Quotation from: The Professor

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


This affair arranged, the regular lesson followed. During a
brief interval, employed by the pupils in ruling their books, my
eye, ranging carelessly over the benches, observed, for the first
time, that the farthest seat in the farthest row--a seat usually
vacant--was again filled by the new scholar, the Mdlle. Henri so
ostentatiously recommended to me by the directress. To-day I had
on my spectacles; her appearance, therefore, was clear to me at
the first glance; I had not to puzzle over it. She looked young;
yet, had I been required to name her exact age, I should have
been somewhat nonplussed; the slightness of her figure might have
suited seventeen; a certain anxious and pre-occupied expression
of face seemed the indication of riper years. She was dressed,
like all the rest, in a dark stuff gown and a white collar; her
features were dissimilar to any there, not so rounded, more
defined, yet scarcely regular. The shape of her head too was
different, the superior part more developed, the base
considerably less. I felt assured, at first sight, that she was
not a Belgian; her complexion, her countenance, her lineaments,
her figure, were all distinct from theirs, and, evidently, the
type of another race--of a race less gifted with fullness of
flesh and plenitude of blood; less jocund, material, unthinking.
When I first cast my eyes on her, she sat looking fixedly down,
her chin resting on her hand, and she did not change her attitude
till I commenced the lesson. None of the Belgian girls would
have retained one position, and that a reflective one, for the
same length of time. Yet, having intimated that her appearance
was peculiar, as being unlike that of her Flemish companions, I
have little more to say respecting it; I can pronounce no
encomiums on her beauty, for she was not beautiful; nor offer
condolence on her plainness, for neither was she plain; a
careworn character of forehead, and a corresponding moulding of
the mouth, struck me with a sentiment resembling surprise, but
these traits would probably have passed unnoticed by any less
crotchety observer.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
Designed by Joan A. Smith for the CRATE project
Created: 2007-2-22T12:35:29Z
Part of the CratePreservation Project
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.