t think, my dear sir, from my silence respecting the advice you
have, at different times, given me for my future literary guidance,
that I am heedless of, or indifferent to, your kindness. I keep your
letters and not unfrequently refer to them. Circumstances may render
it impracticable for me to act up to the letter of what you counsel,
but I think I comprehend the spirit of your precepts, and trust I
shall be able to profit thereby. Details, situations which I do not
understand and cannot personally inspect, I would not for the world
meddle with, lest I should make even a more ridiculous mess of the
matter than Mrs. Trollope did in her _Factory Boy_. Besides, not one
feeling on any subject, public or private, will I ever affect that I
do not really experience. Yet though I must limit my sympathies;
though my observation cannot penetrate where the very deepest
political and social truths are to be learnt; though many doors of
knowledge which are open for you are for ever shut for me; though I
must guess and calculate and grope my way in the dark, and come to
uncertain conclusions unaided and alone where such writers as Dickens
and Thackeray, having access to the shrine and image of Truth, have
only to go into the temple, lift the veil a moment, and come out and
say what they have seen--yet with every disadvantage, I mean still,
in my own contracted way, to do my best. Imperfect my best will be,
and poor, and compared with the works of the true masters--of that
greatest modern master Thackeray in especial (for it is him I at
heart reverence with all my strength)--it will be trifling, but I
trust not affected or counterfeit.--Believe me, my dear sir, yours
with regard and respect,

'CURRER BELL.'

TO W. S. WILLIAMS

'_March_ 29_th_, 1848.

'MY DEAR SIR,--The notice from the _Church of England Quarterly
Review_ is not on the whole a bad one. True, it condemns the
tendency of _Jane Eyre_, and seems to think Mr. Rochester should have
been represented as going through the mystic process of
"regeneration" before any respectable person could have consented to
believe his contrition for his past errors sincere; true, also, that
it casts a doubt on Jane's