comes next to impossible to alter or
amend. With the heavy suspicion on my mind that all may not be
right, I yet feel forced to put up with the inevitably wrong.

'Reading has, of late, been my great solace and recreation. I have
read J. C. Hare's _Guesses at Truth_, a book containing things that
in depth and far-sought wisdom sometimes recall the _Thoughts_ of
Pascal, only it is as the light of the moon recalls that of the sun.

'I have read with pleasure a little book on _English Social Life_ by
the wife of Archbishop Whately. Good and intelligent women write
well on such subjects. This lady speaks of governesses. I was
struck by the contrast offered in her manner of treating the topic to
that of Miss Rigby in the _Quarterly_. How much finer the
feeling--how much truer the feeling--how much more delicate the mind
here revealed!

'I have read _David Copperfield_; it seems to me very good--admirable
in some parts. You said it had affinity to _Jane Eyre_. It has, now
and then--only what an advantage has Dickens in his varied knowledge
of men and things! I am beginning to read Eckermann's _Goethe_--it
promises to be a most interesting work. Honest, simple,
single-minded Eckermann! Great, powerful, giant-souled, but also
profoundly egotistical, old Johann Wolfgang von Goethe! He _was_ a
mighty egotist--I see he was: he thought no more of swallowing up
poor Eckermann's existence in his own than the whale thought of
swallowing Jonah.

'The worst of reading graphic accounts of such men, of seeing graphic
pictures of the scenes, the society, in which they moved, is that it
excites a too tormenting longing to look on the reality. But does
such reality now exist? Amidst all the troubled waters of European
society does such a vast, strong, selfish, old Leviathan now roll
ponderous! I suppose not.--Believe me, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_March_ 19_th_, 1850.

'MY DEAR SIR,--The books came yesterday evening just as I was wishing
for them very much. There is much interest for me in opening the
Cornhill parcel. I wish there was not pain too--but so it is. As I
untie the cords and take out the volumes, I am reminde