ut hitherto my efforts have been in vain: the
deficiency of every stimulus is so complete. You will recommend me, I
dare say, to go from home; but that does no good, even could I again
leave papa with an easy mind. . . . I cannot describe what a time of it
I had after my return from London and Scotland. There was a reaction
that sank me to the earth, the deadly silence, solitude, depression,
desolation were awful; the craving for companionship, the hopelessness
of relief were what I should dread to feel again."

Or again, in a somewhat calmer mood, she writes:

"I feel to my deep sorrow, to my humiliation, that it is not in my
power to bear the canker of constant solitude. I had calculated that
when shut out from every enjoyment, from every stimulus but what could
be desired from intellectual exertion, my mind would rouse itself
perforce. It is not so. Even intellect, even imagination will not
dispense with the ray of domestic cheerfulness, with the gentle spur of
family discussions. Late in the evening and all through the nights, I
fall into a condition of mind which turns entirely to the past--to
memory, and memory is both sad and relentless. This will never do, and
will produce no good. I tell you this that you may check false
anticipations. You cannot help me, and must not trouble yourself in any
shape to sympathise with me. It is my cup, and I must drink it as
others do theirs."

It would be difficult to create a picture of more poignant suffering;
yet she was at this time a famous writer. She had published Jane Eyre
and Shirley, and on her visits to London, to her hospitable publisher,
had found herself welcomed, honoured, feted. The great lions of the
literary world had flocked eagerly to meet her. Even these simple
festivities were accompanied by a deadly sense of strain, anxiety, and
exhaustion. Mrs. Gaskell describes how a little later she met Charlotte
Bronte at a quiet country-house, and how Charlotte was reduced from
tolerable health to a bad nervous headache by the announcement that
they were going to drive over in the afternoon to have tea at a
neighbour's house--the prospect of meeting strangers was so alarming to
her.

But in spite of this agonising susceptibility and vulnerability, there
is never the least touch either of sentimentality or self-pity about
Charlotte Bronte. She stuck to her duty and faced life with an infinity
of patient courage. One of her friends said of her that no one she