me (if I mistake not) that you had recently
visited the Lake Country. I trust you enjoyed your excursion, and
that our English Lakes did not suffer too much by comparison in your
memory with the Scottish Lochs.--I am, my dear sir, yours sincerely,

'C. BRONTE.'

TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY

'AMBLESIDE, _December_ 21_st_, 1850.

'DEAR ELLEN,--I have managed to get off going to Sir J. K.
Shuttleworth's by a promise to come some other time. I thought I
really should like to spend two or three days with you before going
home; therefore, if it is not inconvenient for you, I will come on
Monday and stay till Thursday. I shall be at Bradford (D.V.) at ten
minutes past two, Monday afternoon, and can take a cab at the station
forward to Birstall. I have truly enjoyed my visit. I have seen a
good many people, and all have been so marvellously kind; not the
least so the family of Dr. Arnold. Miss Martineau I relish
inexpressibly. Sir James has been almost every day to take me a
drive. I begin to admit in my own mind that he is sincerely
benignant to me. I grieve to say he looks to me as if wasting away.
Lady Shuttleworth is ill. She cannot go out, and I have not seen
her. Till we meet, good-bye.

'C. BRONTE.'

It was during this visit to Ambleside that Charlotte Bronte and Matthew
Arnold met.

'At seven,' writes Mr. Arnold from Fox How (December 21, 1850), 'came
Miss Martineau and Miss Bronte (Jane Eyre); talked to Miss Martineau
(who blasphemes frightfully) about the prospects of the Church of
England, and, wretched man that I am, promised to go and see her
cow-keeping miracles {457a} to-morrow--I, who hardly know a cow from
a sheep. I talked to Miss Bronte (past thirty and plain, with
expressive grey eyes, though) of her curates, of French novels, and
her education in a school at Brussels, and sent the lions roaring to
their dens at half-past nine, and came to talk to you.' {457b}

By the light of this 'impression,' it is not a little interesting to see
what Miss Bronte, 'past thirty and plain,' thought of Mr. Matthew Arnold!

TO JAMES TAYLOR, CORNHILL,