I now come to a part of my subject which I find great difficulty in
treating, because the evidence relating to it on each side is so
conflicting that it seems almost impossible to arrive at the truth. Miss
Bronte more than once said to me, that she should not have written what
she did of Lowood in "Jane Eyre," if she had thought the place would have
been so immediately identified with Cowan Bridge, although there was not
a word in her account of the institution but what was true at the time
when she knew it; she also said that she had not considered it necessary,
in a work of fiction, to state every particular with the impartiality
that might be required in a court of justice, nor to seek out motives,
and make allowances for human failings, as she might have done, if
dispassionately analysing the conduct of those who had the
superintendence of the institution. I believe she herself would have
been glad of an opportunity to correct the over-strong impression which
was made upon the public mind by her vivid picture, though even she,
suffering her whole life long, both in heart and body, from the
consequences of what happened there, might have been apt, to the last, to
take her deep belief in facts for the facts themselves--her conception of
truth for the absolute truth.

In some of the notices of the previous editions of this work, it is
assumed that I derived the greater part of my information with regard to
her sojourn at Cowan Bridge from Charlotte Bronte herself. I never heard
her speak of the place but once, and that was on the second day of my
acquaintance with her. A little child on that occasion expressed some
reluctance to finish eating his piece of bread at dinner; and she,
stooping down, and addressing him in a low voice, told him how thankful
she should have been at his age for a piece of bread; and when we--though
I am not sure if I myself spoke--asked her some question as to the
occasion she alluded to, she replied with reserve and hesitation,