Dear Nell, good-bye.--Yours faithfully,
'C. BRONTE.
'I have letters from Sir J. K. Shuttleworth and Miss Martineau, but I
cannot talk of them now.'
With this letter we see the tragedy beginning. Mr. Bronte, with his
daughter's fame ringing in his ears, thought she should do better than
marry a curate with a hundred pounds per annum. For once, and for the
only time in his life there is reason to believe, his passions were
thoroughly aroused. It is to the honour of Mr. Nicholls, and says much
for his magnanimity, that he has always maintained that Mr. Bronte was
perfectly justified in the attitude he adopted. His present feeling for
Mr. Bronte is one of unbounded respect and reverence, and the occasional
unfriendly references to his father-in-law have pained him perhaps even
more than when he has been himself the victim.
'Attachment to Mr. Nicholls you are aware I never entertained.' A good
deal has been made of this and other casual references of Charlotte
Bronte to her slight affection for her future husband. Martha Brown, the
servant, used in her latter days to say that Charlotte would come into
the kitchen and ask her if it was right to marry a man one did not
entirely love--and Martha Brown's esteem for Mr. Nicholls was very great.
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