gth, and appetite, after the sad experience we have
had, cannot but be regarded by us as equivocal.

'In spirit she is resigned; at heart she is, I believe, a true
Christian. She looks beyond this life, and regards her home and rest
as elsewhere than on earth. May God support her and all of us
through the trial of lingering sickness, and aid her in the last hour
when the struggle which separates soul from body must be gone
through!

'We saw Emily torn from the midst of us when our hearts clung to her
with intense attachment, and when, loving each other as we did--well,
it seemed as if (might we but have been spared to each other) we
could have found complete happiness in our mutual society and
affection. She was scarcely buried when Anne's health failed, and we
were warned that consumption had found another victim in her, and
that it would be vain to reckon on her life.

'These things would be too much if Reason, unsupported by Religion,
were condemned to bear them alone. I have cause to be most thankful
for the strength which has hitherto been vouchsafed both to my father
and myself. God, I think, is specially merciful to old age; and for
my own part, trials which in prospective would have seemed to me
quite intolerable, when they actually came, I endured without
prostration. Yet, I must confess, that in the time which has elapsed
since Emily's death, there have been moments of solitary, deep, inert
affliction, far harder to bear than those which immediately followed
our loss. The crisis of bereavement has an acute pang which goads to
exertion, the desolate after-feeling sometimes paralyses.

'I have learned that we are not to find solace in our own strength:
we must seek it in God's omnipotence. Fortitude is good, but
fortitude itself must be shaken under us to teach us how weak we are.

'With best wishes to yourself and all dear to you, and sincere thanks
for the interest you so kindly continue to take in me and my
sister,--Believe me, my dear Miss Wooler, yours faithfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_April_ 16_th_, 1849.

'MY DEAR SIR,--Your kind advice on the subject of Homoeopathy
deserves and has our best thanks. We f