urn from Scotland--a pleasure tinged with sadness certainly,
as all partings are, but still a pleasure.

'I do most entirely agree with you in what you say about Miss
Martineau's and Mr. Atkinson's book. I deeply regret its publication
for the lady's sake; it gives a death-blow to her future usefulness.
Who can trust the word, or rely on the judgment, of an avowed
atheist?

'May your decision in the crisis through which you have gone result
in the best effect on your happiness and welfare; and indeed, guided
as you are by the wish to do right and a high sense of duty, I trust
it cannot be otherwise. The change of climate is all I fear; but
Providence will over-rule this too for the best--in Him you can
believe and on Him rely. You will want, therefore, neither solace
nor support, though your lot be cast as a stranger in a strange
land.--I am, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.

'When you shall have definitely fixed the time of your return
southward, write me a line to say on what day I may expect you at
Haworth.

'C. B.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_April_ 5_th_, 1851.

'DEAR ELLEN,--Mr. Taylor has been and is gone; things are just as
they were. I only know in addition to the slight information I
possessed before, that this Indian undertaking is necessary to the
continued prosperity of the firm of Smith, Elder, & Co., and that he,
Taylor, alone was pronounced to possess the power and means to carry
it out successfully--that mercantile honour, combined with his own
sense of duty, obliged him to accept the post of honour and of danger
to which he has been appointed, that he goes with great personal
reluctance, and that he contemplates an absence of five years.

'He looked much thinner and older. I saw him very near, and once
through my glass; the resemblance to Branwell struck me forcibly--it
is marked. He is not ugly, but very peculiar; the lines in his face
show an inflexibility, and, I must add, a hardness of character which
do not attract. As he stood near me, as he looked at me in his keen
way, it was all I could do to stand my ground tranquilly and
steadily, and not to re