Quotation from: Villette

Written by: Charlotte Bronte


"Miss Snowe," said she in a whisper, "this is a wonderful book.
Candace" (the doll, christened by Graham; for, indeed, its begrimed
complexion gave it much of an Ethiopian aspect)--"Candace is asleep
now, and I may tell you about it; only we must both speak low, lest
she should waken. This book was given me by Graham; it tells about
distant countries, a long, long way from England, which no traveller
can reach without sailing thousands of miles over the sea. Wild men
live in these countries, Miss Snowe, who wear clothes different from
ours: indeed, some of them wear scarcely any clothes, for the sake of
being cool, you know; for they have very hot weather. Here is a
picture of thousands gathered in a desolate place--a plain, spread
with sand--round a man in black,--a good, _good_ Englishman--a
missionary, who is preaching to them under a palm-tree." (She showed
a little coloured cut to that effect.) "And here are pictures" (she
went on) "more stranger" (grammar was occasionally forgotten) "than
that. There is the wonderful Great Wall of China; here is a Chinese
lady, with a foot littler than mine. There is a wild horse of Tartary;
and here, most strange of all--is a land of ice and snow, without
green fields, woods, or gardens. In this land, they found some mammoth
bones: there are no mammoths now. You don't know what it was; but I
can tell you, because Graham told me. A mighty, goblin creature, as
high as this room, and as long as the hall; but not a fierce, flesh-
eating thing, Graham thinks. He believes, if I met one in a forest, it
would not kill me, unless I came quite in its way; when it would
trample me down amongst the bushes, as I might tread on a grasshopper
in a hayfield without knowing it."

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