and therefore it is still more gratifying to learn
that your anxiety on that account is likely to be alleviated. For
her own sake, no less than for that of others, it is to be hoped that
she is now secured from a recurrence of her painful and dangerous
attacks. It was pleasing, too, to hear of good qualities being
developed in the daughters by the mother's danger. May your girls
always so act as to justify their father's kind estimate of their
characters; may they never do what might disappoint or grieve him.

'Your suggestion relative to myself is a good one in some respects,
but there are two persons whom it would not suit; and not the least
incommoded of these would be the young person whom I might request to
come and bury herself in the hills of Haworth, to take a church and
stony churchyard for her prospect, the dead silence of a village
parsonage--in which the tick of the clock is heard all day long--for
her atmosphere, and a grave, silent spinster for her companion. I
should not like to see youth thus immured. The hush and gloom of our
house would be more oppressive to a buoyant than to a subdued spirit.
The fact is, my work is my best companion; hereafter I look for no
great earthly comfort except what congenial occupation can give. For
society, long seclusion has in a great measure unfitted me, I doubt
whether I should enjoy it if I might have it. Sometimes I think I
should, and I thirst for it; but at other times I doubt my capability
of pleasing or deriving pleasure. The prisoner in solitary
confinement, the toad in the block of marble, all in time shape
themselves to their lot.--Yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_September_ 13_th_, 1849.

'MY DEAR SIR,--I want to know your opinion of the subject of this
proof-sheet. Mr. Taylor censured it; he considers as defective all
that portion which relates to Shirley's nervousness--the bite of the
dog, etc. How did it strike you on reading it?

'I ask this though I well know it cannot now be altered. I can work
indefatigably at the correction of a work before it leaves my hands,
but when once I have looked on it as completed and submitted to the
inspection of others, it be