Quotation from: The Professor

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


The next fortnight was a period of many alternations; my
existence during its lapse resembled a sky of one of those
autumnal nights which are specially haunted by meteors and
falling stars. Hopes and fears, expectations and
disappointments, descended in glancing showers from zenith to
horizon; but all were transient, and darkness followed swift each
vanishing apparition. M. Vandenhuten aided me faithfully; he set
me on the track of several places, and himself made efforts to
secure them for me; but for a long time solicitation and
recommendation were vain--the door either shut in my face when I
was about to walk in, or another candidate, entering before me,
rendered my further advance useless. Feverish and roused, no
disappointment arrested me; defeat following fast on defeat
served as stimulants to will. I forgot fastidiousness, conquered
reserve, thrust pride from me: I asked, I persevered, I
remonstrated, I dunned. It is so that openings are forced into
the guarded circle where Fortune sits dealing favours round. My
perseverance made me known; my importunity made me remarked. I
was inquired about; my former pupils' parents, gathering the
reports of their children, heard me spoken of as talented, and
they echoed the word: the sound, bandied about at random, came
at last to ears which, but for its universality, it might never
have reached; and at the very crisis when I had tried my last
effort and knew not what to do, Fortune looked in at me one
morning, as I sat in drear and almost desperate deliberation on
my bedstead, nodded with the familiarity of an old acquaintance
--though God knows I had never met her before--and threw a prize
into my lap.

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