The Life of Charlotte Brontė, Volume 1Smith, Elder and Company, 1857 - English fiction |
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Anne appeared arvills aunt Birstall Bradford Brussels chapel character Charlotte Brontė Charlotte's church Cowan's Bridge daughter dress Duke Duke of Wellington duties Emily expression father feel girls give governess habit Hall happy Hartshead Haworth Haworth Parsonage heart Heckmondwike household Howley Hall idea imagination inhabitants Jane Eyre Keighley kind knew lady Leeds letter living look Lord Charles Wellesley Luddites Madame Héger Maria Mary mind Miss Branwell Miss Brontė Miss Wooler moors morning nature never night Oakwell Hall opinion Papa parish PATRICK BRONTĖ Penzance person pleasure poems pupils quiet received Redhead remained remember Roe Head round seemed servant side sisters sometimes stone strong Tabby Tale talent tell things thought told took village walk week Wellington West Riding wild Wilson wish woman write Yorkshire young
Popular passages
Page 34 - I'll frown and be perverse and say thee nay, So thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world. In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond, And therefore thou mayst think my haviour light: But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true Than those that have more cunning to be strange.
Page 249 - I am never unhappy; my present life is so delightful, so congenial to my own nature, compared to that of a governess. My time, constantly occupied, passes too rapidly. Hitherto both Emily and I have had good health, and therefore we have been able to work well. There is one individual of whom I have not yet spoken — M. Heger, the husband of Madame. He is professor of rhetoric, a man of power as to mind, but very choleric and irritable in temperament.
Page 167 - Following my father's advice — who from my childhood has counselled me, just in the wise and friendly tone of your letter — I have endeavoured not only attentively to observe all the duties a woman ought to fulfil, but to feel deeply interested in them. I don't always succeed, for sometimes when I'm teaching or sewing I would rather be reading or writing ; but I try to deny myself; and my father's approbation amply rewarded me for the privation.
Page 327 - My sister Emily was not a person of demonstrative character, nor one on the recesses of whose mind and feelings, even those nearest and dearest to her could, with impunity, intrude unlicensed ; it took hours to reconcile her to the discovery I had made, and days to persuade her that such poems merited publication.
Page 212 - The wind bloweth where it listeth. Thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it goeth.
Page 53 - Charlotte what was the best book in the world; she answered, 'The Bible.' And what was the next best; she answered, 'The Book of Nature.' I then asked the next what was the best mode of education for a woman; she answered, 'That which would make her rule her house well.' Lastly, I asked the oldest what was the best mode of spending time; she answered, 'By laying it out in preparation for a happy eternity.
Page 339 - A fine quaint spirit has the latter, which may have things to speak that men will be glad to hear — and an evident power of wing that may reach heights not here attempted.
Page 171 - My eyes fill with tears when I contrast the bliss of such a state, brightened by hopes of the future, with the melancholy state I now live in, uncertain that I ever felt true contrition, wandering in thought and deed, longing for holiness, which I shall never, never obtain, smitten at times to the heart with the conviction that ghastly Calvinistic doctrines are true — darkened, in short, by the very shadows of spiritual death. If Christian perfection be necessary to salvation, I shall never be...
Page 53 - I asked the next (Emily, afterwards Ellis Bell), what I had best do with her brother Branwell, who was sometimes a naughty boy; she answered, "Reason with him, and when he won't listen to reason, whip him.
Page 335 - C., E., and A. Bell are now preparing for the press a work of fiction, consisting of three distinct and unconnected tales, which may be published either together, as a work of three volumes, of the ordinary novel size, or separately as single volumes, as shall be deemed most advisable.