Quotation from: The Professor

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


Antipathy is the only word which can express the feeling Edward
Crimsworth had for me--a feeling, in a great measure,
involuntary, and which was liable to be excited by every, the
most trifling movement, look, or word of mine. My southern
accent annoyed him; the degree of education evinced in my
language irritated him; my punctuality, industry, and accuracy,
fixed his dislike, and gave it the high flavour and poignant
relish of envy; he feared that I too should one day make a
successful tradesman. Had I been in anything inferior to him, he
would not have hated me so thoroughly, but I knew all that he
knew, and, what was worse, he suspected that I kept the padlock
of silence on mental wealth in which he was no sharer. If he
could have once placed me in a ridiculous or mortifying position,
he would have forgiven me much, but I was guarded by three
faculties--Caution, Tact, Observation; and prowling and prying as
was Edward's malignity, it could never baffle the lynx-eyes of
these, my natural sentinels. Day by day did his malice watch my
tact, hoping it would sleep, and prepared to steal snake-like on
its slumber; but tact, if it be genuine, never sleeps.

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