ou pet! don't be unhappy about
_me_. Think it's a boy in the street, and be a little sorry, but not
unhappy.' Who could not be unhappy, I wonder?

I never saw your book called the _Religion of the Heart._ It's the
only book of yours I never saw, and I mean to wipe out that reproach
on the soonest day possible. I receive more dogmas, perhaps (my
'perhaps' being in the dark rather), than you do. I believe in the
divinity of Jesus Christ in the intensest sense--that he was God
absolutely. But for the rest, I am very unorthodox--about the spirit,
the flesh, and the devil, and if you would not let me sit by you, a
great many churchmen wouldn't; in fact, churches do all of them, as at
present constituted, seem too narrow and low to hold true Christianity
in its proximate developments. I, at least, cannot help believing them
so.

My dear friend, can we dare, after our sins against you--can we dare
_wish_ for a letter from you sometimes? Ask, we dare not. May God
bless you. Even if you had not praised me and made me so grateful,
I should be grateful to you for three things--for your poetry (that
first), then for Milton's hair, and then for the memory I have of
our visit to you, when you sat in that chair and spoke so mildly and
deeply at once.

Let me be ever affectionately yours,

ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING.

CHARLOTTE BRONTE

1816-1855

TO A FRIEND

_Trials of a governess_

_July_ 1839.

I cannot procure ink, without going into the drawing-room, where I do
not wish to go.... I should have written to you long since, and told
you every detail of the utterly new scene into which I have lately
been cast, had I not been daily expecting a letter from yourself, and
wondering and lamenting that you did not write; for you will remember
it was your turn. I must not bother you too much with my sorrows, of
which, I fear, you have heard an exaggerated account. If you were near
me, perhaps I might be tempted to tell you all, to grow egotistical,
and pour out the long history of a private governess's trials and
crosses in her first situation. As it is, I will only ask you to
imagine the miseries of a reserved wretch like me, thrown at once into
the midst of a large family--proud as peacocks and wealthy as Jews--at
a time when they were particularly gay--when the house was filled with
company--all strangers--people whose faces I had never seen before.
In this state I had charge given me of a set of pampered, spoilt