as
cherished wives and proud mothers. I am glad of that--I speculate