Quotation from: The Professor

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


Cutting as these words might have been under some circumstances,
they drew no blood now. My life was changed; my experience had
been varied since I left X----, but Hunsden could not know this;
he had seen me only in the character of Mr. Crimsworth's clerk--a
dependant amongst wealthy strangers, meeting disdain with a hard
front, conscious of an unsocial and unattractive exterior,
refusing to sue for notice which I was sure would be withheld,
declining to evince an admiration which I knew would be scorned
as worthless. He could not be aware that since then youth and
loveliness had been to me everyday objects; that I had studied
them at leisure and closely, and had seen the plain texture of
truth under the embroidery of appearance; nor could he,
keen-sighted as he was, penetrate into my heart, search my
brain, and read my peculiar sympathies and antipathies; he had
not known me long enough, or well enough, to perceive how low my
feelings would ebb under some influences, powerful over most
minds; how high, how fast they would flow under other influences,
that perhaps acted with the more intense force on me, because
they acted on me alone. Neither could he suspect for an instant
the history of my communications with Mdlle. Reuter; secret to
him and to all others was the tale of her strange infatuation;
her blandishments, her wiles had been seen but by me, and to me
only were they known; but they had changed me, for they had
proved that I COULD impress. A sweeter secret nestled deeper in
my heart; one full of tenderness and as full of strength: it
took the sting out of Hunsden's sarcasm; it kept me unbent by
shame, and unstirred by wrath. But of all this I could say
nothing--nothing decisive at least; uncertainty sealed my lips,
and during the interval of silence by which alone I replied to
Mr. Hunsden, I made up my mind to be for the present wholly
misjudged by him, and misjudged I was; he thought he had been
rather too hard upon me, and that I was crushed by the weight of
his upbraidings; so to re-assure me he said, doubtless I should
mend some day; I was only at the beginning of life yet; and since
happily I was not quite without sense, every false step I made
would be a good lesson.

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Old Dominion University CS Dept
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Part of a series of experiments in web preservation under the direction of Michael L. Nelson, Ph.D.