distrustful as to cause him always to carry a pistol, which he was in the habit of discharging from an upper window whenever in a fit of passion; who burned the little colored shoes of his children, presented by their mother's cousin, lest they should foster a love of dress; who cut in strips the silk gown of his wife because its color was not suited to his puritanical taste--at the time, too, when she was slowly dying of an internal cancer. Sent from home to be educated at a miserable school provided for the daughters of clergymen, where were bad air and bad food, and which caused the speedy death of both her elder sisters. So short-sighted that "she always seemed to be seeking something, moving her head from side to side to catch a sight of it." Having no visitors; visiting, during her childhood, but at one house, and that for but a short time. Her only intimate associates her two younger sisters. Wonderful trio! "At nine o'clock they put away their work, and began to pace the room backward and forward, up and down, over the stone floors,--as often with the candles extinguished, for economy's sake, as not,--their figures glancing in the firelight, and out into the shadow, perpetually. At this time they talked over past cares and troubles; they planned for the future, and consulted each other as to their plans. In after years, this was the time for discussing together the plots of their novels. And again, still later, this was the time for the last surviving sister (Charlotte) to walk alone, from old accustomed habit, round and round the desolate room, thinking sadly upon the 'days that were no more.'" Is there anything in books more sad and touching? Her only pet was a fierce bull-dog, and her only male associate her brilliant, drunken brother (who willfully died upon his feet, in an upright position, to fulfill an oft-declared purpose), a continual disgrace and terror as long as he lived. And much of the time, poor thing, in an agony about the fate of her soul! How the little, pinched victim of all this misery and wretchedness could have written a narrative which at once took its place, in spite of faithless and unsympathizing critics, and securely kept it, too, amongst the highest and best productions of the age, is a startling marvel in literature. Out of her own life she wrought her wonderful works. "The fiery imagination that at times eats me up," she wrote to her friend. In her stories she but told her own agonies, as Cowper noted the progress of his insanity, and the French physiologist his ebbing pulse under the deadly influence of burning charcoal.