'I would not go to France or to Paris. I would go to Brussels, in
Belgium. The cost of the journey there, at the dearest rate of
travelling, would be 5 pounds; living is there little more than half
as dear as it is in England, and the facilities for education are
equal or superior to any other place in Europe. In half a year, I
could acquire a thorough familiarity with French. I could improve
greatly in Italian, and even get a dash of German, _i.e._, providing
my health continued as good as it is now. Martha Taylor is now
staying in Brussels, at a first-rate establishment there. I should
not think of going to the Chateau de Kockleberg, where she is
resident, as the terms are much too high; but if I wrote to her, she,
with the assistance of Mrs. Jenkins, the wife of the British Consul,
would be able to secure me a cheap and decent residence and
respectable protection. I should have the opportunity of seeing her
frequently, she would make me acquainted with the city; and, with the
assistance of her cousins, I should probably in time be introduced to
connections far more improving, polished, and cultivated, than any I
have yet known.
'These are advantages which would turn to vast account, when we
actually commenced a school--and, if Emily could share them with me,
only for a single half-year, we could take a footing in the world
afterwards which we can never do now.
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