There is much in Ruth's
letter that I thought very melancholy. Poor girls! theirs, I fear,
must be a very unhappy home. Yours and mine, with all disadvantages,
all absences of luxury and wealth and style, are, I doubt not,
happier. I wish to goodness you were rich, that you might give her a
temporary asylum, and a relief from uneasiness, suffering, and gloom.
What you say about the effects of ether on your sister rather
startled me. I had always consoled myself with the idea of having
some teeth extracted some day under its soothing influence, but now I
should think twice before I consented to inhale it; one would not
like to make a fool of one's self.--I am, yours faithfully,
'C. BRONTE.'
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
'_March_ 11_th_, 1848.
'DEAR ELLEN,--There is a great deal of good-sense in your last
letter. Be thankful that God gave you sense, for what are beauty,
wealth, or even health without it? I had a note from Miss Ringrose
the other day. I do not think I shall write again, for the reasons I
before mentioned to you; but the note moved me much, it was almost
all about her dear Ellen, a kind of gentle enthusiasm of affection,
enough to make one smile and weep--her feelings are half truth, half
illusion.
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