Quotation from: Villette

Written by: Charlotte Bronte

Mr. Home himself offered me a handsome sum--thrice my present salary--
if I would accept the office of companion to his daughter. I declined.
I think I should have declined had I been poorer than I was, and with
scantier fund of resource, more stinted narrowness of future prospect.
I had not that vocation. I could teach; I could give lessons; but to
be either a private governess or a companion was unnatural to me.
Rather than fill the former post in any great house, I would
deliberately have taken a housemaid's place, bought a strong pair of
gloves, swept bedrooms and staircases, and cleaned stoves and locks,
in peace and independence. Rather than be a companion, I would have
made shirts and starved.