Quotation from: The Professor

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


Amidst this assemblage of all that was insignificant and
defective, much that was vicious and repulsive (by that last
epithet many would have described the two or three stiff, silent,
decently behaved, ill-dressed British girls), the sensible,
sagacious, affable directress shone like a steady star over a
marsh full of Jack-o'-lanthorns; profoundly aware of her
superiority, she derived an inward bliss from that consciousness
which sustained her under all the care and responsibility
inseparable from her position; it kept her temper calm, her brow
smooth, her manner tranquil. She liked--as who would not?--on
entering the school-room, to feel that her sole presence sufficed
to diffuse that order and quiet which all the remonstrances, and
even commands, of her underlings frequently failed to enforce;
she liked to stand in comparison, or rather--contrast, with those
who surrounded her, and to know that in personal as well as
mental advantages, she bore away the undisputed palm of
preference--(the three teachers were all plain.) Her pupils she
managed with such indulgence and address, taking always on
herself the office of recompenser and eulogist, and abandoning to
her subalterns every invidious task of blame and punishment, that
they all regarded her with deference, if not with affection; her
teachers did not love her, but they submitted because they were
her inferiors in everything; the various masters who attended her
school were each and all in some way or other under her
influence; over one she had acquired power by her skilful
management of his bad temper; over another by little attentions
to his petty caprices; a third she had subdued by flattery; a
fourth--a timid man--she kept in awe by a sort of austere
decision of mien; me, she still watched, still tried by the most
ingenious tests--she roved round me, baffled, yet persevering; I
believe she thought I was like a smooth and bare precipice, which
offered neither jutting stone nor tree-root, nor tuft of grass to
aid the climber. Now she flattered with exquisite tact, now she
moralized, now she tried how far I was accessible to mercenary
motives, then she disported on the brink of affection--knowing
that some men are won by weakness--anon, she talked excellent
sense, aware that others have the folly to admire judgment. I
found it at once pleasant and easy to evade all these efforts; it
was sweet, when she thought me nearly won, to turn round and to
smile in her very eyes, half scornfully, and then to witness her
scarcely veiled, though mute mortification. Still she
persevered, and at last, I am bound to confess it, her finger,
essaying, proving every atom of the casket, touched its secret
spring, and for a moment the lid sprung open; she laid her hand
on the jewel within; whether she stole and broke it, or whether
the lid shut again with a snap on her fingers, read on, and you
shall know.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
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Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.