Authors, English -- 19th century -- Biography; Brontë family
Miss Nussey seems to have preserved her calm through all the excitement
and to have never turned a hair. But nothing could have been worse for
Charlotte than this sort of thing. It goes on for years. It began in
eighteen-thirty-three, the third year of their friendship, when she was
seventeen. In 'thirty-seven it is at its height. Charlotte writes from
Dewsbury Moor: "If I could always live with you, if your lips and mine
could at the same time drink the same draught at the same pure fountain
of mercy, I hope, I trust, I might one day become better, far better
than my evil, wandering thoughts, my corrupt heart, cold to the spirit
and warm to the flesh, will now permit me to be. I often plan the
pleasant life we might lead, strengthening each other in the power of
self-denial, that hallowed and glowing devotion which the past Saints of
God often attained to."
Now a curious and interesting thing is revealed by this correspondence.
These religious fervours and depressions come on the moment Charlotte
leaves Haworth and disappear as soon as she returns. All those letters
were written from Roe Head or Dewsbury Moor, while the Haworth letters
of the same period are sane and light-hearted. And when she is fairly
settled at Haworth, instead of emulating the Saints of God, she and Miss
Nussey are studying human nature and the art of flirtation as exhibited
by curates. Charlotte administers to her friend a formidable amount of
worldly wisdom, thus avenging herself for the dance Miss Nussey led her
round the throne of grace.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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