s time.

"The first part of her time at Brussels was not uninteresting. She spoke
of new people and characters, and foreign ways of the pupils and
teachers. She knew the hopes and prospects of the teachers, and
mentioned one who was very anxious to marry, 'she was getting so old.'
She used to get her father or brother (I forget which) to be the bearer
of letters to different single men, who she thought might be persuaded to
do her the favour, saying that her only resource was to become a sister
of charity if her present employment failed and that she hated the idea.
Charlotte naturally looked with curiosity to people of her own condition.
This woman almost frightened her. 'She declares there is nothing she can
turn to, and laughs at the idea of delicacy,--and she is only ten years
older than I am!' I did not see the connection till she said, 'Well,
Polly, I should hate being a sister of charity; I suppose that would
shock some people, but I should.' I thought she would have as much
feeling as a nurse as most people, and more than some. She said she did
not know how people could bear the constant pressure of misery, and never
to change except to a new form of it. It would be impossible to keep
one's natural feelings. I promised her a better destiny than to go
begging any one to marry her, or to lose her natural feelings as a sister
of charity. She said, 'My youth is leaving me; I can never do better
than I have done, and I have done nothing yet.' At such times she seemed
to think that most human beings were destined by the pressure of worldly
interests to lose one faculty and feeling after another 'till they went
dead altogether. I hope I shall be put in my grave as soon as I'm dead;
I don't want to walk about so.' Here we always differed. I thought the
degradation of nature she feared was a consequence of poverty, and that
she should give her attention to earning money. Sometimes she admitted
this, but could find no means of earning money. At others she seemed
afraid of letting her thoughts dwell on the subject, saying it brought on
the worst palsy of all. Indeed, in her position, nothing less than
entire constant absorption in petty money matters could have scraped
together a provision.

"Of course artists and authors stood high with Charlotte, and the best
thing after their works would have been their company. She used very
inconsistently to rail at money and money-getting, and then wish she was
able