ied_, _Aged_ 28, _May_ 28_th_, 1849

CHAPTER VIII: ELLEN NUSSEY

If to be known by one's friends is the index to character that it is
frequently assumed to be, Charlotte Bronte comes well out of that ordeal.
She was discriminating in friendship and leal to the heart's core. With
what gratitude she thought of the publisher who gave her the 'first
chance' we know by recognising that the manly Dr. John of _Villette_ was
Mr. George Smith of Smith & Elder. Mr. W. S. Williams, again, would seem
to have been a singularly gifted and amiable man. To her three girl
friends, Ellen Nussey, Mary Taylor, and Laetitia Wheelwright, she was
loyal to her dying day, and pencilled letters to the two of them who were
in England were written in her last illness. Of all her friends, Ellen
Nussey must always have the foremost place in our esteem. Like Mary
Taylor, she made Charlotte's acquaintance when, at fifteen years of age,
she first went to Roe Head School. Mrs. Gaskell has sufficiently
described the beginnings of that friendship which death was not to break.
Ellen Nussey and Charlotte Bronte corresponded with a regularity which
one imagines would be impossible had they both been born half a century
later. The two girls loved one another profoundly. They wrote at times
almost daily. They quarrelled occasionally over trifles, as friends
will, but Charlotte was always full of contrition when a few hours had
passed. Towards the end of her life she wrote to Mr. Williams a letter
concerning Miss Nussey which may well be printed here.

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_January_ 3_rd_, 1850.

'MY DEAR SIR,--I have to acknowledge the receipt of the _Morning
Chronicle_ with a good review, and of the _Church of England
Quarterly_ and the _Westminster_ with bad ones. I have also to thank
you for your letter, which would have been answered sooner had I been
alone; but just now I am enjoying the treat of my friend Ellen's
society, and she makes me indolent and negligent--I am too busy
talking to her all day to do anything else. You allude to the
subject of female friendships, and express wonder at the infrequency
of sincere attachments amongst women. As to married women, I can
well understand that they should be absorbed in their husbands and
children--but single women often like each other much, and derive
great