charlotte-brontë

I recalled that inward sensation I had experienced: for I could recall it, with all its unspeakable strangeness. I recalled the voice I had heard; again I questioned whence it came, as vainly as before: it seemed in ME--not in the external world. I asked was it a mere nervous impression--a delusion? I could not conceive or believe: it was more like an inspiration. The wondrous shock of feeling had come like the earthquake which shook the foundations of Paul and Silas's prison; it had opened the doors of the soul's cell and loosed its bands--it had wakened it out of its sleep, whence it sprang trembling, listening, aghast; then vibrated thrice a cry on my startled ear, and in my quaking heart and through my spirit, which neither feared nor shook, but exulted as if in joy over the success of one effort it had been privileged to make, independent of the cumbrous body.

Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs." - Helen Burns

You ask me if I do not think that men are strange beings - I do indeed, I have often thought so - and I think too that the mode of bringing them up is strange, they are not half sufficiently guarded from temptation - Girls are protected as if they were something very frail and silly indeed while boys are turned loose on the world as if they - of all beings in existence, were the wisest and the least liable to be led astray.

Wait," Charlotte said. "I'd like to say something, if I may, Papa." He nodded, and Charlotte stood. Her siblings were still looking very grave. She hoped they were in the proper frame of mind to hear what she had to say, especially Branwell. "I have been thinking a great deal about ... My stories." She nodded significantly to them, willing them to understand that she was not talking about writing so much as about crossing over. "Papa was very wise when he called my writing a childish habit, and I think he understands that, for me, its a dangerous one as well." The small square of paper that had caused such consternation lay in front of her on the table. Now she took it up and held it out, looking at each if her siblings in turn. "Emily. Anne. Branwell." She ripped the paper in half. Emily gasped. " I am renouncing my invented worlds and all who live there. If any of you are in the grip if a similar childish habit"- she raised an eyebrow at her brother - "I challenge you to do the same.

The rage inside Charlotte crested to a peak. "I'm angry because Papa and Aunt Branwell never would have sent you here," she shouted. "Not to a charity school. Not the precious boy." "I know that," Branwell said, his voice ragged. "I've always known that. Don't you think that might be hard to live with?