have been so happy," are full of the deepest tragedy.

I say again that I know of no instance among the most intimate
records of the human heart, in which life was faced with such
splendid courage as it was by Charlotte Bronte. It contained so
many things which she desired--art, beauty, thought, peace, deep
and tender relations, and the supreme crown of love. But she never
dreamed of trying to escape or shirk her lot. After her first great
success with Jane Eyre, she might have lived life on her own lines;
her writing meant wealth to one of her simple tastes; and as her
closest friend said, if she had chosen to set up a house of her
own, she would have been gratefully thanked for any kindness she
might have shown to her household, instead of being, as she was,
ruthlessly employed and even tyrannised over. Consider how a young
authoress, with that splendid success to her credit, would nowadays
be made much of and tended, begged to consult her own wishes and
make, her own arrangements. But Charlotte Bronte hated notoriety,
and took her fame with a shrinking and modest amazement. She never
gave herself airs, or displayed any affectation, or caught at any
flattery. She just went back to her tragic home, and carried the
burden of housekeeping on her frail shoulders. The simplicity, the
delicacy, the humility of it all is above praise. If ever there was
a human being who might have pleaded to be excused from any gallant
battling with life because of her bleak, comfortless, unhappy
surroundings, and her own sensitive temperament, it was Charlotte
Bronte. But instead of that she fought silently with disaster and
unhappiness, neither pitying herself for her destiny, nor taking
the smallest credit for her tough resistance. It does not
necessarily prove that all can wage so equal a fight with fears and
sorrows; but it shows at least that an indomitable resolution can