'Lonely as I am, how should I be if Providence had never given me
courage to adopt a career--perseverance to plead through two long,
weary years with publishers till they admitted me? How should I be
with youth past, sisters lost, a resident in a moorland parish where
there is not a single educated family? In that case I should have no
world at all: the raven, weary of surveying the deluge, and without
an ark to return to, would be my type. As it is, something like a
hope and motive sustains me still. I wish all your daughters--I wish
every woman in England, had also a hope and motive. Alas! there are
many old maids who have neither.--Believe me, yours sincerely,
'C. BRONTE.'
TO W. S. WILLIAMS
'_July_ 26_th_, 1849.
'MY DEAR SIR,--I must rouse myself to write a line to you, lest a
more protracted silence should seem strange.
'Truly glad was I to hear of your daughter's success. I trust its
results may conduce to the permanent advantage both of herself and
her parents.
'Of still more importance than your children's education is your
wife's health, and therefore it is still more gratifying to learn
that your anxiety on that account is likely to be alleviated.
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