ingle member of his own family of whom he speaks with
kindness. He confesses himself indolent and wilful, but asserts that
he is studious and, to some influences, docile. This letter would
have struck me no more than the others rather like it have done, but
for its rash power, and the disagreeable resolve it announces to seek
and find Currer Bell. It almost makes me feel like a wizard who has
raised a spirit he may find it difficult to lay. But I shall not
think about it. This sort of fervour often foams itself away in
words.

'Trusting that the serenity of your home is by this time restored
with your wife's health,--I am, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'_February_ 16_th_, 1850.

'DEAR NELL,--Yesterday, just after dinner, I heard a loud bustling
voice in the kitchen demanding to see Mr. Bronte. Somebody was shown
into the parlour. Shortly after, wine was rung for. "Who is it,
Martha?" I asked. "Some mak of a tradesman," said she. "He's not a
gentleman, I'm sure." The personage stayed about an hour, talking in
a loud vulgar key all the time. At tea-time I asked papa who it was.
"Why," said he, "no other than the vicar of B---!" {361} Papa had
invited him to take some refreshment, but the creature had ordered
his dinner at the Black Bull, and was quite urgent with papa to go
down there and join him, offering by way of inducement a bottle, or,
if papa liked, "two or three bottles of the best wine Haworth could
afford!" He said he was come from Bradford just to look at the
place, and reckoned to be in raptures with the wild scenery! He
warmly pressed papa to come and see him, and to bring his daughter
with him!!! Does he know anything about the books, do you think; he
made no allusion to them. I did not see him, not so much as the tail
of his coat. Martha said he looked no more like a parson than she
did. Papa described him as rather shabby-looking, but said he was
wondrous cordial and friendly. Papa, in his usual fashion, put him
through a regular catechism of questions: what his living was worth,
etc., etc. In answer to inquiries respecting his age he affirmed
himself to be thirty-seven--is not this a lie? He mu