But it is possible to make too much of all this. It is a commonplace of
psychology to say that a woman's love is of slow growth. It is quite
certain that Charlotte Bronte suffered much during this period of
alienation and separation; that she alone secured Mr. Nicholls's return
to Haworth, after his temporary estrangement from Mr. Bronte; and
finally, that the months of her married life, prior to her last illness,
were the happiest she was destined to know.
TO MISS ELLEN NUSSEY
'HAWORTH, _December_ 18_th_, 1852.
'DEAR NELL,--You may well ask, how is it? for I am sure I don't know.
This business would seem to me like a dream, did not my reason tell
me it has long been brewing. It puzzles me to comprehend how and
whence comes this turbulence of feeling.
'You ask how papa demeans himself to Mr. Nicholls. I only wish you
were here to see papa in his present mood: you would know something
of him. He just treats him with a hardness not to be bent, and a
contempt not to be propitiated. The two have had no interview as
yet; all has been done by letter. Papa wrote, I must say, a most
cruel note to Mr. Nicholls on Wednesday. In his state of mind and
health (for the poor man is horrifying his landlady, Martha's mother,
by entirely rejecting his meals) I felt that the blow must be
parried, and I thought it right to accompany the pitiless despatch by
a line to the effect that, while Mr.
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