te; whatever is at all ideal is not
original. _The Testimony to the Truth_ is a better book than any
tale he can write will ever be. Am I too dogmatical in saying this?

'Anne thanks you sincerely for the kind interest you take in her
welfare, and both she and I beg to express our sense of Mrs.
Williams's good wishes, which you mentioned in a former letter. We
are grateful, too, to Mr. Smith and to all who offer us the sympathy
of friendship.

'Whenever you can write with pleasure to yourself, remember Currer
Bell is glad to hear from you, and he will make his letters as little
dreary as he can in reply.--Yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

It was always a great trouble to Miss Wheelwright, whose friendship, it
will be remembered, she had made in Brussels, that Charlotte was
monopolised by the Smiths on her rare visits to London, but she
frequently came to call at Lower Phillimore Place.

TO MISS LAETITIA WHEELWRIGHT

'HAWORTH, KEIGHLEY, _December_ 17_th_, 1849.

'MY DEAR LAETITIA,--I have just time to save the post by writing a
brief note. I reached home safely on Saturday afternoon, and, I am
thankful to say, found papa quite well.

'The evening after I left you passed better than I expected. Thanks
to my substantial lunch and cheering cup of coffee, I was able to
wait the eight o'clock dinner with complete resignation, and to
endure its length quite courageously, nor was I too much exhausted to
converse; and of this I was glad, for otherwise I know my kind host
and hostess would have been much disappointed. There were only seven
gentlemen at dinner besides Mr. Smith, but of these, five were
critics--a formidable band, including the literary Rhadamanthi of the
_Times_, the _Athenaeum_, the _Examiner_, the _Spectator_, and the
_Atlas_: men more dreaded in the world of letters than you can
conceive. I did not know how much their presence and conversation
had excited me till they were gone, and then reaction commenced.
When I had retired for the night I wished to sleep; the effort to do
so was vain--I could not close my eyes. Night passed, morning came,
and I rose without having known a moment's slumber. So utterly worn
out was I when I got to Derby, that I was obliged to stay the