sense would teach her to make the best of a bad
bargain.

'You will see my letters are all didactic. They contain no news,
because I know of none which I think it would interest you to hear
repeated. I am still at home, in very good health and spirits, and
uneasy only because I cannot yet hear of a situation.

'I shall always be glad to have a letter from you, and I promise when
you write again to be less dilatory in answering. I trust your
prospects of happiness still continue fair; and from what you say of
your future partner I doubt not she will be one who will help you to
get cheerfully through the difficulties of this world and to obtain a
permanent rest in the next; at least I hope such may be the case.
You do right to conduct the matter with due deliberation, for on the
step you are about to take depends the happiness of your whole
lifetime.

'You must not again ask me to write in a regular literary way to you
on some particular topic. I cannot do it at all. Do you think I am
a blue-stocking? I feel half inclined to laugh at you for the idea,
but perhaps you would be angry. What was the topic to be?
Chemistry? or astronomy? or mechanics? or conchology? or entomology?
or what other ology? I know nothing at all about any of these. I am
not scientific; I am not a linguist. You think me far more learned
than I am. If I told you all my ignorance, I am afraid you would be
shocked; however, as I wish still to retain a little corner in your
good opinion, I will hold my tongue.--Believe me, yours respectfully,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO REV. HENRY NUSSEY

'_January_ 11th, 1841.

'DEAR SIR,--It is time I should reply to your last, as I shall fail
in fulfilling my promise of not being so dilatory as on a former
occasion.

'I shall be glad to receive the poetry which you offer to send me.
You ask me to return the gift in kind. How do you know that I have
it in my power to comply with that request? Once indeed I was very
poetical, when I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen years
old, but I am now twenty-four, approaching twenty-five, and the
intermediate years are those which begin to rob life of some of its
superfluous colouring